Page:Researches into the Early History of Mankind and the Development of Civilization.djvu/44



is another department of the gesture-language which has reached nearly as high a development as that in use among the deaf-mutes. Men who do not know one another's language are to each other as though they were dumb. Thus Sophocles uses, "tongueless," for "barbarian," as contrasted with "Greek ;" and the Russians, to this day, call their neighbours the Germans, "Njemez,"—that is, speechless, njemou meaning dumb. When men who are thus dumb to one another have to communicate without an interpreter, they adopt all over the world the very same method of communication by signs, which is the natural language of the deaf-mutes.

Alexander von Humboldt has left on record, in the following passage, his experiences of the gesture-language among the Indians of the Orinoco, in districts where it often happens that small, isolated tribes speak languages of which even their nearest neighbours can hardly understand a word:—" 'After you leave my mission,' said the good monk of Uruana, 'you will travel like mutes.' This prediction was almost accomplished; and, not to lose all the advantage that is to be had from intercourse even with the most brutalized Indians, we have sometimes preferred the language of signs. As soon as the native sees that you do not care to employ an interpreter, as soon as you ask him direct questions, pointing the object out to him, he comes out of his habitual apathy, and displays a rare intelligence in making himself understood. He varies his signs, pronounces his words slowly, and repeats them without being asked. His amour-propre seems flattered by the consequence you accord to him by letting him instruct you. This facility of making