Part 2 (1/2)
Professor SAYCE, in his late work, _Introduction to the Science of Language, London_, 1880, gives the origin of language in gestures, in onomatopoeia, and to a limited extent in interjectional cries
He concludes it to be the ordinary theory of es are traced back to a certain number of abstract roots, each of which was a sort of sentence in embryo, and while he does not admit this as usually presented, he believes that there was a time in the history of speech, when the articulate or semi-articulate sounds uttered by priht by the gestures hich they were acco to the present writer as he had advanced much the same views in his first publication on the subject in the following paragraph, now reproduced with greater confidence:
”Frouistic scholars have recently decided that both the 'bo' and the 'ding-dong' theories are unsatisfactory; that the search for imitative, onoin of human speech has been too exclusive, and that e have been founded in the involuntary sounds acco certain actions
As, however, the action was the essential, and the consequent or concomitant sound the accident, it would be expected that a representation or feigned reproduction of the action would have been used to express the idea before the sound associated with that action could have been separated froestures, which even yet have been subjected to but slight artificial corruption, would therefore serve as a key to the audible 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 frons were as ht embraces more and more distinct characteristics of objects than does the sense of hearing”
_CONCLUSIONS_
The preponderance of authority is in favor of the view that man, when in the possession of all his faculties, did not choose between voice and gesture, both being originally instinctive, as they both are now, and never, with those faculties, was in a state where the one was used to the absolute exclusion of the other The long neglected work of Dalgarno, published in 1661, is now admitted to shoisdom when he says: ”_non uris _quam_ Sonis: _quorum utrumque dico homini_ naturale” With the voice esture he exhibited actions, motions, positions, forms, dimensions, directions, and distances, and their derivatives It would appear from this unequal division of capacity that oral speech reesture had become an art With the concession of all purely ians under excitement, it is still true that the connection between ideas and words generally depended upon a compact between the speaker and hearer which presupposes the existence of a prior esture, which, in the apposite phrase of Professor SAYCE, ”like the rope-bridges of the Himalayas or the Andes, formed the first rude means of comladly accepted provisionally as a clue leading out of the labyrinth of philologic confusion
For the purpose of the present paper there is, however, no need of an absolute decision upon the priority between communication of ideas by bodily h to admit that the connection between theestures, in the wide sense indicated of presenting ideas under physical forms, had a direct formative effect upon many words; that they exhibit the earliest condition of the hu all peoples possessing records; are generally prevalent in the savage stage of social evolution; survive agreeably in the scenic pantomime, and still adhere to the ordinary speech of civilized man by motions of the face, hands, head, and body, often involuntary, often purposely in illustration or for emphasis
It ns to be described, even those of present world-wide prevalence, are presented as precisely those of prins as well as words, anie, their births and deaths, and their struggle for existence with survival of the fittest It is, however, thought probable from reasons hereinafter mentioned that their radicals can be ascertained with more precision than those of words
HISTORY OF GESTURE LANGUAGE
There is ample evidence of record, besides that derived froesture speech was of great antiquity Livy so declares, and Quintilian specifies that the ”_lex gestusab illis temporibus heroicis orta est_” Plato classed its practice a the proper education of freeestures were even reduced to distinct classification with appropriate tery The class suited to coedy Eumelia, and that for satire Sicinnis, from the inventor Sicinnus Bathyllus from these formed a fourth class, adapted to pantomime This system appears to have been particularly applicable to theatrical perforave estures in oratory, which are specially noticeable froers He attributed to each particular disposition a significance or suitableness which are not now obvious
Some of them are retained by modern orators, but without the sa, and others are wholly disused
[Illustration: Fig 61]
The value of these digital arrange the modern Italians, to whom they have directly descended
Fro is selected Fig
