Sign Language Among North American Indians Compared With That Among Other Peoples And Deaf-Mutes | Page 8

a friend of the
writer, in a letter describing a juvenile feast, invented the same
expression, with nearly the same spelling, as characteristic of her
sensations regarding the delicacies provided. The Papuans met by Dr.
Comrie also called "eating" _nam-nam_. But the evidence of all such
cases of the voluntary use of articulate speech by young children is
qualified by the fact that it has been inherited from very many
generations, if not quite so long as the faculty of gesture.

_GESTURES IN MENTAL DISORDER._
The insane understand and obey gestures when they have no
knowledge whatever of words. It is also found that semi-idiotic
children who cannot be taught more than the merest rudiments of
speech, can receive a considerable amount of information through signs,
and can express themselves by them. Sufferers from aphasia continue
to use appropriate gestures after their words have become
uncontrollable. It is further noticeable in them that mere ejaculations, or
sounds which are only the result of a state of feeling, instead of a desire
to express thought, are generally articulated with accuracy. Patients
who have been in the habit of swearing preserve their fluency in that
division of their vocabulary.

_UNINSTRUCTED DEAF-MUTES._
The signs made by congenital and uninstructed deaf-mutes to be now
considered are either strictly natural signs, invented by themselves, or
those of a colloquial character used by such mutes where associated.
The accidental or merely suggestive signs peculiar to families, one
member of which happens to be a mute, are too much affected by the
other members of the family to be of certain value. Those, again, which
are taught in institutions have become conventional and designedly
adapted to translation into oral speech, although founded by the abbé de
l'Épée, followed by the abbé Sicard, in the natural signs first above
mentioned.
A great change has doubtless occurred in the estimation of congenital
deaf-mutes since the Justinian Code, which consigned them forever to
legal infancy, as incapable of intelligence, and classed them with the
insane. Yet most modern writers, for instance Archbishop Whately and
Max Müller, have declared that deaf-mutes could not think until after
having been instructed. It cannot be denied that the deaf-mute thinks
after his instruction either in the ordinary gesture signs or in the finger
alphabet, or more lately in artificial speech. By this instruction he has
become master of a highly-developed language, such as English or

French, which he can read, write, and actually talk, but that foreign
language he has obtained through the medium of signs. This is a
conclusive proof that signs constitute a real language and one which
admits of thought, for no one can learn a foreign language unless he
had some language of his own, whether by descent or acquisition, by
which it could be translated, and such translation into the new language
could not even be commenced unless the mind had been already in
action and intelligently using the original language for that purpose. In
fact the use by deaf-mutes of signs originating in themselves exhibits a
creative action of mind and innate faculty of expression beyond that of
ordinary speakers who acquired language without conscious effort. The
thanks of students, both of philology and psychology, are due to Prof.
SAMUEL PORTER, of the National Deaf Mute College, for his
response to the question, "Is thought possible without language?"
published in the Princeton Review for January, 1880.
With regard to the sounds uttered by deaf-mutes, the same explanation
of heredity may be made as above, regarding the words invented by
young children. Congenital deaf-mutes at first make the same sounds as
hearing children of the same age, and, often being susceptible to
vibrations of the air, are not suspected of being deaf. When that
affliction is ascertained to exist, all oral utterances from the deaf-mute
are habitually repressed by the parents.

_GESTURES OF THE BLIND._
The facial expressions and gestures of the congenitally blind are worthy
of attention. The most interesting and conclusive examples come from
the case of Laura Bridgman, who, being also deaf, could not possibly
have derived them by imitation. When a letter from a beloved friend
was communicated to her by gesture-language, she laughed and
clapped her hands. A roguish expression was given to her face,
concomitant with the emotion, by her holding the lower lip by the teeth.
She blushed, shrugged her shoulders, turned in her elbows, and raised
her eye-brows under the same circumstances as other people. In
amazement, she rounded and protruded the lips, opened them, and

breathed strongly. It is remarkable that she constantly accompanied her
"yes" with the common affirmative nod, and her "no" with our negative
shake of the head, as these gestures are by no means universal and do
not seem clearly connected with emotion. This, possibly, may be