MALLERY. J SAME SIGN WITH DIVERSE MEANINGS. 343 
pleasamit look, it meant, ‘I am satisfied,” and granted the request; in 
the other, made violently, with the accompaniment of a truculent frown, 
it read, “I have had enough of that!” But these two meanings might 
also have been expressed by different intonations of the English word 
“enough.” The class of signs now in view is better exemplified by the 
French word souris, which is spelled and pronounced precisely the same 
with the two wholly distinct and independent significations of smile and 
mouse. From many examples may be selected the Omaha sign for think, 
guess, Which is precisely the same as that of the Absaroka, Shoshoni and 
Banak for brave, see page 414. The context alone, both of the sign and 
the word, determines in what one of its senses it is at the time used, but 
it is not discriminated merely by a difference in expression. 
It would have been very remarkable if precisely the same sign were not 
used by different or even the same persons or bodies of people with wholly 
distinct significations. The graphic forms for objects and ideas are much 
more likely to be coincident than sound is for similar expressions, yet in all 
oral languages the same precise sound is used for utterly diverse mean- 
ings. The first conception of many different objects must have been the 
same. It has been found, indeed, that the homophony of words and the 
homomorphy of ideographic pictures is noticeable in opposite significa- 
tions, the conceptions arising from the opposition itself. The differenti- 
ation in portraiture or accent is a subsequent and remedial step not 
taken until after the confusion has been observed and become inconven- 
ient. Such confusion and contradiction would only be eliminated if 
sign language were absolutely perfect as well as absolutely universal. 
SYMMORPHS. 
In this class are included those signs conveying different ideas, and 
really different in form of execution as well as in conception, yet in 
which the difference in form is so slight as practically 
to require attention and discrimination. An example 
from oral speech may be found in the English word 
“desert,” which, as pronounced ‘des/-ert” or “ desert’/,” 
and in a slightly changed form, “dessert,” has such 
widely varying significations. These distinctions relat- 
ing to signs require graphic illustration. 
The sign made by the Dakota, Hidatsa, 
and several other tribes, for tree is made 
by holding the right hand before the body, 
back forward, fingers and thumb sepa- 
rated, then pushing it slightly upward, 
Fig.112. That for grassis the same made 
near the ground; that for grow is made 
like grass, though instead of holding the back of the hand near the 
ground the hand is pushed upward in an interrupted manner, Fig. 113. 
For smoke, the hand (with the back down, fingers pointing upward as 
Se Bt Sr} 
