Democratic Sentinel, Volume 5, Number 1, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 February 1881 — Vocabulary of the Indian Sign Language. [ARTICLE]

Vocabulary of the Indian Sign Language.

An important and interesting work is being doue by the Bureau of Ethnology in collecting and publishing the vocabulary of the Indian sign language, which is a common means of communication for both the red and the white inhabitants of the plains. It will be one of the most remarkable contributions to ethnological knowledge, and will suggest also a common language like that which perished at the Tower of Babel, if that structure can be said to be any longer tenable against the assaults of science. The signification and form of sign communications are not identical with all the tribes of Indians, but they have this in common, that they all derived from the natural pantomine of the object to be described, and in many instances are as graceful and beautiful as they are graphic and expressive. They are the more readily learned, as they are not merely arbitrary like the sounds of a spoken language, but have always been treated with reference to the thing which they indicate, and a person of quick eye and vivid intelligence can readily interpret much the Indians are saying to each other with deft gestures,* or at least can very rapidly learn their i meaning. Some of the signs are new i revelations of the power to express mean- ■ ing by gestures, which would be valua- ■ ble to a Delsarte in teaching the gram- ! mar language of dramatic art. One cannot see a pair of Indians carrying on an animated conversation by means of free, rapid, and graceful gestures without getting a better idea of the expressiveness of the human heads and arms, and i what are used merely as the illustrations I to spoken eloquence than if he had witl nessed the dramatic action of a Fechter, I or the most accomplished and animated i actor of the stage, and he learns how ! much disuse can detract from or use give to that means of expression.—A T . Y. Commercial Advertiser.