g.
those of the Tasmanians, Greenlanders, savage tribes of Brazil, and Grebos
of Western Africa. In other cases speech is associated with inarticulate
sounds. These sounds have been compared to clicking and clapping, and
according to Sayce, these clickings and clappings survive as though to show
us how man when deprived of speech can fix and transmit his thoughts by
certain sounds. These mixed states represent articulate speech in its
primordial state; they represent the stage of transition from pure
pantomime to articulate speech.
It seems, then, that originally man had two languages at his disposal which
he used simultaneously or interchangeably. They supported each other in the
intercommunication of ideas, but speech has triumphed because of its
greater practical utility. The language of gesture is disadvantageous for
the following reasons: (1) it monopolises the use of the hands; (2) it has
the disadvantage that it does not carry any distance; (3) it is useless in
the dark; (4) it is vague in character; (5) it is imitative in nature and
permits only of the intercommunication of ideas based upon concrete images.
Speech, on the other hand, is transmitted in the dark and with objects
intervening; moreover, distance affects its transmission much less.
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