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Show 12 THE TSINUK JAEGON. creditable both to the readiness of the King in an emergency and. to the aptness of his people, the main distinction being that in Italy there was a recognized and cultivated language of signs long disused in Great Britain. As the number of dialects in any district decreases so will the gestures, though doubtless there is also influence from the fact not merely that a language has been reduced to and modified by writing, but that people who are accustomed generally to read and write, as are the English and Germans, will after a time think and talk as they write, and without the accompaniments still persistent among Hindus, Arabs, and the less literate Europeans. Many instances are shown of the discontinuance of gesture- speech with no development in the native language of the gesturers, but from the invention for intercommunication of one used in common. The Kalapuyas of Southern Oregon until recently used a sign- language, but have gradually adopted for foreign intercourse the composite tongue, commonly called the Tsinuk or Chinook jargon, which probably arose for trade purposes on the Columbia River before the advent of Europeans, founded on the Tsinuk, Tsihali, Nutka, & c, but now enriched by English and French terms, and have nearly forgotten their old signs. The prevalence of this mongrel speech, originating in the same causes that produced the pigeon- English or lingua- franca of the Orient, explains the marked scantness of sign- language among the tribes of the Northwest coast. No explanation is needed for the disuse of that mode of communication when the one of surrounding civilization is recognized as necessary or important to be acquired, aud gradually becomes known as the best common medium, even before it is actually spoken by many individuals of the several tribes. IS INDIAN SIGN LANGUAGE UNIVERSAL AND IDENTICAL! The assertion has been made by many writers, and is currently repeated by Indian traders and some Army officers, that all the tribes of North America have had and still use a common and identical sign- language of ancient origin, in which they can communicate freely without oral assistance. The fact that this remarkable statement is at variance with some of the principles of the formation and use of signs set forth by Dr. TYLOR, |
