Читать книгу Elements of Folk Psychology - Wilhelm Max Wundt - Страница 14

Our knowledge of those peoples whom we, avoiding the errors of the past, may now regard as primitive, led to the conviction that the Asiatic and African tribes described above were actually primitive, in the above-mentioned relative sense of the word. Naturally the question concerning the language of these peoples then began to arouse considerable attention, on the part, not only of ethnologists, but also of those interested in philology. The question is of equal importance, to say the least, for the psychologist. For language is bound up with thought. From the phenomena of language, therefore, we may draw inferences concerning the most general characteristics of thought. Such fundamental differences of language as exist, for example, between the Chinese and the Indo-Germanic tongues do not, of course, allow the direct conclusion that there are quantitative differences in mental culture. They do imply, however, that there are divergent directions and forms of thought. In their ceaseless change, the latter react upon language, and this, in turn, again influences mental characteristics. We cannot suppose that, in the period of Old High German, much less in that of the original German, our ancestors employed the same forms of thought with which we of to-day are familiar. To a lesser degree, similar changes have undoubtedly transpired within much shorter spaces of time.

These considerations make the question concerning the language of primitive man of the utmost psychological importance. Linguistic investigations, however, so far as they, in their early attempts, had been able to survey the field, had brought to light a fact which discouraged all efforts to discover an original language. Indeed, it was inevitable that at first glance this discovered fact should have appeared exceedingly strange, particularly when viewed in connection with the life of primitive man. It appeared that, for the most part, the original languages of primitive tribes no longer exist. It is true that in the vocabularies of the Semangs and Senoi of Malacca, of the Veddahs of Ceylon, of the Negritos of the Philippines, and in other vocabularies that have been collected, single words may be found which do not occur in the languages of the neighbouring tribes; and it is noteworthy that the bow and arrow are the objects most frequently designated by such words, a proof of the fact that these are really relatively primitive inventions. On the whole, however, the Veddahs speak the language of the Singhalese and Tamils; the Semangs and Senoi, as well as the Negritos of the Philippines, that of their neighbours, the Malays; similarly, among the African tribes, the Pygmies of Central Africa have apparently appropriated the language of the Monbuttus and other negro races, and the Bushmen that of the Hottentots.

