struction, as these examples show. "It seems," says Steinthal, "that the speech of the Chinese hastens toward the conclusion, and brings the end prominently forward. In the described position of the three relations of speech the more important member stands last."[1] A more absolute contradiction of the leading principle of the gesture-syntax could hardly have been formulated in words.
The theory that the gesture-language was the original language of man, and that speech came afterwards, has been already mentioned. We have no foundation to build such a theory upon, but there are several questions bearing upon the matter which are well worth examining. Before doing so, however, it will be well to look a little more closely into the claim of the gesture- language to be considered as a means of utterance independent of speech.
In the first place, an absolute separation between the two things is not to be found within the range of our experience. Though the deaf-mute may not speak himself, yet the most of what he knows, he only knows by means of speech, for he learns from the gestures of his parents and companions what they learnt through words. We speak conventionally of the uneducated deaf-and-dumb, but every deaf-and-dumb child is educated more or less by living among those who speak, and this education begins in the cradle. And on the other hand, no child attains to speech independently of the gesture-language, for it is in great measure by means of such gestures as pointing, nodding, and so forth, that language is first taught.
In old times, when the mental capacity of the deaf-and-dumb was little known, it was thought by the Greeks that they were incapable of education, since hearing, the sense of instruction, was wanting to them. Quite consistent with this notion is the confusion which runs through language between mental stupidity, and deafness, dumbness, and even blindness. Surdus means "deaf," and also "stupid;" a hollow nut is a deaf-nut, taube Nuss; κωφός means dumb, deaf, stupid. "Speechless" (infans, νήπιος being a natural term for a child, in a similar way
- ↑ Steinthal, 'Charakteristik der hanptsächlichsten Typen des Sprachbaues;' Berlin, 1860, p. 114, etc.
