Their facial 'grimaces,'
fulfilled and elucidated by gesture, became signs for others; they fixed
their attention upon them. When articulate sounds came into being, these
lent themselves to a more or less conventional language by reason of their
acquired importance." For support of this hypothesis the case of
non-educated deaf-mutes is cited. They invent articulate sounds which they
cannot hear and use them to designate certain things. Moreover, they employ
gesture language--a language which is universally understood.
Another theory of the origin of the speaking voice is that speech is an
instinct not evolved, but breaking forth spontaneously in man; but even if
this be so, it was originally so inadequate and weak that it required
support from the gesture language to become intelligible. This mixed
language still survives among some of the inferior races of men. Miss
Kingsley and Tylor have pointed out that tribes in Africa have to gather
round the camp fires at night in order to converse, because their
vocabulary is so incomplete that without being reinforced by gesture and
pantomime they would be unable to communicate with one another. Gesture is
indispensable for giving precision to vocal sounds in many languages, e.
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