How may this remarkable fact be explained? That these tribes formerly possessed languages of their own can scarcely be doubted. For, as respects physical characteristics, they are absolutely distinct races. Considering their characteristics as a whole, moreover, it is utterly impossible that they could have lacked language before coming into contact with the peoples who entered the country at a later period. How, then, did these people come apparently to lose their original language? To this we may briefly reply that there here transpired what always occurs when the well-known principle of the struggle for existence is applied to the field of mental phenomena. The stronger race crowded out the most important mental creation of the weaker, its language. The language of the weaker race, which was probably very meagre, succumbed to a language that was more highly developed. At first glance, this explanation would appear to contradict what we know concerning the life of these primitive tribes. With what anxiety they isolate themselves from their neighbours! A striking proof of this is offered by the practice of secret barter, in which primitive man sets out from the forest, if possible by night, and deposits his captured game at a place which custom has set apart for this purpose, returning the next night to take whatever the more civilized neighbouring tribes have left in exchange—iron implements and weapons, material for clothing, and especially articles of adornment. The participants in this barter do not see each other, much less speak with each other. But where such seclusion exists, how is it possible for a strange language to penetrate? This problem appears almost insoluble. Nevertheless, a solution that appears at least probable was suggested by the investigations of Kern, an able Dutch scholar. His studies were based mainly on the development of the various Malayan idioms. A remarkable exception to the rule that primitive tribes have adopted the language of their more civilized neighbours came to light in the case of the Negritos of the Philippines. Their neighbours, as well as those of the tribes of the interior of Malacca, belong to that much-migrating race, the Malayans. If we compare the Negrito word-formations that have been collected during the past forty years with the vocabulary of the neighbouring Malayans, it is evident that all the words are entirely different, or at least seem to be so with few exceptions. When, however, Kern traced the probable development of these words, and compared them, not with the present-day usage of the Malays but with older stages of their language, he found that the latter invariably contained the counterparts of the Negrito words. Thus, while these Negritos have remained untouched by the present-day Malays, who probably entered the country at least several centuries ago, they have evidently derived their language from a Malayan influx that occurred much earlier still. To this may be added the demonstrable fact, gleaned from another source, that from very early times the Malayan tribes undertook migrations at widely separated intervals. Traversing the seas in their unsteady boats, they at various times peopled such islands, in particular, as were not too remote from the mainland. Now the testimony of language, to which we have referred, demonstrates that there were at least two such migrations to the Philippines, and that they occurred at widely different times. The original Malayan dialect, which has now become extinct or unknown to the modern Malays, was assimilated by the Negrito peoples, who probably occupied this territory before the arrival of any of the Malays. But this leads to a further inference. If the language was appropriated in prehistoric times and if the conditions of the present are such as would make this scarcely possible, we must conclude that the interrelations of the immigrants and the original inhabitants were formerly not the same as those that now prevail. And, as a matter of fact, this seems altogether probable, if we call to mind the descriptions which modern travellers give of their experiences among these primitive peoples. The traits of character that particularly distinguish them are fear and hatred of their more civilized neighbours; corresponding to this, is the contempt felt by the latter, because of their higher culture, for the more primitive peoples. The only thing that restrains the immigrant people from waging a war of extermination against the original inhabitants is the fear of the poisoned arrow which the Negrito directs against his enemy from behind an ambush. In view of these facts it is not difficult to understand the almost universal isolation of primitive man at the present time. On the other hand, travellers who have been admitted into the lives of the primitive tribes of Malacca and Ceylon and have sought to gain their friendship, unanimously assure us that, whenever a person has once succeeded in coming close to these people and in overcoming their distrust, he finds their outstanding characteristics to be good nature and readiness to render assistance. We may, therefore, be justified in assuming that the seclusion of primitive man was not an original condition, but that it grew up, here and elsewhere, as a result of the war of extermination to which he was exposed on the part of the races attempting to crowd him out of a large part of his territory. Before this state of affairs arose, barter also could scarcely have possessed that character of secrecy which only fear and hatred could give it. In all probability the intercourse which necessarily took place in early times between the older inhabitants and the newer peoples, led to a competition of languages in which the poorer and less developed language of primitive man inevitably succumbed. Nevertheless, the primitive language may also have quietly exercised a reciprocal influence upon the more advanced language. An observation that we cannot escape, even on far higher stages of linguistic development, is the fact that, in such a struggle between a superior minority and a less civilized majority, the former determines the main stock of words, and even, under favourable conditions, the grammatical form, whereas the latter exercises a decisive influence on pronunciation. That a similar process occurred in connection with the displacement of primitive languages, the language of the Bushmen offers proof. This is essentially a Hottentot dialect, even though it is characterized by certain traits of primitive thought. The Hottentots, however, have derived their well-known clacking sounds from the Bushmen, who also gave these sounds to the languages of the Bantu peoples.

