Jasper County Democrat, Volume 9, Number 20, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 August 1906 — A Universal Language Exists. [ARTICLE]

A Universal Language Exists.

“A universal language has existed since man’s birth, the language of the gesture.” The speaker, an ethnologist, sharpened his left forefinger with his right forefinger as one sharpens a pencil. "That gesture means ‘Shame! Hiss for shame!’ he said. “It means that the world over. Use it on a savage woman in New Guinea or on the king of England, and both alike will understand yon.” He shook his list. “That is a threat,” he said. “The world over it is a threat.” Holding his forefinger a little to the right of hls z face, he shook it. “A warning," he said. "Wherever man exists, there the shaken forefinger means a warning.” “So,” he concluded, ‘‘l could go on indefinitely, giving you one by one the signs that compose our universal gesture language. Since this language exists and since everybody understands It, I see no reason why new universal languages should be continually Invented, particularly since these new ones are very difficult to learn.”— St. Louis Globe-Democrat.