Sign language

“ The reader will understand without explanation that there is in the gesture speech no organized sentence such as is integrated in the languages of civilization, and that he must not look for articles or particles or passive voice or case or grammatic gender, or even what appears in those languages as a substantive or a verb, as a subject or a predicate, or as qualifiers or inflexions. The sign radicals, without being specifically any of our parts of speech, may be all of them in turn. ”

“ SURVIVAL IN GESTURE.
Even when the specific practice of sign language has been generally discontinued for more than one generation, either from the adoption of a jargon or from the common use of the tongue of the conquering English, French, or Spanish, some of the gestures formerly employed as substitutes for words may survive as a customary accompaniment to oratory or impassioned conversation, and, when ascertained, should be carefully noted. ”

“ If you are to reach masses of people in this world, you must do it by a sign language. Whether your vehicle be commerce, literature, or politics, you can do nothing but raise signals, and make motions to the people. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Concepts of the intangible and invisible are only learned through percepts of tangible and visible objects, whether finally expressed to the eye or to the ear, in terms of sight or of sound.
Sign language is so faithful to nature, and so essentially living in its expression, that it is not probable that it will ever die. ”

“ While, therefore, the terms sign language and gesture speech necessarily include and suppose facial expression when emotions are in question, they refer more particularly to corporeal motions and attitudes. For this reason much of the valuable contribution of Darwin in his Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals is not directly applicable to sign language. ”

“ The theory that sign language was in whole or in chief the original utterance of mankind would be strongly supported by conclusive evidence to the truth of such travelers' tales, but does not depend upon them. Nor, considering the immeasurable period during which, in accordance with modern geologic views, man has been on the earth, is it probable that any existing races can be found in which speech has not obviated the absolute necessity for gesture in communication among themselves. ”

“ Just because a child happens to be deaf, does not make him a good or correct sign-maker any more than, because a child happens to be able to hear, he should speak correctly and in a well-modulated voice, or, what is more, sing in public! And so, if we want our deaf friends to be able to express their thoughts correctly and accurately in the sign-language, even in ordinary conversations, but especially in public meetings, we must train them in the knowledge of the derivations and meanings of the signs. ”

“ Language, in its broadest sense, includes any form of expression by which thoughts and feelings are communicated from one individual to another. Words may be spoken, gestures made, cries uttered, pictures or characters drawn, or letters made as means of expression. The deaf-mute converses with his fingers and his lips; the savage communicates by means of gesticulation. It is easy to conceive of a community in which all communication is carried on in sign language. ”

“ Thinking that the question may arise in the minds of some, ‘Does the sign language give the deaf, when used in public addresses, all that speech affords to the hearing?’ I will say that my experience and observation lead me to answer with a decided affirmative. On occasions almost without number it has been my privilege to interpret, through signs to the deaf, addresses given in speech; I have addressed hundreds of assemblages of deaf persons in the college, in schools I have visited, and elsewhere, using signs for the original expression of thought ”

“ A crude speech is developed by all animal life—a general sign language by which every animal holds converse with the members of its own species. This general sign language is inherited by man and gradually developed by him; but oral speech soon leads the way in the development of a still higher language. ”

“ Less of practical value can be learned of sign language, considered as a system, from the study of gestures of actors and orators than would appear without reflection. The pantomimist who uses no words whatever is obliged to avail himself of every natural or imagined connection between thought and gesture, and, depending wholly on the latter, makes himself intelligible. ”

“ Thus the signs for "now," "past," and "will" are used with all verb signs to indicate time, and "finished" is used to designate the complete tenses. "One" and "many" are added or prefixed to mark the singular and plural, while "male" and "female" indicate "sex." Others of this class are the progressive sign and the auxiliary verbs.
In connection with its incompleteness and imperfection when compared with written or spoken language, it should be remembered that the sign language was originally designed as a means of educating young deaf children and the vocabulary was therefore limited. ”

“ Thus an observer possessed by a restrictive theory will find no signs where they are in plenty, while another determined on the universality and identity of sign language can, as elsewhere explained, produce, from perhaps the same individuals, evidence in his favor from the apparently conclusive result of successful communication. ”

“ The Mexicans, as well as the people of the Romance races, are expert in pantomimic gestures which they are in the habit of using while speaking to one another. How natural all the imitative signs are! When I came to school, I had no difficulty in understanding the true deaf and dumb language of signs — the conventional language. The sign language is the universal one. (I do not pretend to say that I am about the best sign-maker in this institution. This must be attributed to the early training of the mind during my ante-speech days.)
My guardian let me go about in the rear yard. ”

“ Sign language cannot show by inflection the reciprocal dependence of words and sentences. Degrees of motion corresponding with vocal intonation are only used rhetorically or for degrees of comparison. The relations of ideas and objects are therefore expressed by placement, and their connection is established when necessary by the abstraction of ideas. The sign talker is an artist, grouping persons and things so as to show the relations between them, and the effect is that which is seen in a picture. ”

