16 THE GESTURE-LANGUAGE. 



comes evident. Why the words stand and go mean wliat they 

 do is a question to which we cannot as yet give the shadow of 

 an answer, and if we had been taught to say " stand " where 

 we now say " go," and " go " where we now say " stand," it 

 would be practically all the same to us. No doubt there was a 

 sufficient reason for these words receiving the meanings they 

 now bear, as indeed there is a sufficient reason for everything ; 

 but so far as we are concerned, there might as well have been 

 none, for we have quite lost sight of the connection between 

 the word and the idea. But in the gesture-language the rela- 

 tion between idea and sign not only always exists, but is scarcely 

 lost sight of for a moment. When a deaf-and-dumb child holds 

 his two first fingers forked like a pair of legs, and makes them 

 stand and walk upon the table, we want no teaching to show 

 us what this means, nor why it is done. 



This definition of the gesture-language is, however, not 

 complete. Such objects as are actually in the presence of the 

 speaker, or may be supposed so, are brought bodily into the 

 conversation by touching, pointing, or looking towards them, 

 either to indicate the objects themselves or one of their charac- 

 teristics. Thus if a deaf and dumb man touches his underhp 

 with his forefinger, the context must decide whether he means 

 to indicate the lip itself or the colour " red," unless, as is some- 

 times done, he shows by actually taking hold of the lip with 

 finger and thumb, that it is the lip itself, and not its quality, 

 that he means. Under the two classes " pictures in the air " 

 and things brought before the mind by actual pointing out, the 

 whole of the sign-language may be included. 



It is in Deaf and Dumb Institutions that the gesture-lan- 

 guage may be most conveniently studied, and what slight prac- 

 tical knowledge I have of it has been got in this way in Ger- 

 many and in England. In these institutions, however, there 

 are grammatical signs used in the gesture-language which do 

 not fairly belong to it. These are mostly signs adapted, or 

 perhaps invented, by teachei's who had the use of speech, to ex- 

 press ideas which do not come within the scope of the very 

 limited natural grammar and dictionary of the deaf-and-dumb. 

 But it is to be observed that though the deaf-and-dumb have 



