SMITHSONIAN CONTRIBUTIONS TO KNOWLEDGE. VOCAL SOUNDS ; ■■ ' L A U R A B RID G E M A N , By DR. FRANCIS LIEbIr. SMITHSONIAN CONTRIBUTIONS TO KNOWLEDGE. A PAPER ON THE VOCAL SOUNDS OF LAURA BRIDGEMAN, THE BLIND DEAF-MUTE AT BOSTON; # COMPARED WITH THE ELEMENTS OE PHONETIC LANGUAGE. BY FRANCIS LIEBER. VOL. II. ART. 2. THE NAMES OF THE COMMISSION TO WHOM THIS MEMOIR HAS BEEN REFERRED. Col. W. W. S. BLISS, D. L. DIX. A PAPEll ON THE VOCAL SOUNDS OF LAURA BRIDGEMAN, THE BLIND DEAF-MUTE AT BOSTON; COMPARED WITH THE ELEMENTS OE PHONETIC LANGUAGE. FRANCIS LIBBER. Language consists of signs, representing ideas. These signs are selected by the person who speaks in accordance with the ideas prevailing in his own mind, in order to produce the reversed process in the individual spoken to ; that is, they are used for that process—the most wonderful and most impor- tant on this earth—of conveying ideas from one distinct individual to another; for the communion of mind with mind, through sensuous impressions, made in skilful succession, and in accordance with general laws. Why, then, do all lan- guages consist of phonetic signs ? There is no tribe known making exclusive use of ocular communion, or conveying ideas chiefly by visible signs. Yet the eve conveys to the mind perceptions far more varied and enriching than all the other senses, and is an organ which, bating the developed phonetic language itself, contributes infinitely more to the formation of the mind than the sense of hearing. If persons who do not understand each other’s languages, neverthe- less must commune, a wrecked sailor, for instance, with an inhabitant of a foreign shore, they generally take, first of all, refuge in ocular signs. The Rev. i\Ir. Gutzlaff tells us that the Chinese accompany their speech with a great many visible signs, without which the audible ones cannot be understood.* The orators of all nations accompany their spoken words with signs intended for the eye, in a greater or less degree, voluntarily or impulsively, naturally or artisti- cally. Why, then, do we find nowhere a regularly, or logically developed ocu- lar language ? It is no sufficient answer that the phonetic signs uttered by the # The Chinese have even the belief that there is a word expressive of all excellence, and so exqui* site, that no one can pronounce it; but that it can only be written, or be perceived by the eyes. The sixth of Dr. Blair’s Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Letters, may be read, with reference to this sub- ject, not without profit. 4 VOCAL SOUNDS OF infinitely pliable organs of the human voice present a greater variety than all those that can be produced by the other organs. We are, indeed, able to make this discovery now, when all the riches and infinite blessings of a phonetic lan- guage are spread before us; but how was man led to develope these riches, when, as we have seen, he first of all resorts to ocular signs, and stands in need of them even after he has been possessed of all the wealth of auricular lan- guage ? Had God left it to the invention of man, before he could know to what amount of utility, enjoyment, refinement, affection, elevation, thought and devo- tion his phonetic communion, and its representative in writing, would lead, man could never have attained to the prizes of language and literature. But Provi- dence, in this as in all other elements of civilization, has, by organic laws of our nature, forced men into that path by which alone their starting in the career of progress can be unfailingly secured—by laws which oblige man to set out in the right direction. A clearer insight into the phonetic origin of human language is important both to the philosopher and the physiologist. Besides, all appreciation of truth conduces to a purer state of the mind, a wider spread of knowledge, and, ulti- mately, to an intenser devotion to God. It is my object to give in this paper a contribution to this great inquiry, for which the vocal sounds of Laura Bridge- man, a female endowed with a peculiarly active mind, but deprived from earliest infancy of sight and hearing, and nearly destitute of taste, seem to offer a singu- larly fit opportunity. I have always read with attention the annual reports of Dr. Howe on the education of this most interesting being, by which he has already acquired im- perishable renown in both hemispheres. From year to year I have been in the habit of visiting Laura and her sagacious teachers, who, as every one is aware, have succeeded in giving language, the power of verbal thought, and the means of intellectual and moral development, to a being who seemed to be shut up within the loneliest prison-house that our minds can conceive