Following up the inquiry of Dr. Chervin in France, M. Hofler of Tolz has begun a similar investigation for Germany (263). He approves of the suggestion of Dr. Chervin, that the practice of cutting the frenum of the tongue has been induced by the inept name frenulwm, frein, Bändchen, given by anatomists to the object in question. According to H. Carstens the frenulum is called in Low German keekel-reem or kikkel-reem, which seems to be derived from käkeln, "to cry, shriek," and reem, "band, cord," so that the word really signifies "speech-band." If it is cut in children who have difficulty in speaking before the first year of life, or soon after, they will be cured of stuttering and made to speak well. To a man or woman who does a good deal of talking, who has "the gift of the gab," the expression Em (ehr) is de keekelreem gut snaden = "His (her) frenum has been well cut," is applied. In some parts of Low Germany the operation is performed for quite a different reason, viz., when the child's tongue cannot take hold of the mother's breast, but always slips off. Hofler mentions the old custom of placing beneath the child's tongue a piece of ash-bark (called Schwindholz), so that the organ of speech may not vanish (schwinden); this is done in the case of children who are hard of speech (263.191, 281).
Ploss states that in Konigsberg (Prussia) tickling the soles of the feet of a little child is thought to occasion stuttering; in Italy the child will learn to stutter, unless, after it has been weaned, it is given to drink for the first time out of a hand-bell (326. II. 286).
Among the numerous practices in vogue to hasten the child's acquisition of speech, or to make him ready and easy of tongue, are the following: some one returned from the communion breathes into the child's mouth (Austrian Silesia); the mother, when, after supper on Good Friday, she suckles the child for the last time, breathes into its mouth (Bohemia); the, child is given to drink water out of a cow-bell (Servia); when the child, on the arm of its mother, pays the first visit to neighbours or friends, it is presented with three eggs, which are pressed three times to his mouth, with the words, "as the hens cackle, the child learns to prattle" (Thuringia, the Erzgebirge, Bavaria, Franconia, and the Harz); when a child is brought to be baptized, one of the relatives must make a christening-letter (Pathenbrief), and, with the poem or the money contained in it, draw three crosses through the mouth of the child (Konigsberg) (326. II. 205).
Speech-Exercises.
Ploss has a few words to say about "Volksgebrauchliche Sprach- Exercitien," or "Zungen-Exercitien," the folk-efforts to teach the child to overcome the difficulties of speech (326. II. 285, 286), and more recently Treichel (373) has treated in detail of the various methods employed in Prussia. In these exercises examples and difficult words are given in several languages, alliteration, sibilation, and all quips and turns of consonantal and vocalic expression, word-position, etc., are in use to test the power of speech alike of child and adult. Treichel observes that in the schools even, use is made of foreign geographical names, names of mountains in Asia, New Zealand, and Aztec names in Mexico; the plain of Apapurinkasiquinilschiquasaqua, from Immermann's Munchhausen, is also cited as having been put to the like use. The title of doctors' dissertations in chemistry are also recommended (373. 124).
Following are examples of these test sentences and phrases from
German:—
(1) Acht und achtzig achteckige Hechtskopfe; (2) Bierbrauer Brauer braut braun Bier; (3) De donue Diewel drog den dicke Diewel dorch den dicke Dreek; (4) Esel essen Nosseln gern; (5) In Ulm imd um Ulm und urn Ulm herum; (6) Wenige wissen, wie viel sie wissen mussen, um zu wissen, wie wenig sie wissen; (7) Es sassen zwei zischende Schlangen zwischen zwei spitzigen Steinen und zischten dazwischen; (8) Nage mal de Boll Boll Boll Boll Boll Boll Boll Boll Boll; (9) Fritz, Fritz, friss frische Fische, Fritz; (10) Kein klein Kind kann keinen kleinen Kessel Kohl kochen.
There are alliterative sentences for all the letters of the alphabet, and many others more or less alliterative, while the humorous papers contain many exaggerated examples of this sort of thing. Of the last, the following on "Hottentottentaten" will serve as an instance:—
"In dem wilden Land der Kaftern,
Wo die Hottentotten trachten
Holie Hottentottentitel
Zu erwerben in den Schlachten,
Wo die Hottentottentaktik
Lasst ertonen fern und nah
Auf dem Hottentottentamtam
Hottentottentattratah;
Wo die Hottentottentrotteln,
Eh' sie stampfen stark und kuhn.
Hottentottentatowirung
An sioh selber erst vollzieh'n,
Wo die Hottentotten tuten
Auf dem Horn voll Eleganz
Und nachher mit Grazie tanzen
Hottentottentotentanz,—
Dorten bin ich mal gewesen
Und iclh habe schwer gelitten,
Weil ich Hottentotten trotzte,
Unter Hottentottentritten;
So 'ne Hottentottentachtel,
Die ist nämlich fürchterlich
Und ich leid' noch heute
An dem Hottentottentatterich" (373. 222).
In our older English, and American readers and spelling-books we meet with much of a like nature, and the use of these test-phrases and sentences has not yet entirely departed from the schools. Familiar are: "Up the high hill he heaved a huge round stone; around the rugged riven rock the ragged rascal rapid ran; Peter Piper picked a peck of prickly pears from the prickly-pear trees on the pleasant prairies," and many others still in use traditionally among the school-children of to-day, together with linguistic exercises of nonsense-syllables and the like, pronouncing words backwards, etc.