All new-born human beings are deaf or hard of hearing, as has already been demonstrated. Since the hearing but slowly grows more acute during the first days, no utterances of sound at this period can be regarded as responses to any sound-impressions whatever. The first cry is purely reflexive, like the croaking of the decapitated frog when the skin of his back is stroked (Vol. I, p. 214). The cry is not heard by the newly-born himself and has not the least value as language. It is on a par with the squeaking of the pig just born, the bleating of the new-born lamb, and the peeping of the chick that is breaking its shell.
Upon this first, short season of physiological deaf-mutism follows the period during which crying expresses bodily conditions, feelings such as pain, hunger, cold. Here, again, there exists as yet no connection of the expressive phenomena with acoustic impressions, but there is already the employment of the voice with stronger expiration in case of strong and disagreeable excitations of other sensory nerves than those of general sensation and of the skin. For the child now cries at a dazzling light also, and at a bitter taste, as if the unpleasant feeling were diminished by the strong motor discharge. In any case the child cries because this loud, augmented expiration lessens for him the previously existing unpleasant feelings, without exactly inducing thereby a comfortable condition.
Not until later does a sudden sound-impression, which at first called forth only a start and then a quivering of the eyelids, cause also crying. But this loud sign of fright may be purely reflexive, just like the silent starting and throwing up of the arms at a sudden noise, and has at most the significance of an expression of discomfort, like screaming at a painful blow.
It is otherwise with the first loud response to an acoustic impression recognized as new. The indefinable sounds of satisfaction made by the child that hears music for the first time are no longer reflexive, and are not symptoms of displeasure. I see in this reaction, which may be compared with the howling of the dog that for the first time in his life hears music—I see in this reaction of the apparatus of voice and of future speech, the first sign of the connection now just established between impressive (acoustic) and expressive (having the character of emotive language) paths. The impressive, separately, were long since open, as the children under observation after the first week allowed themselves to be quieted by the singing of cradle-songs, and the expressive, separately, must likewise have been open, since various conditions were announced by various sorts of crying.
Everything now depends on a well-established intercentral communication between the two. This is next to be discussed.
The primitive connection is already an advance upon that of a reflex arc. The sound-excitations arriving from the ear at the central endings of the auditory nerve are not directly transformed into motor excitations for the laryngeal nerves, so that the glottis contracts to utter vocal sound. When the child (as early as the sixth to the eighth week) takes pleasure in music and laughs aloud, his voice can not in this case (as at birth) have been educed by reflex action, for without a cerebrum he would not laugh or utter joyous sounds, whereas even without that he cries.
From this, however, by no means follows the existence of a speech-center in the infant. The fact that he produces sounds easily articulated, although without choice, like tahu and amma, proves merely the functional capacity of the peripheral apparatus of articulation (in the seventh week) at a period long before it is intentionally used for articulation. The unintentionally uttered syllables that make their appearance are, to be sure, simple, at least in the first half-year. It is vowels almost exclusively that appear in the first month, and these predominate for a long time yet. Of the consonants in the third month m alone is generally to be noted as frequent. This letter comes at a later period also, from the raising and dropping of the lower jaw in expiration, an operation that is besides soon easy for the infant with less outlay of will than the letter b, which necessitates a firmer closing of the lips.
But in spite of the simplicity of all the vocal utterances and of the defectiveness of the articulatory apparatus, the child is able (often long before the seventh month) to respond to address, questions, chiding, either with inarticulate sounds or with vowels or by means of simple syllables, like pa, ta, ma, na, da, mä, mö, gö, rö [a as in father; ä as in fate; ö like i in bird.] Since these responses are entirely, or almost entirely, lacking in microcephali and in children born deaf, they are not purely reflexive, like sneezing, e. g.; therefore there must be in the case of these a cerebral operation also, simple indeed, but indubitably intellectual, interposed between sound-perception and vocal utterance, especially as the infant behaves differently according to what he hears, and he discriminates very well the stern command from the caress, forbidding from allowing, in the voice of the person speaking to him. Yet it is much more the timbre, the accent, the pitch, the intensity of the voice and the sounds, the variation of which excites attention, than it is the spoken word. In the first half-year the child hears the vowels much better than he does the consonants, and will imperfectly understand or divine the sense of a few sounds only—e. g., when his name is uttered in a threatening tone he will hear merely the accented vowel, for at the first performance taught him, purposely postponed to a very late period (in his thirteenth month), it made no difference to my child whether we asked without changing a feature, "Wie gross?" (how tall?) or "ooss?" or "oo?" In all three cases he answered with the same movement of the hand.
Now, although all infants in normal condition, before they can repeat anything after others or can understand any word whatever, express their feelings by various sounds, even by syllables, and distinguish vowels and many consonants in the words spoken to them, yet this does not raise them above the intelligent animal. The response to friendly address and loud chiding by appropriate sounds is scarcely to be distinguished as to its psychical value from the joyous barking and whining of the poodle.
The pointer-dog's understanding of the few spoken utterances that are impressed upon him in his training is also quite as certain at least as the babe's understanding of the jargon of the nurse. The correctly executed movements or arrests of movement following the sound-impressions "Setz dich! Pfui! Zurück! Vorwärts! Allez! Fass! Apporte! Such! Verloren! Pst! Lass! Hierher! Brav! Leid's nicht! Ruhig! Wahr Dich! Hab Acht! Was ist das! Pfui Vogel! Pfui Hase! Halt!" prove that the bird-dog understands the meaning of the sounds and syllables and words heard as far as he needs to understand them. The training in the English language accomplishes the same result with "Down! Down charge! Steady! Toho! Fetch! Hold up!" as the training in the French language, with yet other words—so that we can by no means assume any hereditary connection whatever between the quality of the sound heard and the movement or arrest of movement to be executed, such as may perhaps exist in the case of the chick just hatched which follows the clucking of the hen. Rather does the dog learn afresh in every case the meaning of the words required for hunting, just as the speechless child comprehends the meaning of the first words of its future language without being able to repeat them himself—e. g., "Give! Come! Hand! Sh! Quiet!" Long before the child's mechanism of articulation is so far developed that these expressions can be produced by him, the child manifests his understanding of them unequivocally by corresponding movements, by gestures and looks, by obedience.