Gestural language

“ But such symbols are of late invention, and could not well be applied to express the daily concerns of life. Quite different is gesture-language, whereby our thoughts and emotions are represented by movements of the hands and other parts of the body. Most of our common needs could be expressed in this way, though gestures would be quite inadequate to represent the wants of a civilized community. ”

“ I refer to gesture-language. In this case, it is not sounds, but expressive movements, imitative and pantomimic, that form the means by which man communicates his thoughts to man. Though we may regard gesture-language as an original form of language, in so far as we can observe it at the moment of its creation, we must not, of course, forget that the genesis of the forms of [Pg 59] gesture communication familiar to us belongs to a higher culture whose conditions differ widely from those of primitive thought. ”

“ The essential independence of the gesture-language may indeed be brought very clearly into view, by noticing that ordinary educated men, when they first begin to learn the language of signs, do not come naturally to the use of its proper syntax, but, by arranging their gestures in the order of the words they think in, make sentences which are unmeaning or misleading to a deaf-mute, unless he can reverse the process, by translating the gestures into words, and considering what such a written sentence would mean. ”

“ GESTURE AND LANGUAGE.— Imitation of gesture is older than language, and goes on involuntarily even now, when the language of gesture is universally suppressed, and the educated are taught to control their muscles. The imitation of gesture is so strong that we cannot watch a face in movement without the innervation of our own face (one can observe that feigned yawning will evoke natural yawning in the man who observes it) . The imitated gesture led the imitator back to the sensation expressed by the gesture in the body or face of the one being imitated. ”

“ The question whether gesture language preceded sound language may perhaps be settled by the answer to the question whether in the evolution of living beings the eye preceded the ear. If in the age of reptiles one saw the other glide or the grass move before he heard a swish or hiss, and if he himself first stayed still in order to escape being seen rather than heard, then doubtless gesture language began before sound language, and doubtless again also language began among men with simple gestures rather than simple cries. ”

“ The deaf-and-dumb man's remark, that the gesture-language is a picture-language, finds its counterpart in an observation of Wilhelm von Humboldt's, that "In fact, gesture, destitute of sound, is a species of writing." ”

“ But in the gesture-language the relation between idea and sign not only always exists, but is scarcely lost sight of for a moment. When a deaf-and-dumb child holds his two first fingers forked like a pair of legs, and makes them stand and walk upon the table, we want no teaching to show us what this means, nor why it is done. ”

“ Now it is well known to every one that physical expression by feature, &c., forming a part of the universal gesture-language, thus serves as an important adjunct to spoken language. It is not so obvious, but on examination will prove to be true, that such expression by feature itself acts as a formative power in vocal language. Expression of countenance has an action beyond that of mere visible gesture. ”

“ Gesture-language is instinctive—the heritage, it may be, of the days before man acquired articulate language, or differed thus far from the brute beast: certain ideas call forth certain corresponding gestures, [94] and we are not obliged to learn what gestures stand for particular ideas. Hence it is that even now spoken language is so largely accompanied by gesture. An excited speaker is likely to make much use of his hands; and we can often tell what a person is saying to us, though we do not hear him distinctly, by watching the play of his features. ”

“ We need only refer to the verb 'to bring,' reduced to the form of three verbs, or the concept 'west,' for whose expression there is required not only the sun and the location which we must give it but also its act of seating itself. In all of these traits, then, primitive language is absolutely at one with gesture-language. ”

“ The opinions of two or three practical observers may be cited to show that the gesture-language is not, like the finger-alphabet, an art learnt in the first instance from the teacher, but an independent process originating in the mind of the deaf-mute, and developing itself as his knowledge and power of reasoning expand under instruction. ”

“ It is certain that concepts, however formed, can be expressed by other means than sound. One mode of this expression is by gesture, and there is less reason to believe that gestures commenced as the interpretation of, or substitute for words than that the latter originated in, and served to translate gestures. Many arguments have been advanced to prove that gesture language preceded articulate speech and formed the earliest attempt at communication, resulting from the interacting subjective and objective conditions to which primitive man was exposed. ”

“ It is a good example of the way in which gestures precede spoken language, and lead on to the latter. The same gestures are for the most part understood in the same sense among all the manifold races of men; a shake of the head signifies “no,” a pointing of the finger symbolizes “locality.” Gestures bridge over the gulf which separates inarticulate from articulate speech, and they are still a means of communication for the deaf-mute. But we must distinguish between gestures and that instinctive play of feature which Mr. ”

“ Even in this country, we have not to go far to find gesture-language employed in default of spoken language. Where the new system of observing the movements of the lips has not been introduced, the deaf and dumb can communicate with the outer world only by the help of gestures, though the gesture-language of the deaf and dumb, like phonetic writing, implies a previous spoken language. ”

“ What, now, do these observations teach us concerning the origin of gesture-language, and therefore probably also concerning the factors underlying the origin of language in general? According to the popular notion, a so-called impulse for communication or, perhaps, certain intellectual processes, voluntary reflections, and actions, account for the fact that the contents of one's own consciousness come to be communicated to other individuals. If, however, we observe gesture-language in its origin, we obtain an entirely different view. ”

“ Second, seeing that words are essentially less ideographic, as well as more precise than gestures—and, therefore, more available for the purpose both of expressing and constructing abstract ideas,—I do not think it is probable that in the absence of articulation the human race would have made much psychological advance upon the anthropoid apes. Third, that although gesture language is not so efficient a means of developing abstract ideation as is articulate language, it must nevertheless have been of much service in assisting the growth of the latter ”