But are we deprived of all knowledge concerning the most primitive grammatical forms and concerning the related question of the origin of language, by virtue of the fact that the languages of primitive peoples have, with the exception of meagre remnants, apparently been lost? There is a consideration touching the question of primitive forms of thought and language that enables us, in spite of the difficulty suggested, to answer this question in the negative. The development of language does not at all keep pace with that of the other forms of culture. Primitive forms of thought especially, and the corresponding expression which they receive in language, may long persist after external culture is relatively advanced. And thus, among tribes that are in general far beyond the primitive stage, linguistic forms may still be found which are exact counterparts of phenomena that, from a psychological point of view, must be regarded as primitive. As regards this point, it is especially the African languages of the Soudan that offer a typical field for linguistic study. If we analyse the syntax of such a language and the forms of thought which the sentence structure allows us to infer, we gain the impression that it is hardly possible to imagine a form of human thought whose essential characteristics could be more primitive. This is clearly apparent from a consideration of the Ewe language of the peoples of Togo, a German colonial possession. This is a Soudan language, on whose grammar D. Westermann, a German missionary, has given us a valuable treatise. While the Ewe language does not contain all the essential features apparently characteristic of relatively primitive thought, it does exemplify some of them. We are led to this conclusion particularly when we compare it, together with other Soudan languages, with a form of language which, though it arises under highly advanced cultural conditions, may nevertheless be regarded as primitive, since it is actually formed anew before our very eyes. I refer to gesture-language. In this case, it is not sounds, but expressive movements, imitative and pantomimic, that form the means by which man communicates his thoughts to man. Though we may regard gesture-language as an original form of language, in so far as we can observe it at the moment of its creation, we must not, of course, forget that the genesis of the forms of gesture communication familiar to us belongs to a higher culture whose conditions differ widely from those of primitive thought.

Now, of the various forms of gesture-language, the one that is least subject to change is doubtless the means of communication employed by those who are bereft of hearing, and therefore of speech as well, namely, the deaf and dumb. A similar means of communication through signs and gestures may also be observed among peoples of low culture. Especially when they consist of tribes with markedly different dialects, do such peoples make use of gestures in communicating with one another. Investigations of the spontaneously arising gesture-language of deaf-mutes date largely from the first half of the nineteenth century. More recent studies have been made of the gestures of the North American Indian tribes, and similar, though less complete, observations have been reported concerning the Australians. In these cases, however, gestures sometimes serve also as a sort of secret language. This is even more true of certain signs that occur among some of the peoples of southern Europe, as, for example, among the Neapolitans. In considering the question before us, such cases must, of course, be excluded, since the motive of communicating ideas may here be entirely displaced by that of keeping them secret; instead of a language that arises spontaneously, we have a means which is, on the whole, consciously elaborated for purposes of mutual understanding. If we disregard these cases, which belong to an entirely different order of facts, and examine the data gathered from widely different parts of the earth and from very diverse conditions of culture, we find a remarkable agreement. In certain details, of course, there are differences. The ideas of the Indian are not in all respects like those of the civilized European or those of the Australian. Nevertheless, the gestures that refer to specific concrete objects are frequently so similar that many of the signs employed by the gesture-language of the deaf-mutes of Europe may be found among the Dakota Indians. Could we transfer one of these deaf and dumb persons to this group of Indians, he would probably have no difficulty at all in communicating with them. In more recent times the opportunity of investigating spontaneous gesture-language has not been so great, because deaf-mutes have become more and more educated to the use of verbal language. The principal material for the study of the natural gesture-language of deaf-mutes is, therefore, still to be found in the older observations of Schmalz (1838, 2nd ed. 1848), a German teacher of people thus afflicted, and in the somewhat later reports of an Englishman by the name of Scott (1870).

