Mental Evolution in Man: Origin of Human Faculty

by George John Romanes

Talking birds—which happen to be the only animals whose vocal organs admit of uttering articulate sounds—show themselves capable of correctly using proper names, noun-substantives, adjectives, verbs, and appropriate phrases, although they do so by association alone, or without appreciation of grammatical structure. Words are to them vocal gestures, as immediately expressive of the logic of recepts as any other signs would be. Nevertheless, it is important to observe that this faculty of vocal gesticulation is the first phase of articulate speech in a growing child, is the last to disappear in the descending scale of idiocy, and is exhibited by talking birds in so considerable a degree that the animals even invent names (whether by making distinctive sounds, as a particular squeak for “nuts,” or by applying words to designate objects, as “half-past-two” for the name of the coachman)—such invention often clearly having an onomatopoetic origin, though likewise often wholly arbitrary.

I will now conclude this chapter by detailing evidence to show the extent to which, under favourable circumstances, young children will thus likewise invent arbitrary signs, which, however, for reasons already mentioned, are here almost invariably of an articulate kind. It would be easy to draw this evidence from sundry writers on the psychogenesis of children; but it will be sufficient to give a few quotations from an able writer who has already taken the trouble to collect the more remarkable instances which have been recorded of the fact in question. The writer to whom I allude is Mr. Horatio Hale, and the paper from which I quote is published in the Proceedings of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, vol. xxxv., 1886.

“In the year 1860 two children, twin boys, were born in a respectable family residing in a suburb of Boston. They were in part of German descent, their mother’s father having come from Germany to America at the age of seventeen; but the German language, we are told, was never spoken in the household. The children were so closely alike that their grandmother, who often came to see them, could only distinguish them by some coloured string or ribbon tied around the arm. As often happens in such cases, an intense affection existed between them, and they were constantly together. The remainder of their interesting story will be best told in the words of the writer, to whose enlightened zeal for science we are indebted for our knowledge of the facts.

“At the usual age these twins began to talk, but, strange to say, not their ‘mother-tongue.’ They had a language of their own, and no pains could induce them to speak anything else. It was in vain that a little sister, five years older than they, tried to make them speak their native language—as it would have been. They persistently refused to utter a syllable of English. Not even the usual first words, ‘papa,’ ‘mamma,’ ‘father,’ ‘mother,’ it is said, did they ever speak; and, said the lady who gave this information to the writer,—who was an aunt of the children, and whose home was with them,—they were never known during this interval to call their mother by that name. They had their own name for her, but never the English. In fact, though they had the usual affections, were rejoiced to see their father at his returning home each night, playing with him, &c., they would seem to have been otherwise completely taken up, absorbed with each other.... The children had not yet been to school; for, not being able to speak their ‘own English,’ it seemed impossible to send them from home. They thus passed the days, playing and talking together in their own speech, with all the liveliness and volubility of common children. Their accent was German—as it seemed to the family. They had regular words, a few of which the family learned sometimes to distinguish; as that, for example, for carriage, which, on hearing one pass in the street, they would exclaim out, and run to the window. This word for carriage, we are told in another place, was ‘ni-si-boo-a,’ of which, it is added, the syllables were sometimes so repeated that they made a much longer word.”

The next case is quoted by Mr. Hale from Dr. E. R. Hun, who recorded it in the Monthly Journal of Psychological Medicine, 1868.

“The subject of this observation is a girl aged four and a half years, sprightly, intelligent, and in good health. The mother observed, when she was two years old, that she was backward in speaking, and only used the words ‘papa’ and ‘mamma.’ After that she began to use words of her own invention, and though she understood readily what she said, never employed the words used by others. Gradually she enlarged her vocabulary until it has reached the extent described below. She has a brother eighteen months younger than herself, who has learned her language, so that they can talk freely together. He, however, seems to have adopted it only because he has more intercourse with her than the others; and in some instances he will use a proper word with his mother, and his sister’s word with her. She, however, persists in using only her own words, though her parents, who are uneasy about her peculiarity of speech, make great efforts to induce her to use proper words. As to the possibility of her having learned these words from others, it is proper to state that her parents are persons of cultivation, who use only the English language. The mother has learned French, but never uses the language in conversation. The domestics, as well as the nurses, speak English without any peculiarities, and the child has heard even less than usual of what is called baby-talk. Some of the words and phrases have a resemblance to the French; but it is certain that no person using that language has frequented the house, and it is doubtful whether the child has on any occasion heard it spoken. There seems to be no difficulty about the vocal organs. She uses her language readily and freely, and when she is with her brother they converse with great rapidity and fluency.

“Dr. Hun then gives the vocabulary, which, he states, was such as he had ‘been able at different times to compile from the child herself, and especially from the report of her mother.’ From this statement we may infer that the list probably did not include the whole number of words in this child-language. It comprises, in fact, only twenty-one distinct words, though many of these were used in a great variety of acceptations, indicated by the order in which they were arranged, or by compounding them in various ways....

“Three or four of the words, as Dr. Hun remarks, bear an evident resemblance to the French, and others might, by a slight change, be traced to that language. He was unable, it will be seen, to say positively that the girl had never heard the language spoken; and it seems not unlikely that, if not among the domestics, at least among the persons who visited them, there may have been one who amused herself, innocently enough, by teaching the child a few words of that tongue. It is, indeed, by no means improbable that the peculiar linguistic instinct may thus have been first aroused in the mind of the girl, when just beginning to speak. Among the words showing this resemblance are feu (pronounced, we are expressly told, like the French word), used to signify ‘fire, light, cigar, sun;’ too (the French ‘tout’), meaning ‘all, everything;’ and ne pa (whether pronounced as in French, or otherwise, we are not told), signifying ‘not.’ Petee-petee, the name given to the boy by his sister, is apparently the French ‘petit,’ little; and ma, ‘I,’ may be from the French ‘moi,’ ‘me.’ If, however, the child was really able to catch and remember so readily these foreign sounds at such an early age, and to interweave them into a speech of her own, it would merely show how readily and strongly in her case the language-making faculty was developed.

“Of words formed by imitation of sounds, the language shows barely a trace. The mewing of the cat evidently suggested the word mea, which signified both ‘cat’ and ‘furs.’ For the other vocables which make up this speech, no origin can be conjectured. We can merely notice that in some of the words the liking which children and some races of men have for the repetition of sounds is apparent. Thus we have migno-migno, signifying ‘water, wash, bath;’ go-go, ‘delicacies, as sugar, candy, or dessert,’ and waia-waiar, ‘black, darkness, or a negro.’ There is, as will be seen from these examples, no special tendency to the monosyllabic form. Gummigar, we are told, signifies ‘all the substantials of the table, such as bread, meat, vegetables, &c.;’ and the same word is used to designate the cook. The boy, it is added, does not use this word, but uses gna-migna, which the girl considers as a mistake. From which we may gather that even at their tender age the form of their language had become with them an object of thought; and we may infer, moreover, that the language was not invented solely by the girl, but that both the children contributed to frame it.