28 THE CJKSTUBnS-LANGUAGJS. 



a great mass of simple statements or questions, almost gesture 

 for wordj the concretism of thouglit which belongs to the deaf- 

 mute whose mind has not been much developed by the use of 

 written language, and even to the educated one when he is 

 thinking and uttering his thoughts in his native signs, com- 

 monly requires more complex phrases to be re-cast. A ques- 

 tion so common amongst us as, " Wliat is the matter with 

 you ^" would be put, " You crying ? you been beaten ?" and so 

 on. The deaf-and-dumb child does not ask, " What did you 

 have for dinner yesterday?'^ but " Did you have soup ? did you 

 have porridge?" and so forth. A conjunctive sentence he ex- 

 presses by an alternative or contrast ; " I should be punished 

 if I were lazy and naughty," would be put, " I lazy, naughty, 

 no ! — lazy, naughty^ I punished, yes !" Obligation may be 

 expressed in a similar way; "I must love and honour my 

 teacher," may be put, " teacher, I beat, deceive, scold, no ! — I 

 love, honour, yes ! " As Steinthal says in his admirable essay, 

 it is only the certainty which speech gives to a man's mind in 

 holding fast ideas in all their relations, which brings him to the 

 shorter course of expressing only the positive side of the idea, 

 and di'opping the negative.^ 



What is expressed by the genitive case> or a corresponding 

 preposition, may have a distinct sign of holding in the gesture - 

 language. The three signs to express " the gardener's knife," 

 might be the knife, the garden, and the action of grasping the 

 knife, pressing it to his breast, putting it into his pocket, or 

 something of the kind, But the mere putting together of the 

 possessor and the possessed may answer the purpose, as is well 

 shown by the way in which a deaf-and-dumb man designates 

 his wife's daughter's husband and children in making his will 

 by signs. The following account is taken from the ' Justice of 

 the Peace,' October 1, 1864 : — 



John Geale, of Yateley^ yeoman, deaf, dumb, and unable 

 to read or write, died leaving a will which he had executed by 

 putting his mark to it. Probate of this will was refused by 

 Sir J. P. Wilde, Judge of the Court of Probate^ on the ground 

 that there was no suflBcient evidence of the testator's under- 

 » Kruse, p. 56, ttc. Steinthal, Spr. der T., p. 923. 



