1892.] Mental Evolution in Man and Lower Animals. 595 
After that she began to use words of her own invention, and 
never employed the words used by others. Gradually she 
enlarged her vocabulary. She has a brother eighteen months 
younger than herself who has learned her language, so that 
they can talk freely together. He, however, seems to have 
adopted it only because he has more intercourse with her than 
with the others; he will use a proper word with his mother, 
and his sister’s with her.” 
The mother has learned French, but never uses that 
language in conversation and the servants speak English with- 
out any peculiarities. “Some of the words and phrases have a 
resemblance to French, but it is certain that no person using 
that language has frequented the house. Of words formed by 
imitation of sounds the language shows hardly a trace. The 
mewing of the cat evidently suggested the word “ mea,” which 
signified both cat and furs. In some of the words the liking 
which children and some races of men have for the repetition 
of sounds is apparent. Thus we have ‘migno-migno,’ signi- 
fying water, wash, bath; ‘ go-go,’ delicacies, as sweets or des- 
sert; and ‘ waia-waia,’ black, darkness, or a negro.” “Gum- 
migur,” we are told, signifies all the substantials of the table, 
such as bread, meat, vegetables, etc., and the same word des- 
ignates the cook. A number of additional instances of this 
strange vocabulary are given.’ “They show,” says Mr. 
Romanes, “ that the spontaneous and arbitrary word-making 
which is more or less observable in all children beginning to 
speak may, under favorable circumstances, proceed to an aston- 
ishing degree of fulness and efficiency; that although the 
words thus invented are sometimes of onomatopoetic origin, 
as a general rule they are not so; that the words are far from 
being always monosyllabic;* that they admit of becoming 
sufficiently numerous and varied to constitute a not inefficient 
language; and that the syntax of this language presents 
obvious points of resemblance to the gesture language of man- 
kind.” This faculty of coining fresh words, now almost lost by 
adults, must once have existed as a normal state of things 
IMental Evolution of Man, p. 140. 
?Where a child uses a A renenaysiabes word it constantly doubles the syllable-—A. B. 
