64 GESTFRE-LANGUAGE AND WOED-LANGUAGE. 



tliat of inflected languages sucli as Latin^, wliich can alter tlie 

 form of words to express their relation to one another. With. 

 Chinese and some other languages of Eastern Asia^ and with 

 English and French, etc., where they have thrown off inflection, 

 it may be roughly compared, though all these languages use 

 at least grammatical particles which have nothing correspond- 

 ing to them in the gesture-language. Now, it is remarkable 

 to what an extent Chinese and English agree in doing just 

 what the gesture-language does not. Both put the attribute 

 before the subject, pe ma, "white horse;" sJdng jin, "holy 

 man;" both put the action before the object, ngo ta ni, "1 

 strike thee," tien sang iu, " heaven destroys me." The fre- 

 quent practice of the gesture-language in putting the modifier 

 after the modified is opposed both to Chinese and English 

 construction, as these examples show; and even where the 

 antagonism is not so absolute, and the deaf-mute says in 

 signs " boy ball threw," as well as " ball threw boy," there is 

 still an important difference. " It seems," says Steinthal, " that 

 the speech of the Chinese hastens toward the conclusion, and 

 brings the end prominently forward. In the described position 

 of the three relations of speech the more important member 

 stands last.^^' A more absolute contradiction of the leading 

 principle of the gesture-syntax could hardly have been formu- 

 lated in words. 



The theory that the gesture-language was the original lan- 

 guage of man, and that speech came afterwards, has been 

 already mentioned. We have no foundation to build such a 

 theory upon, but there are several questions bearing upon the 

 matter which are well worth examining. Before doing so, 

 however, it will be well to look a little more closely into the 

 claim of the gesture-language to be considered as a means of 

 utterance independent of speech. 



In the first place, an absolute separation between the two 

 things is not to be found within the range of our experience. 

 Though the deaf-mute may not speak himself, yet the most of 

 what he knows, he only knows by means of speech, for he 



' Steinthal, ' Charakteristik der hauptsacblichsten Typen desSprachbaues;' Ber- 

 lin, 1860, p. 114, etc. 



