12 THE TSINUK JARGON. 



creditable both to the readiness of the King in an emergency and to the 

 aptness of his people, the main distinction being that in Italy there was a 

 recognized and cultivated language of signs long disused in Great Britain. 

 As the number of dialects in any district decreases so will the gestures, 

 though doubtless there is also influence from the fact not merely that a lan- 

 guage has been reduced to and modified by writing, but that people who 

 are accustomed generally to read and write, as are the English and Ger- 

 mans, will after a time think and talk as they write, and without the ac; 

 companiments still persistent among Hindus, Arabs, and the less literate 

 Europeans. 



Many instances are shown of the discontinuance of gesture -speech 

 with no development in the native language of the gesturers, but from the 

 invention for intercommunication of one used in common. The Kalapuyas 

 of Southern Oregon until recently used a sign -language, but have grad- 

 ually adopted for foreign intercourse the composite tongue, commonly called 

 the Tsinuk or Chinook jargon, which probably arose for trade purposes on the 

 Columbia River before the advent of Europeans, founded on the Tsinuk, 

 Tsihali, Nutka, &c, but now enriched by English and French terms, and 

 have nearly forgotten their old signs. The prevalence of this mongrel 

 speech, originating in the same causes that produced the pigeon-English 

 or lingua-franca of the Orient, explains the marked scantness of sign-language 

 among the tribes of the Northwest coast. No explanation is needed for 

 the disuse of that mode of communication when the one of surrounding 

 civilization is recognized as necessary or important to be acquired, and 

 gradually becomes known as the best common medium, even before it is 

 actually spoken by many individuals of the several tribes. 



IS INDIAN SIGN LANGUAGE UNIVERSAL AND IDENTICAL? 



The assertion has been made by many writers, and is currently re- 

 peated by Indian traders and some Army officers, that all the tribes of 

 North America have had and still use a common and identical sign-language 

 of ancient origin, in which they can communicate freely without oral assist- 

 ance. The fact that this remarkable statement is at variance with some of 

 the principles of the formation and use of signs set forth by Dr. Tylok, 



