Anthropology

by Edward B. Tylor

When for any reason people cannot talk together by word of mouth, they take to conversing by gestures, in what is called dumb show or pantomime. Every reader of this has been able from childhood to carry on conversation in this way, more or less cleverly. Imagine a simple case. A boy opens the parlour door, his brother sitting there beckons to him to be quiet for his father is asleep; the boy now intimates by signs that he has come for the key of the box, to which his brother answers by other signs that it is in the pocket of his coat hanging in the hall, concluding with a significant gesture to be off and shut the door quietly after him. This is the gesture-language as we all know how to use it. But to see what a full and exact means of communication it may be worked up to, it should be watched in use among the deaf-and-dumb, who have to depend so much upon it. To give an idea how far gestures can be made to do the work of spoken words, the signs may be described in which a deaf-and-dumb man once told a child’s story in presence of the writer of this account. He began by moving his hand, palm down, about a yard from the ground, as we do to show the height of a child—this meant that it was a child he was thinking of. Then he tied an imaginary pair of bonnet-strings under his chin (his usual sign for female), to make it understood that the child was a little girl. The child’s mother was then brought on the scene in a similar way. She beckons to the child and gives her twopence, these being indicated by pretending to drop two coins from one hand into the other; if there had been any doubt as to whether they were copper or silver coins, this would have been settled by pointing to something brown, or even by one’s contemptuous way of handling coppers which at once distinguishes them from silver. The mother also gives the child a jar, shown by sketching its shape with the forefingers in the air, and going through the act of handing it over. Then by imitating the unmistakeable kind of twist with which one turns a treacle-spoon, it is made known that it is treacle the child has to buy. Next, a wave of the hand shows the child being sent off on her errand, the usual sign of walking being added, which is made by two fingers walking on the table. The turning of an imaginary door-handle now takes us into the shop, where the counter is shown by passing the flat hands as it were over it. Behind this counter a figure is pointed out; he is shown to be a man by the usual sign of putting one’s hand to one’s chin and drawing it down where the beard is or would be; then the sign of tying an apron round one’s waist adds the information that the man is the shopman. To him the child gives her jar, dropping the money into his hand, and moving her forefinger as if taking up treacle, to show what she wants. Then we see the jar put into an imaginary pair of scales which go up and down; the great treacle-jar is brought from the shelf and the little one filled, with the proper twist to take up the last trickling thread; the grocer puts the two coins in the till, and the little girl sets off with the jar. The deaf-and-dumb story-teller went on to show in pantomime how the child, looking down at the jar, saw a drop of treacle on the rim, wiped it off with her finger and put the finger in her mouth, how she was tempted to take more, how her mother found her out by the spot of treacle on her pinafore, and so forth.

The student anxious to master the principles of language will find this gesture-talk so instructive, that it will be well to explain its working more closely. The signs used are of two kinds. In the first kind things actually present are shown. Thus if the deaf-mute wants to mention “hand” or “shoe,” he touches his own hand or shoe. Where a speaking man would say “I,” “thou,” “he,” the deaf-mute simply points to himself and the other persons. To express “red” or “blue” he touches the inside of his own lip or points to the sky. In the second kind of signs ideas are conveyed by imitation. Thus pretending to drink may mean “water,” or “to drink,” or “thirsty.” Laying the cheek on the hand expresses “sleep” or “bedtime.” A significant jerk of the whip-hand suggests either “whip” or “coachman,” or “to drive,” as the case may be. A “lucifer” is indicated by pretending to strike a match, and “candle” by the act of holding up the forefinger like a candle and pretending to blow it out. Also in the gesture-language the symptoms of the temper one is in may be imitated, and so become signs of the same temper in others. Thus the act of shivering becomes an expressive sign for “cold”; smiles show “joy,” “approval,” “goodness,” while frowns show “anger,” “disapproval,” “badness.” It might seem that such various meanings to one sign would be confusing, but there is a way of correcting this, for when a single sign does not make the meaning clear, others are brought in to supplement it. Thus if one wants to express “a pen,” it may not be sufficient to pretend to write with one, as that might be intended for “writing” or “letter,” but if one then pretends to wipe and hold up a pen, this will make it plain that the pen itself is meant.