What, now, do these observations teach us concerning the origin of gesture-language, and therefore probably also concerning the factors underlying the origin of language in general? According to the popular notion, a so-called impulse for communication or, perhaps, certain intellectual processes, voluntary reflections, and actions, account for the fact that the contents of one's own consciousness come to be communicated to other individuals. If, however, we observe gesture-language in its origin, we obtain an entirely different view. This mode of communication is not the result of intellectual reflections or conscious purposes, but of emotion and the involuntary expressive movements that accompany emotion. Indeed, it is simply a natural development of those expressive movements of human beings that also occur where the intention of communicating is obviously absent. As is well known, it is not only emotions that are reflected in one's movements, particularly in mimetic movements of the face, but also ideas. Whenever ideas strongly tinged with feeling enter into the course of emotions, the direct mimetic expressions of the face are supplemented by movements of the arms and hands. The angry man gesticulates with movements which clearly indicate the impulse to attack that is inherent in anger. Or, when we have an ideational process of an emotional nature, and ideas arise referring to objects that are present to us, we point to the objects, even though there be no intention of communicating the ideas. Directions in space, likewise, as well as past time and futurity, are involuntarily expressed by means of backward and forward pointing movements; 'large' and 'small' are expressed by the raising and lowering of the hands. When further movements are added, indicating the form of an object by describing its image in the air with the hands, all the elements of a gesture-language are complete. What is lacking is only that the emotionally coloured idea be not a mere expression of one's own emotion, but that it evoke the same emotion and, through this, the same idea, in the minds of others. Under the influence of the emotion aroused within them, those addressed must then reply with the same, or slightly different, expressive movements. When this occurs, there is developed a common thinking in which impulsive movements are more and more displaced by voluntary actions, and ideational contents, together with the corresponding gestures, enter into the foreground of attention. By virtue of this ideational content, movements expressive of emotions come to be expressions of ideas; the communication of an individual's experiences to others results in an exchange of thought—that is, in language. This development, however, is influenced by that of all the other psychical functions, and especially by the transition of emotional and impulsive movements into voluntary actions.

Of what nature, now, is the content of such a gesture-language as arises independently within a community, and which may, in so far, be regarded as primitive? To this we may briefly reply that all elements of this language are perceptible to the senses, and therefore immediately intelligible. Hence it is that deaf-mutes, though of different nationalities, can make themselves understood without difficulty, even upon meeting for the first time. This intelligibility of gesture-language, however, rests upon the fact that the signs it employs—or, translated into the terminology of spoken language, its words—are direct representations of the objects, the qualities, or the events referred to. Whenever the object discussed is present, the gesture of pointing with the hand and finger is itself the clearest way of designating the object. Thus, for instance, 'I' and 'you' are expressed by the speaker's pointing to himself or to the other person. This suggests a similar movement to designate a 'third person' who is not present. The sign in this case is a backward movement of the finger. Whenever the objects of conversation are present in the field of vision, the dumb person, as a rule, dispenses with every other form of representation but that of merely pointing to them.

Since the objects under discussion are, on the whole, only rarely present, there is a second and important class of gestures, which, for the sake of brevity, we may call graphic. The deaf-mute, as also the Indian and the Australian, represents an absent object by pictures outlined in the air. What he thus sketches in only very general outlines is intelligible to one practised in gesture-language. Moreover, there is a marked tendency for such gestures to become permanent within a particular social group. For the word 'house,' the outlines of roof and walls are drawn; the idea of walking is communicated by imitating the movements of walking with the index and middle fingers of the right hand upon the left arm, which is held out horizontally; the idea of striking is represented by causing the hand to go through the movements of striking. Not infrequently, however, several signs must be combined to make a gesture intelligible. In the German and English deaf and dumb language, the word 'garden,' for example, is expressed by first describing a circle with the index finger to indicate a place, and by then lifting the thumb and the index finger to the nose as the gesture for smelling. 'Garden,' thus, is, as it were, a place where there are flowers to smell. The idea 'teacher' cannot, of course, be directly represented or pictured; it is too complicated for a language of representation. The deaf and dumb person, therefore, is likely to proceed by first making the gesture for man. For this purpose, he singles out an incidental characteristic, his gesture being that of lifting his hat. Since women do not remove their hats in greeting, this gesture is highly typical. The distinctive sign for woman consists in laying the hands upon the breast. Now, in order to communicate the idea of 'male teacher,' the hat is first lifted as the above gesture for man, and then the index finger is raised. This is done either because pupils in school raise the index finger to indicate their knowledge of a certain thing or, perhaps, because the teacher occasionally raises his finger when he wishes to command attention or to threaten punishment.

