58 CLASSIFICATION AND ANALYSIS. 



the philologer. The use of words in formulation, still more in terminology, 

 is so wide a departure from primitive conditions as to be incompatible with 

 the only primordial language yet discovered. No dictionary of signs will 

 be exhaustive for the simple reason that the signs are exhaustless, nor will 

 it be exact because there cannot be a correspondence between signs and 

 words taken individually. Words and signs both change their meaning 

 from the context. A single word may express a complex idea, to be fully 

 rendered only by a group of signs, and, vice versa, a single sign may suffice 

 for a number of words. The list annexed to the present pamphlet is by no 

 means intended for exact translation, but as a suggestion of headings or 

 titles of signs arranged alphabetically for mere convenience. 



It will be interesting to ascertain the varying extent of familiarity 

 with sign-language among the members of the several tribes, how large a 

 proportion possess any skill in it, the average amount of their vocabulary, 

 the degree to which women become proficient, and the age at which chil- 

 dren commence its practice. The statement is made by Titchkematski that 

 the Kaiowa and Comanche women know nothing of the sign-language, while 

 the Cheyenne women are versed in it. As he is a Cheyenne, however, he 

 may not have a large circle of feminine acquaintances beyond his own tribe, 

 and his negative testimony is not valuable. A more general assertion is 

 that the signs used by males and females are different, though mutually un- 

 derstood, and some minor points of observation may be indicated, such as 

 whether the commencement of counting upon the fingers is upon those of 

 the right or the left hand, and whether Indians take pains to look toward 

 the south when suggesting the course of the sun, which would give the 

 motion from left to right 



CLASSIFICATION AND ANALYSIS. 



An important division of the deaf-mute signs is into natural and method- 

 ical, the latter being sometimes called artificial and stigmatized as parasitical. 

 But signs may be artificial — that is, natural, but improved and enriched by 

 art — and even arbitrary, without being strictly what is termed methodical, 

 the latter being part of the instruction of deaf-mutes, founded upon spoken 

 languages, and adapted to the words and grammatical forms of those Ian- 