The signs hitherto described are self-expressive, that is, their meaning is evident on the face of them, or at any rate may be made out by a stranger who watches their use. Of such self-expressive or natural signs, the gesture-language mostly consists. But where deaf-mutes live together, there come into use among them signs which a stranger can hardly make out until it is explained to him how they arose. They will, for instance, mention one another by nickname-signs, as when a boy may be referred to by the sign of sewing, which on inquiry proves to have been given him because his father was a tailor. Such signs may be very far-fetched; for instance, at the Berlin Deaf-and-dumb Institution, the sign of chopping off a head means a Frenchman, and on inquiry it appears that the children, struck by reading of the death of Louis XVI. in the history-book, had fixed on this as a sign-name for the whole nation. But to any new child who learnt these signs without knowing why they were chosen, they would seem artificial.

Next to studying the gesture-language among the deaf-and-dumb, the most perfect way of making out its principles is in its use by people who can talk but do not understand one another’s language. Thus the celebrated sign-languages of the American prairies, in which conversation is carried on between hunting-parties of whites and natives, and even between Indians of different tribes, are only dialects (so to speak) of the gesture-language. Thus “water” is expressed by pretending to scoop up water in one’s hand and drink it, “stag” by putting one’s thumbs to one’s temples and spreading out the fingers. There is a great deal of variety in the signs among particular tribes, but such a way of communication is so natural all the world over, that when outlandish people, such as Laplanders, have been brought to be exhibited in our great cities, they have been comforted in their loneliness by meeting with deaf-and-dumb children, with whom they at once fell to conversing with delight in the universal language of signs. Signs to be understood in this way must be of the natural self-expressive sort. Yet here also there are some which a stranger might suppose to be artificial, till he learnt that they are old signs which have lost their once plain intention. Thus a North American sign for “dog” is to draw one’s two first fingers along like poles being trailed on the ground. This seemingly senseless sign really belongs to the days when the Indians had few horses, and used to fasten the tent-poles on the dogs to be dragged from place to place; though the dogs no longer have to do this, custom keeps up the sign.

It has to be noticed that the gesture-language by no means matches, sign for word, with our spoken language. One reason is that it has so little power of expressing abstract ideas. The deaf-mute can show particular ways of making things, such as building a wall or cutting out a coat, but it is quite beyond him to make one sign include what is common to all these, as we use the abstract term to “make.” Even “in” and “out” must be expressed in some such clumsy way as by pretending to put the thing talked of in, and take it out. Next let us compare an English sentence with the signs by which the same meaning would be expressed among the deaf-and-dumb. It will at once be seen that many words we use have no signs at all corresponding to them. Thus when we should say in words, “The hat which I left on the table is black,” this statement can be practically conveyed in gestures, and there will be signs for what we may call the “real” words, such as hat, leave, black. But for what may be called the “grammatical” words, the, which, is, there will be no signs, for the gesture-language has none. Again, grammars lay down distinctions between substantives, adjectives, and verbs. But these distinctions are not to be found in the gesture-language, where pointing to a grass-plot may mean “grass” or “green,” and pretending to warm one’s hands may suggest “warm” or “to warm oneself,” or even “fireplace.” Nor (unless where artificial signs have been brought in by teachers) is there anything in the gesture-language to correspond with the inflexions of words, such as distinguish goest from go, him from he, domum from domus. What is done is to call up a picture in the minds of the spectators by first setting up something to be thought about, and then adding to or acting on it till the whole story is told. If the signs do not follow in such order as to carry meaning as they go, the looker-on will be perplexed. Thus in conveying to a deaf-and-dumb child the thought of a green box, one must make a sign for “box” first, and then show, as by pointing to the grass outside, that its colour is “green.” The proper gesture-syntax is “box green,” and if this order were reversed as it is in the English language, the child might fail to see what grass had to do with a box. Such a sentence as English “cats kill mice” does not agree with the order of the deaf-mute’s signs, which would begin by showing the tiny mouse running, then the cat with her smooth fur and whiskers, and lastly the cat’s pouncing on the mouse—as it were “mouse cat kill.”

This account of the gesture-language will have made it clear to the reader by what easy and reasonable means man can express his thoughts in visible signs. The next step will be to show the working of another sort of signs, namely, the sounds of the human voice in language. Sounds of voice may be spoken as signs to express our feelings and thoughts on much the same principles as gestures are made, except that they are heard instead of being seen.

