Gesture Language and Word Language. 453 



These signs consist principally in drawing in the air the shape 

 of the objects to be suggested to the mind, indicating their 

 character, imitating the movement of the body in an action to 

 be described, or the use of a thing or its origin, or any other 

 of its notable peculiarities. " "With regard to signs," says 

 Dr. Scott of Exeter, " the deaf and dumb child will most 

 likely have already fixed upon signs by which it means most of 

 the objects given in the above lesson (pin, key, etc.), and which 

 it uses in its intercourse with its friends. These signs had 

 always better be retained by the child's family, and if a word 

 has not received such a sign, endeavour to get the child to fix 

 upon one. It will do this most probably better than you." 

 The Abbe Sicard is quoted to a similar effect. He did not 

 invent signs for his deaf and dumb pupil, of whom he said 

 that by a happy exchange he taught him the mimic signs of 

 his language, in return for the written signs of the French 

 tongue. Kruse, a deaf-mute,* is also cited : " Thus the deaf 

 and dumb must have a language, without which no thought 

 can be brought to pass. But his nature soon comes to his 

 help. What strikes him most, or what makes a distinction 

 between one thing and another, such distinctive signs of objects 

 are at once signs by which he knows these objects, and knows 

 them again ; they become tokens of things. And whilst he 

 silently elaborates the signs he has found for single objects, 

 that is, while he describes their forms for himself in the air, 

 or imitates them in thought with hands, fingers, and gestures, 

 he developes for himself suitable signs to represent ideas." 



In the Deaf and Dumb Institution of Berlin, Mr. Tylor tells 

 us that 5000 signs are stated to be employed — far exceeding 

 the number of words used by the most ignorant classes in this 

 country — and of these he took down about 500 of the most 

 important. The sign for I is pushing the forefinger against 

 the pit of the stomach; for thou, it is pushed towards the 

 person addressed ; for he, the thumb is pointed over the right 

 shoulder. " When I hold my right hand flat, with the palm 

 down, at the level of my waist, and raise it towards the level of 

 my shoulder, that signifies great, but if I depress it instead, it 

 means little." The motion of taking off the hat indicates a 

 man, a woman is denoted by laying the closed hand upon the 

 breast, and a child is signified by dandling the right elbo'w 

 upon the left hand. " The adverb hither, and the verb to come 

 have the same sign, beckoning with the finger towards oneself. 

 To hold the first two fingers apart like the letter V, and dart 

 the finger tips out from the eyes, is to see. To touch the ear 

 and tongue with the fore-finger is to hear, and to taste. . . . 



* Mr. Tylor spea&s of him as " a teacher of deaf-mutes, and author of several 

 works of no small ability." 