of; apparently walled up, without one means of communion with the world, and possessed only of one solitary channel of distinct perception—the confined sense of touch. At length I passed three entire months in the immediate neighborhood of Laura, saw and observed her daily, while every possible facility was extended to me by Dr. Howe and his assistant teachers. Among other things, I paid attention to her vocal sounds. In order to be better understood in the following pages, and to prevent mis- understanding on some material points, I would refer to a lecture of mine on the origin of the first constituents of civilization ;* especially so far as the origin of language is concerned, to pages 14 to 18. To what has been said there I would add the following observations : The origin of all utterance is emotional. This applies to man and brutes; but utterance soon acquires in man a very different character. With the animal * Published in 1845. LAURA BRIDGE MAN. 5 it remains forever almost exclusively emotional; in some rare cases it ap- proaches the character of language. All emotion excites the nervous system, or consists in an excitement of the nervous system, which, so long as we remain in the body, is linked to the mind by such mysterious laws. This excitement becomes apparent by a variety of phenomena. A person in joyful surprize before a Correggio, exclaims “Ah!” and quickly brings both hands together: an irritable person says, “ Come here, I say,’" rapping the table in quick succession, beating repeatedly the floor with his foot, and knitting his brows with the contraction of impatience: a frightened dog runs howling away, and drops the ears and tail; or, however lazily he may be lying on the ground, he slightly moves the tip of the tail at hearing his mas- ter’s footsteps: an orator winds up by saying, “ Hut the people will sutler it no longer,’’’ opening wide his eyes, shaking his lifted right hand, moving his head with an inclination of his whole person, and pronouncing his words slowly, sol- emnly, and in a deep tone: a hungry cat, sitting by the table, utters plaintive sounds, and looks steadily at the child who is in the habit of feeding it, moving one of the forepaws, as if in the act of grasping something. All these respec- tive signs which accompany the utterances, and the utterances themselves, are phenomena arising in each case from one and the same cause. I would call them, therefore, symphenomena—a legitimate word, it seems, both in point of etymology and meaning. Our accent, our intonation, our gestures, the shrug- ging of the shoulders, the opening wide or half-shutting of the eyes, the curling Of the lip, the pointing involuntarily at objects, the rubbing the head in cases of perplexity, the accompanying our words by depictive signs, laughing, blush- ing, smiling, weeping, moaning, with hundreds of other phenomena, are symphe- nomena of the idea or emotion prevailing at the time within us, and affecting the brain and nervous system. I would call, then, symphasis the manifestation of two or more phenomena conjointly produced by the same cause. It will appear at once how important the whole subject of symphany is, when we consider that that which is originally the pure symphenomenon of an emo- tion, becomes, in the beholder, who cannot know of the emotion by direct com- munion from mind to mind, a sign, indicating or conveying the emotion from the original sentient to his fellow-creature. Crying, wringing the hands, and uttering plaintive sounds, are the spontaneous symphenomena of despair. He in whom they appear does not intentionally produce them. He, however, who beholds them, knows them, because they are spontaneous, and because he is endowed with the same nature and organization; and thus they become signs of despair. Henceforth rational beings may intentionally produce them, when they desire to convey the idea of despair. There is no invention in this case; no conventional agreement upon an arbitrary sign; but there is, nevertheless, a development of a sign by rational beings out of that which they, at first, pro- duced involuntarily as sentient creatures. The latter man has in common with the brute. The animal world is full of symphenomena. The first, however—the transformation of the symphenomenon into an intentional sign—belongs to the 6 VOCAL SOUNDS OF defining, generalizing, and combining power of reason. The nursery, that spot where the history of mankind is lived over again in more than one respect, furnishes us with many instances of this important process. The theory of symphany finds a wide and, 1 conceive, a fruitful application in many different branches of moral and physical knowledge; but we have to deal with it