One kind of sounds used by men as signs, consists of emotional cries or tones. Men show pain by uttering groans as well as by distortion of face; joy is expressed by shouts as well as by jumping; when we laugh aloud, the voice and the features go perfectly together. Such sounds are gestures made with the voice, sound-gestures, and the greater number of what are called interjections are of this class. By means of such cries and tones, even the complicated tempers of sympathy, or pity, or vexation, can be shown with wonderful exactness. Let any one put on a laughing, sneering, or cross face, and then talk, he may notice how his tone of voice follows; the attitude of features belonging to each particular temper acts directly on the voice, especially in affecting the musical quality of the vowels. Thus the speaker’s tones become signs of the emotion he feels, or pretends to feel. That this mode of expression is in fact musical, is shown by its being imitated on the violin, which by altering its quality of tone can change from pain to joy. The human voice uses other means of expression belonging to music, such as the contrast of low and loud, slow and quick, gentle and violent, and the changes of pitch, now rising in the scale and now falling. A speaker, by skilfully managing these various means, can carry his hearer’s mind through moods of mild languor and sudden surprise, the lively movement of cheerfulness rising to eager joy, the burst of impetuous fury gradually subsiding to calm. We can all do this, and what is more, we do it without reference to the meaning of the words used, for emotion can be expressed and even delicately shaded off in pronouncing mere nonsense-syllables. For instance, the words of an Italian opera in England are to a great part of the audience mere nonsense-syllables serving as a means of musical and emotional expression. Clearly this kind of utterance ought to be understood by all mankind, whatever be the language they may happen to speak. It is so, for the most savage and outlandish tribes know how to make such interjections as ah! oh! express by their tone such feelings as surprise, pain, entreaty, threatening, disdain, and they understand as well as we do the growling ur-r-r! of anger, or the puh! of contempt.

The next class of sounds used as expressive signs are imitative. As a deaf-and-dumb child expresses the idea of a cat by imitating the creature’s act of washing its face, so a speaking child will indicate it by imitating its miaou. If the two children wish to show that they are thinking of a clock, the dumb one will show with his hand the swinging of the pendulum, while the speaking one will say “tick-tack.” Here again the sounds are gestures made with the voice, or sound-gestures. In this way an endless variety of objects and actions can be brought to mind by imitating their proper sounds. Not only do children delight in such vocal imitations, but they have come into ordinary language, as when people speak of the coo of the pigeon, the hee-haw of the donkey, the ding-dong of the bell, and the rat-tat of the knocker. It need hardly be said that these ways of expression are understood by mankind all the world over.

Now joining gesture-actions and gesture-sounds, they will form together what may be called a Natural Language. This natural language really exists, and in wild regions even has some practical value, as when a European traveller makes shift to converse in it with a party of Australians round their camp-fire, or with a Mongol family in their felt tent. What he has to do is to act his most expressive mimic gestures, with a running accompaniment of exclamations and imitative noises. Here then is found a natural means of intercourse, much fuller than mere pantomime of gestures only. It is a common language of all mankind, springing so directly from the human mind that it must have belonged to our race from the most remote ages and most primitive conditions in which man existed.

Here a very interesting question arises, on which every student has the means of experimenting for himself. How far are the communications of the lower animals, by their actions and sounds, like this natural language of mankind? Every one who attends to the ways of beasts and birds is sure that many of their movements and cries are not made as messages to one another, but are merely symptoms of the creature’s own state of mind; for instance, when lambs frisk in the meadow, or eager horses paw in the stable, or beasts moan when suffering severe pain. Animals do thus when not aware that any other creature is present, just as when a man in a room by himself will clench his fist in anger, or groan in pain, or laugh aloud. When gestures and cries serve as signals to other creatures, they come nearer to real signs. The lower animals as well as man do make gestures and cries which act as communications, being perceived by others, as when horses will gently bite one another to invite rubbing, or rabbits stamp on the ground and other rabbits answer, and birds and beasts plainly call one another, especially males and females at pairing-time. So distinct are the gestures and cries of animals under different circumstances, that by experience we know their meaning almost certainly. Human language does not answer its purpose more perfectly than the hen’s cluck to call her chickens, or the bellow of rage with which the bull, tossing his head, warns off a dog near his paddock. As yet, however, no observer has been able to follow the workings of mind even in the dog that jumps up for food and barks for the door to be opened. It is hard to say how far the dog’s mind merely associates jumping up with being fed, and barking with being let in, or how far it forms a conception like ours of what it is doing and why it does it. Anyhow, it is clear that the beasts and birds go so far in the natural language as to make and perceive gestures and cries as signals. But a dog’s mind seems not to go beyond this point, that a good imitation of a mew leads it to look for a cat in the room; whereas a child can soon make out from the nurse saying miaou that she means something about some cat, which need not even be near by. That is, a young child can understand what is not proved to have entered into the mind of the cleverest dog, elephant, or ape, that a sound may be used as the sign of a thought or idea. Thus, while the lower animals share with man the beginnings of the natural language, they hardly get beyond its rudiments, while the human mind easily goes on to higher stages.