“ Then, tightening my belt for a walk, I looked round with a kind smile, and selecting a likely man, would address him in English deliberately as follows—suiting each action to the word, for I have always found that sign language is made more natural when you speak your own tongue all the time you are acting:—"Well now, I think as you have looked on enough and have seen all you want, it's about time to go to an hotel, a gasthaus. ”

“ What such a sign talker has learned is by memorizing, as a child may learn English, and though both the sign talker and the child may be able to give some separate items useful to a philologist or foreigner, such items are spoiled when colored by the attempt of ignorance to theorize. ”

“ There can be no natural universal language which is absolute and arbitrary. When used without convention, as sign language [pg 335] alone of all modes of utterance can be, it must be tentative, experimental, and flexible. The mutes will also resort to the invention of new signs for new ideas as they arise, which will be made intelligible, if necessary, through the illustration and definition given by signs formerly adopted, so that the fittest signs will be evolved, after rivalry and trial, and will survive. ”

“ It is time we faced the fact that the letters which compose an English word are full of philological interest, and that their study will be a valuable part of education by-and-by; but meantime, sound and letter-sign are so loosely wedded in English, that to base the teaching of reading on the sounds of the letters only, is to lay up for the child much analytic labour, much mental confusion, due to the irregularities of the language; and some little moral strain in making the sound of a letter in a given word fall under any of the ‘sounds’ he has been taught. ”

“ To illustrate what I mean by the philology of the sign-language, let us examine a few concrete examples, beginning, perhaps, with family relations. The general sign for "man" or "male" is made by grasping with the right hand the brim of an imaginary hat. In the same way, "woman" or "female" is suggested by drawing the tip of the thumb down along the side of the cheek, where a woman's bonnet-string would naturally come. ”

“ Its successful execution is by an art, which, however it may have commenced as an instinctive mental process, has been cultivated, and consists in actually pointing out objects in sight not only for designation, but for application and predication, and in suggesting others to the mind by action and the airy forms produced by action. To insist that sign language is uniform were to assert that it is perfect—"That faultless monster that the world ne'er saw." ”

“ Whether they favor one or another of the methods of educating the deaf, they recognize the very great value of signs in social intercourse among the deaf, and its necessity in the pulpit and on the platform.
By means of the sign language the deaf child is enabled to comprehend subjects which his limited vocabulary would never enable him to do while dependent upon speech and reading alone. With the aid of an interpreter the deaf may enjoy lectures, sermons, plays, and all else while one of an audience, save, alone, music. ”

“ Is it a man, or a mountain, or a mouse? Once we know that, we can follow the descriptions much better than if we must wait until we reach the end of the phrase before we grasp the subject.
The senses are generally indicated in the sign-language by pointing to their respective organs, as to "hear," to "see," to "feel," physically by touching the back of the left hand with the tip of the middle finger of the right hand, emotionally, by touching the heart; to "taste" and to "smell." "Deafness is the ear that is "closed," while "blindness" is the eye from which the light is shut out. ”

“ Sign language as a product of evolution has been developed rather than invented, and yet it seems probable that each of the separate signs, like the several steps that lead to any true invention, had a definite origin arising out of some appropriate occasion, and the same sign may in this manner have had many independent origins due to identity in the circumstances, or if lost, may have been reproduced. ”

“ The expedient of a "mean" may be practically useful in the formation of a mere interpreter's jargon, but it elucidates no principle. It is also convenient for any one determined to argue for the uniformity of sign language as against the variety in unity apparent in all the realms of nature. ”

“ The continually advancing civilization and continually increasing intercourse of countless ages has perfected oral speech, and as both, civilization and intercourse were possible with signs alone it is to be supposed that they would have advanced in some corresponding manner. But as sign language has been chiefly used during historic time either as a scaffolding around a more valuable structure to be thrown aside when the latter was completed, or as an occasional substitute, such development was not to be expected. ”

“ These clever but intelligible devices for making the sound follow the sense, show how easily man gets beyond mere imitation. Language is one branch of the great art of sign-making or sign-choosing, and its business is to hit upon some sound as a suitable sign or symbol for each thought. ”

“ By the aid of verbal signs we exercise an enormous power over all our faculties, for in repeating the sign we are enabled by the personal activity of our will to recall the image which it represents, and submit that image to our control. ”

“ 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. ”

“ While in spiritual matters, signs enable the minister to reach thousands where any other method of communication would reach the few. Spiritual truths told and explained in the language of signs reach the understanding and the conscience of the deaf child as no other means can possibly do. ”

“ It is also contended that in the pristine days, when the sounds of the only words yet formed had close connection with objects and the ideas directly derived from them, signs were as much more copious for communication than speech, as the sight embraces more and more distinct characteristics of objects than does the sense of hearing. ”

“ No vocabulary of signs will be exhaustive for the simple reason that the signs are exhaustless, nor will it be exact because there cannot be a correspondence between signs and words taken individually. Not only do words and signs both change their meaning from the context, but a single word may express a complex idea, to be fully rendered only by a group of signs, and, vice versa, a single sign may suffice for a number of words. The elementary principles by which the combinations in sign and in the oral languages of civilization are effected are also discrepant. ”