here so far only as it affects the origin of phonetic language, and the vocal sounds of Laura Bridgeman. Symphenomena show themselves in all of us. Art even cultivates them, and draws them within the sphere of studied elocution. But they are most observ- able with untutored beings—with children and uncivilized tribes; or with the educated adult, when deep emotion breaks through tbo tranquil repose which is the general characteristic of cultivated life. Every one knows how vehement the expressions of grief, joy, despondency, love or revenge, are with savages, or how a sudden calamity at sea produces all the symphenomena in their native and unrestrained variety in polished men or women. Kiss me, Hardey—kiss me,” exclaimed Lord Nelson, when Captain Hardey had told him that the shout which the admiral had heard was that of victory, and he felt his life rapidly ebbing away. As a matter of course, these symphenomena appear strongly in Laura Bridge- man ; and, if unrestrained, will show themselves at times so forcibly as to be distasteful to others. They were therefore restrained by her teachers, for the same reason that we often check them in children. The object of Laura’s edu- cation was to make her fit for social intercourse; and the vehement demonstra- tions of symphenomena would have interfered with this noble and important object. It is necessary here to guard against a possible misunderstanding of the pre- ceding words. Some readers may suspect that it has been difficult to restrain this blind deaf-mute, on the score of decorum, because she can have conceived no idea of good breeding by constant and involuntary observation of the well- bred around her, as we do from our earliest infancy. Yet, remarkable as the fact may be, Laura has at no time of her life failed against the nicest delicacy. We have the word of all her teachers for this surprizing fact; and every one who has had an opportunity of observing her will agree with me, that her con- duct is marked throughout by a delicate feeling of propriety. I confess that this is very remarkable, when we consider the offensive conduct of many savage tribes ; but it only shows that delicacy of behavior and propriety of demeanor are natural to man, though they may not be always primitive. They require development, like most things which are essentially natural to the mind and soul of man. This development may be individual, or it may belong to the tribe, the race, and yet may have become more or less inherent. Laura not only blushes and weeps, laughs and smiles, which may be called ab- solute or direct symphenomena, requiring no more an act of aiding volition than the throbbing of the heart does; but I have seen her stamping with joy—an impulsive phenomenon which we observe in a more regulated form, brought LAURA BRIDGE MAN. 7 under the influence of volition (as the original impulsive tone is at a later period voluntarily pronounced as a word) in the form of applause in large assemblies. When Laura was speaking to me* of a cold hath, the idea prevailing at the time in her mind produced the motion of shivering. This was, for her, purely sym- phenomenal; hut it became to me, who was looking at her, a sign, or symbol, because it expressed the effect which the cold water had produced on her system. When Laura is astonished, or amazed, she rounds and protrudes her lips, opens them, breathes strongly, spreads her arms, and turns her hands with ex- tended fingers upwards, just as we do when wondering at something very un- common. 1 have seen her biting her lips with an upward contraction of the facial muscles when roguishly listening at the account of some ludicrous mis- hap, precisely as lively persons among us would do. She has not perceived these phenomena in others; she has not learned them by unconscious imitation; nor does she know that they can be perceived by the by-stander. I have fre- quently seen her, while speaking of a person, pointing at the spot where he had been sitting when Laura last conversed with him, and where she still believed him to be, as we naturally turn our eye to the object of which we are speaking. She frequently does these things with one hand, while the other receives or conveys words. When Laura once spoke to me of her own crying, when a little child, she accompanied her words with a long face, drawing her fingers down the face, indicating the copious flow of tears; and when, on .New Year’s day of 1844, she wished in her mind a happy new year to her benefactor, Dr. Ilowe, then in Europe, she involuntarily turned toward the east, and made with both her outstretched arms a waving and blessing motion, as natural to her as it was to those who first accompanied a benediction with