334 



NATURE 



[August 3, 1882 



European influence and officially segregated from all others. 

 Collections had been obtained from the Iroquois, Ojibwas, 

 Alaskans, Apaches, Tuni, Fimas, Papagos and Maricopas, after 

 army officers, missionaries, Indian agents, and travellers had 

 denied them to be possessed of any knowledge on the subject. 



The studies so far pursued led to the conclusion that at the 

 time of the discovery of North America all its inhabitants 

 practised sign language, though \\ ith different degrees of expert- 

 ness, and that while under changed circumstances it was disused 

 by some, others, in especial those who, after the acquisition of 

 horses, became nomads of the great plains, retained and culti- 

 vated it to the high development now attained. 



Instances were presented of the ascertained permanence of 

 some Indian signs, and those of foreign peoples and deaf mutes. 

 Though they, as well as words, animals and plants, have had 

 their growth, development, and change, those which are general 

 both among Indian tribes, and are also found in other parts of 

 the world, must be of great antiquity. Many signs but little 

 differentiated were unstable, while others that have proved to be 

 the best modes of expression have survived as definite and 

 established. 



The Indian system as a whole was compared with those of 

 foreign peoples — the ancient Greeks and Romans and themodern 

 Italians being first considered. His researches during several 

 years showed a surprising number of signs for the same idea 

 which were substantially identical not only among savage trilie;, 

 but among all peoples that used gesture signs with any freedom. 

 This remark applied to the collections of signs already obtained 

 by correspondence from among the Turks, Armenians, and 

 Koords, the Bushmen of Africa, the Fijians, the Redjangs and 

 Lelongs of Sumatra, the Chinese and the Australians. In com- 

 paring the Indian sign language with deaf mute signs, it was 

 noticeable that the Indians who had been brought to the Eastern 

 States had often held happy intercourse by -igns with white 

 deaf mutes, who surely had no semiotic code preconcerted with 

 any of the plain roamers. Many of their signs were identical, 

 and all sooner or later were mutually understood. The result of 

 all these comparisons was that the so-called sign language of 

 Indians was not, properly speaking, one language, but that it 

 and the gesture systems of deaf mutes and of all people consti- 

 tuted together one language — the gesture speech of mankind — 

 of which each system is a dialect. 



The most interesting light in which Indians, as other lower 

 tribes of men, are to be regarded is in their present representa- 

 tion of the stage of evolution once passed through by our ances- 

 tors. Their signs, as well as their myths and customs, form a 

 part of the paleontology of humanity. Their picture writings 

 are now translated by working on the hypothesis that their rude 

 form of graphic representation, when at the same time a system 

 of idiographic gesture signs prevailed, would probably have been 

 connected with the latter. Traces of the signs now used by the 

 Indians are also found in the ideographic pictures of the Egyp- 

 tian, Chinese, and Aztec characters. 



Signs often gave to spoken words their first significance, and 

 many primordial roots of language are found in bodily actiois. 

 Examples were given of English, Indian, Greek, and Latin 

 words in connection w ith gesture signs for the same meaning, 

 and the structure of the sign language was compared with the 

 tongues of this continent, and with reference also to old Asiatic 

 and African languages, showing similar operations of conditions 

 in (he same psychologic horizon. 



The most obvious application of sign language for its practical 

 utility depended .upon the correctness of the view submitted, 

 that it is not a mere semaphoric repetition of motions to be 

 memorised from a limited traditional list, but a cultivable art, 

 founded upon principles which can be readily applied by travel- 

 lers. The advantage was not merely theoretical, but had been 

 demonstrated to be practical by a professor in a deaf-mute col- 

 lege, who, lately visiting several of the wild tribes of the plains, 

 made himself understood among all of them without knowing a 

 word of any of their languages, and by another who had a similar 

 experience in Italy and Southern France. 



The powers of sign language were then compared with those 

 of speech. It finds actually in nature an image by which any 

 person can express his thoughts and wishes on the most needful 

 subjects to any other person. Merely emotional sounds may 

 correspond with merely emotional gestures, but whether with or 

 without them would be useless for the explicit communication of 

 facts and opinions of which signs themselves are capable. Not- 

 withstanding frequent denials, they do possess abstract ideas. 