“ Human word is composed of three languages. Man says what he feels by inflections of the voice, what he loves by gesture, what he thinks by articulate speech. The child begins with feeling; then he loves, and later, he reasons. While the child only feels, cries suffice him; when he loves, he needs gestures; when he reasons, he must have articulate language. The inflections of the voice are for sensations, gesture is for sentiments; the buccal apparatus is for the expression of ideas. Gesture, then, is the bond of union between inflection and thought. ”

“ But as soon as other individuals heard these reflex sounds, and at the same time had the same feelings, the sounds and feelings were in some way connected, and must have passed into the consciousness of the community as in some measure connected as cause and effect. We must also suppose that gesture language developed side by side with the language of sounds: and, indeed, it is not until language has reached a high degree of development that it can dispense with gesture language as an auxiliary. The Southern nations, which use most interjections, employ 167 also most gesticulations. ”

“ It is past all reasonable question that, in the earliest communication between human beings, gesture long played a considerable, if not the principal, part, and that our race learned only by degrees the superior capacities of spoken signs, and by degrees worked them out to a sufficiency for all the ordinary needs of expression; when gesture was relegated to the department of rhetoric, to the office of giving individual colouring and intensity to intellectual expression—as, in all well-developed languages, has been the case with tone also. ”

“ Gesture is a universal language. The mighty burden of meaning in Millet's picture of the "Sower" is carried by the gesture of the laborer as he swings across the background of field and hill, whose forms also are expressive; here, too, the elemental dignity of form and movement is reinforced by the solemnity of the color. ”

“ To go upon the broadest ground, the mere fact that teachers can take children who have no means of uttering their thoughts but the gesture-language, and teach them to articulate words, to recognise them by sight when uttered by others, to write them, and to understand them as equivalents for their own gestures, is sufficient to bridge over the gulf which lies between the gesture-language and, at least, a rudimentary form of word-language. ”

“ Of course in both cases conceptual thought is there: the ideation is human, though, comparatively speaking, immature. But the important point to notice is the curiously close similarity between the forms of language-structure as revealed in gesture and in early speech. For no one, I should suppose, can avoid perceiving the idiographic character of gesture-language, whereby it is more nearly allied to the purely receptual modes of communication which we have studied in the lower animals, than is the case with our fully evolved forms of predication. ”

“ Every language is composed of consonants and vowels. These consonants and vowels are gestures. The value of the consonant is the gesture of the thing expressed. But as gesture is always the expression of a moral fact, each consonant has the intrinsic character of a movement of the heart. It is easy to prove that the consonant is a gesture. ”

“ But long after this first rude beginning of articulate speech, the language of tone and gesture would have continued as much the most important machinery of communication: the half-human creature now before our imagination would probably have struck us as a wonderful adept at making significant sounds and movements both as to number and variety; but in all probability we should scarcely have been able to notice the already-developing germ of articulation. ”

“ The phonetic machinery, the voice, sound, inflections, are living language. The child, as yet devoid of intelligence and sentiment, conveys his emotions through cries and moans.
The myologic or muscular machinery, or gesture, is the language of sentiment and emotion. When the child recognizes its mother, it begins to smile.
The buccal machinery, or articulate speech, is the language of the mind.
Man, neither by voice nor gesture, can express two opposite ideas on the same subject; this necessarily involves a resort to speech. Human language is composed of gesture, speech and singing. ”

“ Even the cave men show that right-handedness was the rule in their time, and spear-hand, shield-hand, gesture-language, digital-counting, and the tally-stick, the world over, fixed the speech and writing and right-hand brain-centers in the left half-brain—and, of course, those of the left-hand and fingers in the right half-brain. ”

“ Gesture is the elliptical language given to man to express what speech is powerless to say.
We have spoken of additional figures. Each of these figures supposes a gesture. There is a gesture, an imitative expression wherever there is an additional figure. An ellipse in a word, such as is met with in the conjunction and the interjection, demands a gesture.
9 is a neutral term which must be sustained by gesture and inflection. Gesture would be the inflection of the deaf, inflection the gesture of the blind. The orator should, in fact, address himself to the deaf as well as to the blind. ”

“ The capability of such primitive atoms of expression for development into conscious methods of communicating ideas Gesture and feature language. is seen in the great ingenuity of deaf-mutes in holding intercourse by means of gestures before being taught to converse by strict system; and in the preponderance of sign language in the eloquence of savage tribes. Such germs of speech, whether in gesture, facial change, emphasis, or tone, are retained through the whole course of human progress, and form important elements in the highest kinds of art. ”

“ One should not give all his attention to the avoiding of faults.
In the application of gesture to the expression of ideas, one is helped, as has been said, by constantly heeding the general principle of suiting the form of the gesture to the nature of the thought, or of suiting the action to the word. Inasmuch as gesture so generally takes the form of objects or actions, it is undoubtedly easier to begin with the more concrete in language, or with the discussion of tangible objects, and work from these to the more abstract and remotely imaginary—from the more, to the less, familiar. ”

“ In various ways, depending on fixed usages of language, our syntax, as is well known, permits us to separate words that, as regards meaning, belong together, or, conversely, to bring together words that have no immediate relation. Gesture-language obeys but one law. Every single sign must be intelligible either in itself or through the one preceding it. ”