this symphenomenon of the idea, that God's love and protection might descend in the fulness of a stream upon the beloved fellow-being. This movement, though solemn, was as spontaneous with Laura as another of a ludicrous character was to a lively Ita- lian, who told me, at Rome, that a friend on whom I called had just left the house on horseback, and accompanied the words by putting two fingers of the right hand astride on the digit of the left. He had no fear that I might not understand him, for he was freely conversing with me. With both, the gestures were simply symphenomena of the ideas entirely occupying their minds at the time. A young lady to whom Laura is affectionately attached has a short, delicate, and quick step, which Laura has perceived by the jar “going through the feet * For those wholly unacquainted with Laura’s case I will simply state, that Dr. Howe has suc- ceeded in imparting to her a finger-language, or, to speak more correctly, finger-writing. She knows the value of words, and freely communes with every one who knows her finger-alphabet, which is formed in each other’s hand. Her alphabet corresponds to our phonetic alphabet, although it repre- sents no sound to her, but consists of signs of the touch, as the letters which the deaf-mute learns and reads are exclusively ocular signs, and have no phonetic value for him. 8 VOCAL SOUNDS OF up to the head,” as she very justly describes it. One day she entered the room, affecting the same step; and when asked by the young lady why she did so, she promptly replied, “You walk thus, and I thought of you.” Here the question made her conscious that her imitative step was a symphenomenon, and nothing more, of the idea of that young friend of hers, then uppermost in her mind. On page 37 of Dr. Howe’s tenth report, we find the account of a conversation between Laura and one of her teachers on an insect. Laura asked, “ Has he think ?” touching at the same time her forehead—(for a reason similar to that by which Dr. Spurzheim explained the fact, that Sterne’s portrait represents him pointing unconsciously to the spot which the phrenologists believe to cor- respond to the organ of wit.) Laura continued to ask, “ Does he breathe much?” at the same time putting her hand on her chest and breathing hard. On page 44 of the thirteenth report, an account is given of Laura’s relation of a dream. She said, “ l dreamed that God took away my breath to heaven,” ac- companying her words with a sign of taking something away from her mouth. Who can help remembering here the fresco paintings of the Campo Santo, at Pisa, where, with an equally infantine conception of the removal of human souls, angels are represented drawing the souls out of the mouths of the dead ? Or who does not at once recollect the many languages, ancient and modern, in which breath and spirit are designated by the same word ? In none of these cases does the remarkable girl, blind, deaf and dumb, as she is, intend to illustrate by gesture, or any other sign, the meaning of her words, no more than we do by most of our gesticulations, frowns, smiles, or other expressions, which, indeed, we often show unconsciously ; so much so, that they actually betray us. In one word, they are, as has been repeatedly said, sym- phenomena. But the symphenomena of an agitated mind, or of strong affections, show themselves most readily, and in the greatest variety, as effects of the respiratory organs, because these are most easily affected, being of a peculiarly delicate character; because the voice can be modulated almost without end; and because, in fact, comparatively few affections suggest images to be imitated by ocular signs. Strong emotion requires exterior manifestation : it will out, to use a colloquial term, and utterance of some sort is the consequence. We have this process in common with the brutes; but the affections of the latter are cir- cumscribed, and their organs of utterance infinitely more limited than those of man. Uncouth, or, at any rate, inarticulate sounds are uttered by man before his lip is blessed with the rational word, or his mind with verbal thought, and man falls back upon the inarticulate sounds when his emotion overflows the usual channels of expression—when unspeakable love or convulsive wrath, stun- ning fear or transcending admiration, overpowers him. A parent who clasps his lost child again within his arms; a person who beholds the sea for the first time; a man suddenly insulted to the quick by stupendous falsehood ; a maiden to whom, unwarned, a hideous death presents itself—these are not apt to give utterance in words, but they breathe forth their emotions in primitive and inar- LAURA BRIDGEMAN. 