The rapidity of communication is very great, and can approach 

 to that of thought. Oral speech is now conventional, and with 

 the similar development of sign-language conventional expres- 

 sions could be made with hands and body more quickly than 

 with the vocal organs, because more organs could be worked at 

 once. 



But such rapidity is only obtained by a system of preconcerted 

 abbreviations and by the adoption of absolute forms, thus sacri- 

 ficing self -interpretation and naturalness. 



Sign-language was superior to all others in that it permitted 

 every one to find in nature an image to express his thoughts on 

 the most needful matters intelligibly to any other person. The 

 direct or substantial natural analogy peculiar to it prevented a 

 confusion of ideas. Successful signs must have a much closer 

 analogy and establish a rapport between the talkers far beyond 

 that produced by the mere sound of words. If they had been 

 elaborated by the secular labour devoted to spoken language, 

 man could by his hands, arms and fingers, with facial and bodily 

 accentuation, express any idea that could be conveyed by words. 

 The very concepts of plurality, momentum, and righteousness 

 could be clearly expressed by signs, and it is not understood why 

 those signs could not have obtained their present abstract signi- 

 ficance through the thoughts arising from the combination and 

 comparison of other signs, without words. When highly culti- 

 vated, the rapidity of sign language on familiar subjects exceeds 

 that of speech, and approaches to that of thought itself. 



From the records of the ancient classic authors and also from 

 the figures on Etruscan vases and Herculanean bronzes and 

 other forms of archaic art, it is certain that a system of gesture- 

 language is of great antiquity. Later, Quintilian gave elaborate 

 rules for gesture which are specially notable for the significant 

 disposition of the fingers still prevailing in Naples. The ancient 

 and modern pantomimes were discussed, and also the gestures 

 of speaking actors in the theatres, the latter being seldom 

 actually significant or self-interpreting even in the expression of 

 strong emotion. The same scenic gesture must apply to many 

 diverse conditions of fact. Its fitness consists in being the same 

 which the hearer of the expository words would spontaneously 

 assume if yielding to the same emotions, and which, therefore, 

 by association tends to induce sympathetic yielding. But the 

 facts themselves depend upon the words uttered. A true sign- 

 language would express the exact circumstances with or without 

 any exhibition of the general emotion appropriate to them. 



It is necessary to be free from the vague popular impression 

 that some oral language of the general character of that now- 

 used by man is "natural" to man. There is no more necessary 

 connection between ideas and sounds, the mere signs of words 

 that strike the ear, than there is between the same ideas and 

 signs for them which are addressed only to the eye. Early 

 concepts of thought were of direct and material characters, as is 

 shown by what has been ascertained of the radicals of language, 

 and there does not seem to be any difficulty in expressing by 

 gesture all that could have been expressed by those radicals. 



It will be admitted that all the higher languages were at some 

 past time less opulent and comprehensive than they are now, 

 and as each particular language had been thoroughly studied, it 

 had become evident that it grew out of some other and less 

 advanced form. The discussion of philological subjects at the 

 present day was varied by the suggested po.-sibility that man at 

 some time might have existed without any oral language. A 

 proof of this assumption lay in the fact that uninstructed deaf 

 mutes originated signs from time to time expressive of their 

 wishes and ideas. 



The doctrine of Archbishop Whately and Max Midler, that 

 deaf mutes could not think until after instruction, was combated. 

 Xo one now doubts that the deaf mute thinks after instruction 

 either in gesture signs or in the finger alphabet, or more lately 

 in visible speech. By this instruction he has become master of 

 a new and foreign language, but that he obtained from signs. 

 But no one can learn a foreign language unless he had one of his 

 own, whether by descent or acquisition, by which it could be 

 translated, and such translation could not even be commenced 

 unless the mind had been already in action, and intelligently 

 using the original language for that purpose. In fact the use by 

 deaf mutes of signs originating in themselves shows a creative 

 action of mind and innate faculty of expression beyond that of 

 speakers who acquired language without conscious effort. 



It may be conceded that after man had all his present faculties 

 he did not choose between the adoption of voice and gesture, 

 and never with those faculties was in a state where the one was 



