"Flower-Names."
The people who seem to have gone farthest in the way of words for "child" are the Andaman Islanders, who have an elaborate system of nomenclature from the first year to the twelfth or fifteenth, when childhood may be said to end. There are also in use a profusion of "flower-names" and complimentary terms. The "flower-names" are confined to girls and young women who are not mothers. The following list shows the peculiarity of the name-giving:—
1. Proper name chosen before birth of child: .dô'ra.
2. If child turns out to be a boy, he is called: .dô'ra-ô'ta; if a girl, .dô'ra-kâ'ta; these names (ô'ta and kâ'ta refer to the genital organs of the two sexes) are used during the first two or three years only.
3. Until he reaches puberty, the boy is called: .dô'ra dâ'la, and the girl, .dô'ra-po'il'ola.
4. When she reaches maturity, the girl is said to be ún-lâ-wi, or â'kà-lá-wi, and receives a "flower-name" chosen from the one of "the eighteen prescribed trees which blossom in succession" happening to be in season when she attains womanhood.
5. If this should occur in the middle of August, when the Pterocarpus dalbergoides, called châ'langa, is in flower, ".dô'ra-po-ilola would become .chà'garu dô'ra, and this double name would cling to the girl until she married and was a mother, then the 'flower' name would give way to the more dignified term chän'a (madam or mother).dô'ra; if childless, a woman has to pass a few years of married life before she is called chän'a, after which no further change is made in her name."
Much other interesting information about name-giving may be found in the pages of Mr. Man's excellent treatise on this primitive people (498. 59-61; 201-208).
Sign Language.
Interesting details about signs and symbols for "child" may be found in
the elaborate article of Colonel Mallery on "Sign Language among North
American Indians" (497a), and the book of Mr. W. P. Clark on Indian
Sign Language (420).