Page:Primitive Culture Vol 1.djvu/203

Rh of wonder and reverence, the hai-yah! so well known in the Pigeon-English of the Chinese ports, and even, to take an extreme case, the interjections of surprise among the Algonquin Indians, where men say tiau! and women nyau! It is much the same with expressions which are not uttered for the speaker's satisfaction, but are calls addressed to another. Thus the Siamese call of hē! the Hebrew ''he! ha!'' for 'lo! behold!' the hói! of the Clallam Indians for 'stop!' the Lummi hái! for 'hold, enough!' — these and others like them belong just as much to English. Another class of interjections are such as any one conversant with the gesture-signs of savages and deaf-mutes would recognize as being themselves gesture signs, made with vocal sound, in short, voice-gestures. The sound m'm, m'n, made with the lips closed, is the obvious expression of the man who tries to speak, but cannot. Even the deaf-and-dumb child, though he cannot hear the sound of his own voice, makes this noise to show that he is dumb, that he is mu mu, as the Vei negroes of West Africa would say. To the speaking man, the sound which we write as mum! says plainly enough 'hold your tongue!'  'mum's the word!' and in accordance with this meaning has served to form various imitative words, of which a type is Tahitian mamu, to be silent. Often made with a slight effort which aspirates it, and with more or less continuance, this sound becomes what may be indicated as 'm, 'n, h'm, h'n, &c., interjections which are conventionally written down as words, ''hem! ahem! hein!'' Their primary sense seems in any case that of hesitation to speak, of 'humming and hawing,' but this serves with a varied intonation to express such hesitation or refraining from articulate words as belongs either to surprise, doubt or enquiry, approbation or contempt. In the vocabulary of the Yorubas of West Africa, the nasal interjection huñ is rendered, just as it might be in English, as 'fudge!' Rochefort describes the Caribs listening in reverent silence to their chief's discourse, and testifying