9 ticulate sounds. I once heard a colored preacher describing the torments of future punishment. lie rose, not ineloquently, from the description of one anguish to another, when at last, carried away by uncontrollable excitement, he merely uttered, for more than a minute, a succession of inarticulate sounds or cries. Where, however, is the limit between articulate and inarticulate sounds? What is articulation ? I believe that, unconsciously, we generally consider sounds articulate when, while we hear them, the mind can spell or trace them with our accustomed alphabet. The chicking tones of some savages, the pure guttural sounds of others, and those sounds which we cannot even indicate by a name, appear to the missionary, who first hears them, as inarticulate, because he does not hear in them the elements, called letters, to which he is accustomed. Yet these sounds belong to languages, and are undoubtedly articulate. William von Humboldt, on the other hand, says that we cannot give any other definition of articulate sounds than that they are those sounds which man intentionally utters in order to convey something thought. This seems to me equally erroneous. Thoughts and feelings may be expressed, though intentionally, without articulate sounds; and, however true it be, that we almost always express our thoughts by articu- late sounds, still the meaning of the term Articulation must be sought first of all in the sound itself. Now we can give no other definition of an articulate sound than that it is an unbroken emission of a sound which is composed of those elements for which we have not even a befitting name, when uttered, but which, when written, are called letters, and which are exclusively belonging to the human organs of speech. Such sounds are called articulate, because their succession divides or articulates the human speech into one-sounded parts— into joints or single emissions, called syllables. These distinct sounds, their combinations and repetitions, make it possible for man to have a phonetic lan- guage, or a system of sounds bv which he can convey ideas, and, so far, there exists the closest connexion between Reflection and Articulation, between Thought and Word; but there can be articulation without distinct thought or in- tended conveyance of ideas, as was the case in that remarkable instance of the sound Titnoss, of which mention will be made in a future note. Neither these, nor any remarks contained in the present memoir, have been made to deny the close connexion between thought and word. So soon as man has a distinct idea, he feels the yearning to speak it out, and if he has a distinct idea of a single thing he longs to name it. This seems to be the chief meaning of the 19th verse of the second chapter of Genesis. The necessity and longing to name animals is placed thus early in the history of the creation, and this implanted yearning is expressed in the remarkable line which says that the Creator led the animals to Adam Ho see what he would call them.” By a natural transposition, words are ascribed to animals so soon as we imagine them with distinct thoughts similar to our own, as the early fable shows. I was looking lately at a negro who was occupied in feeding young mocking birds by 10 VOCAL SOUNDS OF the hand. “Would they eat worms?” I asked. The negro replied: “Surely not; they are too young; they would not know what to call them.” A singular com- mentary, almost touching in its simplicity, on the passage in Genesis to which allusion has been made. Observation shows us that every emotion quickens the respiration, or causes an oppression of the chest, which seeks relief by violent inhaling. This is the origin of our sighs, laughter, moaning, and those exclamations of Ah, Eh, Oh, which are gradually cast into articulate sounds, and many of which become regular words, classified according to systematic grammar, such as alas, helas, pooh, bah, umph, pshaw, ototoi, ecco, ecce, halloo, huzzah, and of which we have so remarkable an instance in Sophocles, who makes Philoctete exclaim— “ Attatai, otottotoi apappapai, papa, papa, papa, papai !” And in Dante’s: “Pape Satan, pape Satan, alleppe !” Laura utters a loud sound of o, with a strong aspirate, inclining almost to the sound /, which might be written somewhat in this manner, “ Ho-o-ph-ph !” when she is highly excited by wonder. We do the same when the laws of propriety do not prevent us from giving vent to our feeling of amazement. And the actor of the broad farce accompanies his assumption of stupid surprise with the same exclamation, because, in his endeavor to caricature, he stands in need of the imitation of strongly marked symphenomena. Frequently I have heard Laura expressing a feeling of satisfaction by a sub- dued tone, somewhat between chuckling and a slight groaning.