338 
make fast,” muha , “ dumb,” i.e., where the string of the tongue 
is tied ; Greek mu, an imitation of the sound made by murmur- 
ing with closed lips, mud , “ to be shut,” especially of the lips, 
mued , “ to initiate into the mysteries,” because in saying mu 
the mouth is both opened and shut. Cf. also English mum , 
mumble , munch , mutter , mute ; the mumu , “ dumb,” of the 
Yei negroes of West Africa, the Tahitian mumu, “ to be 
silent,” etc. 
It is said that the little boy in question placed an n before 
im , “ nim being much easier to pronounce than im, when the 
mouth has been closed.” But this I do not follow. As the 
child’s organs strengthened he evidently placed more emphasis 
upon the im* and imitated the action more thoroughly ; and, 
as we see, his nim-nim almost exactly agrees with the Papuan 
nam-nam, the Surinam nyam-nyam , the Swedish nam-nam, 
and the Chinese child-word nam. Such a case as this, where 
every step of the process can be traced, shows how the prin- 
ciple of occult imitation doubtless obtains in numbers of cases 
where at present we are unable to trace it. The whole opera- 
tion has not the slightest connexion with the emotional cries 
of other animals. Mr. Darwin, also, mentions the case of a 
little boy who invented the word mum for food, and called 
sugar shu-mum ; and we see how naturally the same sound, 
e.g ., mum , may be connected with two apparently absolutely 
distinct and even opposite ideas ; i.e ., with food as that which 
goes into the mouth, and with silence or words-not-coming-out. 
12. The Simious Theory of Language . 
We may next notice what has been styled the “ Simious ” 
theory of language, i.e., that speech has arisen through the 
natural instinctive cries of quasi-human apes. The epicurean 
Horace has told us how at some time animals crawled forth 
from the earth, formed, probably, somehow by the mixture of 
heat and moisture ; and how “ the mute and dirty herd ” fought 
for nuts, and at length in some way found out words and names 
“ by which to mark articulate sounds and to express their 
feelings.”| Manilius J speaks similarly, and Diodoros, appa- 
rently repeating the common opinion of his day, observes that 
at first the tones of the human voice were indistinct and 
confused, but that after a little they distinctly articulated their 
* As to emphasis, vide 45. I apprehend that originally emphasis 
was frequently expressed by a prefix. 
t Sat. I., iii. 99, et seq. % Astronomica, i. 85. 
