Nor can the sign-talk have changed radically, for it is founded on the basic elements of human make-up, and on mathematics, and is so perfectly ideographic that no amount of bad presentation can completely divert attention from the essential thought to the vehicle; while punning is an impossibility.
It had all the inherent possibilities of speech, was indeed capable of even greater subtleties, as we have noted, and had a far greater distance range, three or four times that of spoken words.
In view of the greater antiquity and many advantages that hand gestures have over spoken language, one is prompted to ask: Why did it not develop and continue man’s chief mode of inter-communication? The answer is, doubtless, partly because it was useless in the dark or when the person was out of sight or partly hidden by intervening things. Diagrammatically expressed it was thus:
Speech therefore covers all directions night and day.
Gesture covers one-third of the circle in hours of light.
Therefore speech serves six times as many occasions as gesture.
But the chief reason for the triumph of the appeal to the ear is doubtless because the hands were in constant use for other things; the tongue was not; was indeed practically free to specialize for this end.
ITS UNIVERSALITY
Being so fundamental, ancient, and persistent, Sign Language is, perforce, universal. In some measure it is used by every race on earth to-day. Eskimo and Zulu, Japanese and Frenchman, Turk and Aztec, Greek and Patagonian. And whenever two men of hopelessly diverse