61 is copied froesture described by Quintilian: ”The fore finger of the right hand joining the middle of its nail to the extre the rest of the fingers, is graceful in _approving_” Fig 62 is taken fro ood” Both of thesethe North American Indians to express affire of these details it is possible to believe the story of Macrobius that Cicero used to vie with Roscius, the celebrated actor, as to which of thereater variety of ways, the one by gesture and the other by speech, with the apparent result of victory to the actor as so satisfied with the superiority of his art that he wrote a book on the subject
[Illustration: Fig 62]
Gestures were treated of with still more distinction as connected with pantomimic dances and representations aeschylus appears to have brought theatrical gesture to a high degree of perfection, but Telestes, a dancer employed by hi steps, and subordinated to motions of the hands, arreat an artist, says Athenaeus, that when he represented the _Seven before Thebes_ he rendered every circuestures alone
Froht to Roht of that Emperor and his friend Maecenas Bathyllus, of Alexandria, was the first to introduce it to the Roerous rival in Pylades The latter was ay and sportive All Rome was split into factions about their respective uished performer of his own time (he died AD 194) na philosopher,” because he shohat the Pythagorean philosophy could do by exhibiting in silence everything with stronger evidence than they could who professed to teach the arts of language In the reign of Nero, a celebrated pantomimist who had heard that the cynic philosopher Demetrius spoke of the art with contempt, prevailed upon him to witness his performance, with the result that the cynic, more and more astonished, at last cried out aloud, ”Man, I not only see, but I hear what you do, for to me you appear to speak with your hands!”
[Illustration: Fig 63]
Lucian, who narrates this in his work _De Saltatione_, gives another tribute to the talent of, perhaps, the same performer A barbarian prince of Pontus (the story is told elsewhere of Tyridates, King of Are to the Emperor Nero, and been taken to see the pantomimes, was asked on his departure by the Emperor what present he would have as a ht have the principal panto asked why he hbors who spoke such various and discordant languages that he found it difficult to obtain any interpreter who could understand them or explain his commands; but if he had the dancer he could by his assistance easily eneral effect of these pantomimes is often mentioned, there remain but few detailed descriptions of them Apuleius, however, in the tenth book of his _Metaives sufficient details of the perforly resembled the best form of ballet opera known in reatly in favor that, according to Ammianus Marcellinus, there were in Rome in the year 190 six thousand persons devoted to the art, and that when a fah besides all the strangers all the philosophers were forced to leave Their popularity continued until the sixth century, and it is evident frone that they were not lost, or at least, had been revived in his tiinal Ravel troupe will adnificence or perfection, especially with reference to serious subjects, which it exhibited in the age of i the post-classic works upon gesture is that of the venerable Bede (who flourished AD 672-735) _De Loquela per Gestuitatione_ So much discussion had indeed been carried on in reference to the use of signs for the desideratuned to be occult andof the sixteenth century, who, however satirical, never spent his force upon matters of little ilish philosopher, Thauns only, without speaking, for the matters are so abstruse, hard, and arduous, that words proceeding fro of the”
The earliest contributions of practical value connected with the subject were arno, of Aberdeen, in torks, one published in London, 1661, entitled _Ars Signoruua philosophica_, and the other printed at Oxford, 1680, entitled, _Didascalocophus, or the Deaf and Dumb Man's Tutor_ He spent his life in obscurity, and his works, though he was incidentally arus,”
passed into oblivion Yet he undoubtedly was the precursor of Bishop Wilkins in his _Essay toward a Real Character and a Philosophical Language_, published in London, 1668, though indeed the first idea was far older, it having been, as reported by Piso, the wish of Galen that sos by such peculiar signs and naarno's ideas respecting the education of the duh they were too refined and enlightened to be appreciated at the period when he wrote, they probably were used by Dr Wallis if not by Sicard
Sohts should be quoted: ”As I think the eye to be as docile as the ear; so neither see I any reason but the hand ue; and as soon brought to forue to iraph prophetic of the late success in educating blind deaf-mutes is as follows: ”The soul can exert her powers by the ministry of any of the senses: and, therefore, when she is deprived of her principal secretaries, the eye and the ear, then she must be contented with the service of her lackeys and scullions, the other senses; which are no less true and faithful to their mistress than the eye and the ear; but not so quick for dispatch”