MALLERY. | SIGNS IN EGYPTIAN CHARACTERS. 359 
The upper part of the character is taken separately to form that for 
sky (see page 372, infra). 
The Egyptian figurative and linear characters, Figs. 145 and 146 
(Champollion, Dict., p. 28), for calling upon and invocation, also 
used as an interjection, scarcely require the quotation of an In- 
dian sign, being common all over the world. 
The gesture sign made by several tribes for many 
is as follows: Both hands, with spread and slightly 
curved fingers, are held pendent about two feet apart = 
Fic.145. before thethighs; then bring them toward oneanother, Fis. 146. 
horizontally, drawing them upward as they come together. (Absaroka 
I; Shoshoni and Banak 1; Kaiowa 1; Comanche 111; Apache 11; Wichita 
II.) “An accumulation of objects.” This may be the same motion in- 
dicated by the Egyptian character, Fig. 147, meaning to gather 
(*) together (Champollion, Dict., p. 459). 
The Egyptian character, Fig. 148, which in its linear J) 
Fic. 147. formis represented in Fig. 149,and meaning to go, to come, Fis. 148. 
locomotion, is presented to show readers unfamiliar with hieroglyphics 
how a corporeal action may be included in a linear character without 
being obvious or at least certain, unless it should be made clear by com- 
parison with the full figurative form or by other means. This WX 
linear form might be noticed many times without certainty or Fic. 149. 
perhaps suspicion that it represented the human legs and feet in the 
act of walking. The same difficulty, of course, as also the same pros- 
pect of success by careful research, attends the tracing of other corporeal 
motions which more properly come under the head of gesture signs. 
SIGN LANGUAGE WITH REFERENCE TO GRAMMAR. 
Apart from the more material and substantive relations between signs 
and language, it is to be expected that analogies can by proper research 
be ascertained between their several developments in the manner of 
their use, that is, in their grammatic mechanism, and in the genesis of 
the sentence. The science of language, ever henceforward to be studied 
historically, must take account of the similar early mental processes in 
which the phrase or sentence originated, both in sign and oral utterance. 
In this respect, as in many Others, the North American Indians may be 
considered to be living representatives of prehistoric man. 
SYNTAX. 
The reader will understand without explanation that there is in the 
gesture speech no organized sentence such as is integrated in the lan- 
guages of civilization, and that he must not look for articles or particles 
or passive voice or case or grammatic gender, or even what appears in 
those languages as a substantive or a verb, as a subject or a predicate, 
or as qualifiers or inflexions. Thesign radicals, without being specifically 
any of our parts of speech, may be all of them in turn. There is, how- 