* Utterance, produced by increased activity of the respiring organs, and varied by the pliable vocal organism, and the great moveabdity of the lips and tongue, is so direct and natural an effect of the excited nervous substance, that sounds of grief, pain, affection, disgust, contempt, despair, pity, fear, attention, admira- tion, mockery, surprise, wrath, entreaty, delight, approval, caution, or submis- sion, are as natural even to us, tutored and trained as we are from early infancy, both by positive instruction and the ever active imitative principle, as are the wholly spontaneous symphenomena of growing pale or wringing the hands. Laura actually once, when reminded by one of her teachers that she ought not to indulge in her uncouth sounds, which resemble those made by deaf-mutes, answered, “ I do not always try not to make them.” The teacher urged the reasons why it is desirable she should restrain them, and was answered, “ But I have very much voice.” Laura went farther, and added, “ God gave me much voicethus strikingly pointing out a truth of elemental importance to the philosopher. Yielding, however, to the arguments against this “ voice,” she # I would have said grunting, as more accurately expressing the sound, had I not felt reluctant to use this word in connexion with that amiable and delicate being. LAURA BRIDGE MAN. 11 will at times go into her closet, and shutting her door,44 indulge herself in a surfeit of sounds.1’ (Page 27 of thirteenth report.) This seems to me not only very interesting and instructive, hut also deeply touching.* A missionary of my acquaintance, whose word I noways doubt, informed me that one day he was travelling in the distant West of our Union with a young man who was greatly pleased with something that had been said. Becoming excited, the young traveller asked his friend to excuse him for a moment, where- upon he uttered a tremendous yelling. This done, he declared that the indul- gence had done him much good, and the - thread of the conversation was resumed. Nor will any one feel disposed to doubt the truth of this account, who is acquainted with the shouts which the less educated of the thinly peopled parts of the West and South set up on all occasions of any excitement; not only at barbacues, hut even when a few persons are met, and something consid- ered peculiarly laughable or 44smart” has been said. When poor Laura retires into her closet, freely to revel in her sounds, she only does what we ourselves do when we have checked our desire to laugh, but indulge in it so soon as we find ourselves alone, or in presence of those persons only before whom we do not feel obliged to repress the symphenomenon. Indeed, Laura does no more, although in inarticulate sounds, than we do when, thoroughly impressed with some feeling, we speak to ourselves where no one can hear us. And it may he remarked, that the least tutored are most given to these soliloquies. There are many negroes in the South upon whom it is utterly impossible to impose silence when they are in a state of excitement, though they may not speak to any one, and may not he actuated by any feeling of opposition. I ask permission to mention here a fact, which has always appeared to me very remarkable, although I own it does not relate to Laura’s vocal sounds. 1 may not have another opportunity to place it on record, and am convinced that it deserves being known. Laura constantly accompanies her yes with the com- mon affirmative nod, and her no with our negative shake of the head. Both are with her in the strictest sense primitive symphenomena of the ideas of affirma- tion and negation, and not symphenomena which have gradually become such by unconscious imitation, as frequently may be the case with us. The nodding forward for assent, and the shaking of the head or hand from side to side for dissent, seem to be genuine symphenomena accompanying these two ideas. Assent and dissent are closely allied to the ideas of favor and disfavor, which are naturally accompanied by an inclination toward, or a turning from, the real or ideal object. The very word aversion points to this symphenomenal fact. When we signify assent or dissent with the hand, a similar sign is observed. The Italians move repeatedly the lifted digit from right to left, as a sign of negation, while the modern Greeks throw back the head, producing at the same time a clucking noise with the tongue. Laura makes at present these signs, even without writing a Yes or No in the hand of the person with whom she #She will also, when deeply grieving, shut herself up, and seek comfort in unrestrained wreeping. 