, men would write in the order in which they
had been accustomed to speak. But if at a time when spoken language
was still rudimentary, intercourse being mainly carried on by signs,
figurative writing had been invented, the order of the figures would
be the order of the signs, and the same order would pass into the
spoken language. Hence LEIBNITZ says truly that "the writing of the
Chinese might seem to have been invented by a deaf person." The
oral language has not known the phases which have given to the
Indo-European tongues their formation and grammatical parts. In the
latter, signs were conquered by speech, while in the former, speech
received the yoke.

Sign language cannot show by inflection the reciprocal dependence
of words and sentences. Degrees of motion corresponding with vocal
intonation are only used rhetorically or for degrees of comparison.
The relations of ideas and objects are therefore expressed by
placement, and their connection is established when necessary by the
abstraction of ideas. The sign talker is an artist, grouping persons
and things so as to show the relations between them, and the effect
is that which is seen in a picture. But though the artist has the
advantage in presenting in a permanent connected scene the result of
several transient signs, he can only present it as it appears at
a single moment. The sign talker has the succession of time at his
disposal, and his scenes move and act, are localized and animated, and
their arrangement is therefore more varied and significant.

It is not satisfactory to give the order of equivalent words
as representative of the order of signs, because the pictorial
arrangement is wholly lost; but adopting this expedient as a
mere illustration of the sequence in the presentation of signs by
deaf-mutes, the following is quoted from an essay by Rev. J.R. Keep,
in _American Annals of the Deaf and Dumb_, vol. xvi, p. 223, as the
order in which the parable of the Prodigal Son is translated into
signs:

"Once, man one, sons two. Son younger say, Father property your
divide: part my, me give. Father so.--Son each, part his give. Days
few after, son younger money all take, country far go, money
spend, wine drink, food nice eat. Money by and by gone all. Country
everywhere food little: son hungry very. Go seek man any, me hire.
Gentleman meet. Gentleman son send field swine feed. Son swine husks
eat, see--self husks eat want--cannot--husks him give nobody. So