FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   154   155   156   157   158   159   160   161   162   163   164   165   166   167   168   169   170   171   172   173   174   175   176   177   178  
179   180   181   182   183   184   185   186   187   188   189   190   191   192   193   194   195   196   197   198   199   200   201   202   203   >>   >|  
rk would have been still more difficult and the result less intelligible. The facilities enjoyed of presenting pictorial illustrations have been of great value and will give still more assistance in the complete work than in the present paper. In connection with the subject of illustrations it may be noted that a writer in the _Journal of the Military Service Institution of the United States_, Vol. II, No. 5, the same who had before invented the mode of describing signs by "means" mentioned on page 330 _supra_, gives a curious distinction between deaf-mute and Indian signs regarding their respective capability of illustration, as follows: "This French system is taught, I believe, in most of the schools for deaf-mutes in this country, and in Europe; but so great has been the difficulty of fixing the hands in space, either by written description or illustrated cuts, that no text books are used. I must therefore conclude that the Indian sign language is not only the more natural, but the more simple, as the gestures can be described quite accurately in writing, and I think can be illustrated." The readers of this paper will also, probably, "think" that the signs of Indians can be illustrated, and as the signs of deaf-mutes are often identical with the Indian, whether expressing the same or different ideas, and when not precisely identical are always made on the same principle and with the same members, it is not easy to imagine any greater difficulty either in their graphic illustration or in their written description. The assertion is as incorrect as if it were paraphrased to declare that a portrait of an Indian in a certain attitude could be taken by a pencil or with the camera while by some occult influence the same artistic skill would be paralysed in attempting that of a deaf-mute in the same attitude. In fact, text books on the "French system" are used and one in the writer's possession published in Paris twenty-five years ago, contains over four hundred illustrated cuts of deaf-mute gesture signs. The proper arrangement and classification of signs will always be troublesome and unsatisfactory. There can be no accurate translation either of sentences or of words from signs into written English. So far from the signs representing words as logographs, they do not in their presentation of the ideas of actions, objects, and events, under physical forms, even suggest words, which must be skillfully fitted to them by
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   154   155   156   157   158   159   160   161   162   163   164   165   166   167   168   169   170   171   172   173   174   175   176   177   178  
179   180   181   182   183   184   185   186   187   188   189   190   191   192   193   194   195   196   197   198   199   200   201   202   203   >>   >|  



Top keywords:
illustrated
 

Indian

 

written

 
system
 
French
 
illustration
 

description

 

identical

 

difficulty

 

attitude


writer
 
illustrations
 

skillfully

 

camera

 

pencil

 

fitted

 

occult

 

attempting

 

paralysed

 

influence


artistic
 

imagine

 

members

 
principle
 

precisely

 
difficult
 
greater
 

paraphrased

 

declare

 

portrait


graphic

 

assertion

 
incorrect
 
possession
 

published

 
English
 

accurate

 

translation

 

sentences

 

representing


objects

 

events

 
actions
 

presentation

 
logographs
 
unsatisfactory
 

suggest

 

twenty

 
classification
 

troublesome