Pointing and graphic gestures thus represent the two means which gesture-language employs. Within the second of these classes of gestures, however, we may distinguish a small sub-group that may be called significant; in this case, the object is not represented by means of a direct picture, but by incidental characteristics—man, for example, is expressed by lifting the hat. The signs are all directly perceptible. The most important characteristic of gesture-language, as well as the most distinctive feature of an original language, is the fact that there is no trace of abstract concepts, there being merely perceptual representations. And yet some of these representations—and this is a proof of how insistently human thought, even in its beginnings, presses on to the formation of concepts—have acquired a symbolical meaning by virtue of which they become sensuous means, in a certain sense, of expressing concepts which in themselves are not of a perceptual nature. We may here mention only one such gesture, noteworthy because it occurs independently in the language of the European deaf and dumb and in that of the Dakota Indians. 'Truth' is represented by moving the index finger directly forward from the lips, while 'lie' is indicated by a movement towards the right or left. The former is thus held to be a straight speech and the latter a crooked speech, transcriptions which also occur, as poetical expressions, in spoken language. On the whole, however, such symbolical signs are rare if the natural gesture-language has not been artificially reconstructed; moreover, they always remain perceptual in character.

Corresponding to this feature is also another characteristic which all natural gesture-languages will be found to possess. In vain we search them for the grammatical categories either of our own or of other spoken languages—none may be found. No distinction is made between noun, adjective, or verb; none between nominative, dative, accusative, etc. Every representation retains its representative character, and that to which it refers may exemplify any of the grammatical categories known to us. For example, the gesture for walking may denote either the act of walking or the course or path; that for striking, either the verb 'to strike' or the noun 'blow.' Thus, in this respect also, gesture-language is restricted to perceptual signs expressing ideas capable of perceptual representation. The same is true, finally, of the sequence in which the ideas of the speaker are arranged, or, briefly, of the syntax of gesture-language. In various ways, depending on fixed usages of language, our syntax, as is well known, permits us to separate words that, as regards meaning, belong together, or, conversely, to bring together words that have no immediate relation. Gesture-language obeys but one law. Every single sign must be intelligible either in itself or through the one preceding it. It follows from this that if, for example, an object and one of its qualities are both to be designated, the quality must not be expressed first, since, apart from the object, it would be unmeaning; its designation, therefore, regularly occurs after that of the object to which it belongs. Whereas, for example, we say 'a good man,' gesture-language says 'man good.' Similarly, in the case of verb and object, the object generally precedes. When, however, the action expressed by the verb is thought of as more closely related to the subject, the converse order may occur and the verb may directly follow the subject. How, then, does gesture-language reproduce the sentence 'The angry teacher struck the child'? The signs for teacher and for striking have already been described; 'angry' is expressed mimetically by wrinkling the forehead; 'child' by rocking the left forearm supported by the right. Thus, the above sentence is translated into gesture-language in the following manner: First, there are the two signs for teacher, lifting the hat and raising the finger; then follows the mimetic gesture for anger, succeeded by a rocking of the arm to signify child, and, finally, by the motion of striking. If we indicate the subject of the sentence by S, the attribute by A, the object by O, and the verb by V, the sequence in our language is ASVO; in gesture-language it is SAOV, 'teacher angry child strikes,' or, in exceptional cases, SAVO. Gesture-language thus reverses the order of sequence in the two pairs of words. A construction such as 'es schlug das Kind der Lehrer (VOS), always possible in spoken language and occurring not infrequently (for example, in Latin), would be absolutely impossible in gesture-language.

If, then, gesture-language affords us certain psychological conclusions regarding the nature of a primitive language, it is of particular interest, from this point of view, to compare its characteristics with the corresponding traits of the most primitive spoken languages. As already stated, the so-called Soudan languages typify those that bear all the marks of relatively primitive thought. These languages of Central Africa obviously represent a much more primitive stage of development than do those of the Bantu peoples of the south or even those of the Hamitic peoples of the north. The language of the Hottentots is related to that of these Hamitic peoples. It is, in fact, because of this relationship, and also because of characteristics divergent from the negro type, that the Hottentots are regarded as a race that immigrated from the north and underwent changes by mixture with native peoples. If, now, we compare one of the Soudan languages, the Ewe, for example, with gesture-language, one difference will at once be apparent. The words of this relatively primitive spoken language do not possess the qualities of perceptibility and immediate intelligibility that characterize each particular gesture-sign. This is readily explicable as a result of processes of phonetic change, which are never absent, as well as of the assimilation of foreign elements and of the replacement of words by conceptual symbols that are accidental and independent of the sound. These changes occur in the history of every language. Every spoken language is the outcome of recondite processes whose beginnings are no longer traceable. And yet the Soudan languages, particularly, have preserved characteristics that show much more intimate connections between sound and meaning than our cultural languages possess. The very fact is noteworthy that certain gradations or even antitheses of thought are regularly expressed by gradations or antitheses of sound whose feeling tone plainly corresponds to the relation of the ideas. While our words 'large' and 'small,' 'here' and 'there,' show no correspondence between the character of the sound and the meaning, the case is entirely different with the equivalent expressions in the Ewe language. In this language large and small objects are designated by the same word. In the one case, however, the word is uttered in a deep tone, while in the other a high tone is used. Or, in the case of indicative signs, the deep tone signifies greater remoteness, the high tone, proximity. Indeed, in some Sudan languages three degrees of remoteness or of size are thus distinguished. 'Yonder in the distance' is expressed by a very deep tone; 'yonder in the middle distance,' by a medium tone; and 'here,' by the highest tone. Occasionally, differences of quality are similarly distinguished by differences of tone, as, for example, 'sweet' by a high tone, 'bitter' by a deep tone, 'to be acted upon' (that is, our passive) by a deep tone, and activity (or our active) by a high tone. This accounts for a phenomenon prevalent in other languages remote from those of the Soudan. In Semitic and Hamitic languages, the letter 'U,' particularly, has the force of a passive when occurring either as a suffix to the root of a word or in the middle of the word itself. For example, in the Hebrew forms of the so-called 'Pual' and 'Piel,' as well as 'Hophal' and 'Hiphil,' the first of each pair is passive, and the second, active in meaning. It was frequently supposed that this was accidental, or was due to linguistic causes of phonetic change other than the above. But when we meet the same variations of sound and meaning in other radically different languages, we must stop to ask ourselves whether this is not the result of a psychological relationship which, though generally lost in the later development of language, here still survives in occasional traces. In fact, when we recall the way in which we relate stories to children, we at once notice that precisely the same phenomenon recurs in child-language—a language, of course, first created, as a rule, by adults. This connection of sound and meaning is clearly due to the unconscious desire that the sound shall impart to the child not merely the meaning of the idea, but also its feeling-tone. In describing giants and monsters, she who relates fairy-tales to the child deepens her tone; when fairies, elves, and dwarfs appear in the narrative, she raises her voice. If sorrow and pain enter, the tone is deepened; with joyous emotions, high tones are employed. In view of these facts, we might say that this direct correlation of expression and meaning, observed in that most primitive of all languages, gesture-language, has disappeared even from the relatively primitive spoken languages; nevertheless, the latter have retained traces of it in greater abundance than have the cultural languages. In the cultural languages they recur, if at all, only in the onomatopoetic word-formations of later origin. We may recall such words as sausen (soughing), brummen (growling), knistern (crackling), etc.

The question still remains how the other characteristics of gesture-language, particularly the absence of grammatical categories and a syntax which follows the principle of immediate and perceptual intelligibility, compare with the corresponding characteristics of the relatively primitive spoken languages. These characteristics, indeed, are of incomparably greater importance than the relations of sound and meaning. The latter are more strongly exposed to external, transforming influences. Word-formations, however, and the position of the words within the sentence, mirror the forms of thought itself; whenever the thought undergoes vital changes, the latter inevitably find expression in the grammatical categories of the language, and in the laws of syntax which it follows.