12 VOCAL SOUNDS OF converses, having learned, but not having been told, that somehow or other we perceive this sign, or that it produces upon us the desired effect, although she is unable to solve the great riddle of the process by which this is done. Laura, far below our domestic animals, so far as the senses are concerned, but infinitely above them because she is endowed with a human mind, has attained to the abstractions of affirmation and negation at a very early age, while no dog or ele- phant, however sagacious, has been known to rise to these simple ideas, for which every moment even of animal existence calls, wherever reflection sways over the naked fact. Laura, then, independently of sight and hearing—the two most suggestive senses in every thing that appertains to language—felt an impulsive urgency to utter sounds as symphenomena of emotions, or vivid ideas, in common with all those human beings who have not attained to a language properly so called; but at the very outset she met with the following obstacles: Laura cannot hear her own voice; nor can she perceive the tones of others. She could not, therefore, learn to modify, vary, and articulate them according to a developed language, which is the successive work of many and long periods of civilization. How much our tones, in their infinite and significant modula- tions, owe to the fact that we move in a speaking society from earliest infancy, becomes manifest, when we consider the uncouth, broken, and animal sounds of the lowest savages, and, on the other hand, that even the utterances of the brute are modified by their intercourse with man. Mr. Jesse, in his Anecdotes of Dogs, London, 1846, ascribes this effect of the never-ceasing and ever-varying hum of civilization to these animals. “ It is,1’ he says, u I believe, a fact, and if so a curious one, that the dog in a wild state only howls; but when he becomes the friend and companion of man, he has, then, wants and wishes, hopes and fears, joys and sorrows, to which in his wilder state he appears to have been a stranger. His vocabulary, if it may be so called, then increases, in order to express his enlarged and varied emotions.” Of course Mr. Jesse cannot mean by the words “ in order to express,” anything like inventive purpose on the part of the dog, but he must mean a combined effect of the widened circle of emo- tions in the animal, and the multiplied sounds of civilization which surround it, especially of the master’s language or other tones addressed to it. The second great obstacle for Laura was, that she did not perceive the effect produced, in each case, by her sounds upon others. The idea of a specific force and value of a certain sound, which directly leads to the conception of the name or word, and facilitates all the means of designation, and of combin- ing these means, could not easily, and never perfectly, appear to her. I shall presently dwell more at length upon this point. Lastly, Laura was positively interrupted in the formation even of her imper- fect and elementary phonetic language, as I have stated before, in order to make her a being of intercourse in our society—in order to attach her as a living member to the community of civilization. This could not have been done had she been allowed freely to indulge in the harsh and grating sounds which LAURA BRIDGEMAN. 13 excited souls utter forth through a throat, untaught and unbred, so to say, by the harmony of developed civilization in which we move. I have already alluded to the distinction which we ought to make between merely spontaneous symphenornena and those which may be called secondary; that is, such as have become involuntary symphenornena by habit. If there was such a word as habital, I would use it as a more appropriate term for secondary symphenornena. The exclamation of sudden pain is one of the first class ; speaking loudly with ourselves, when there is no one in our hearing, and when, perhaps, we would not wish to be overheard, and the speaking in our dreams, are instances of the second class. These secondary, or habital symphenornena, are also observed in Laura. She does not only frequently talk to herself with one hand in the other, waking or in her dreams, which is likewise seen with deaf mutes who have been taught the finger alphabet; but Laura, who has, as will be pre- sently shown, certain particular sounds for distinct persons—names, or nouns proper, if we choose to call them so—utters these name-sounds for herself when she vividly thinks of these individuals. Dr. Howe’s tenth report, page 30, contains the following passage: “ Laura said to me, in answer to a question why she uttered a certain sound, rather than spelled the name,41 think of Janet’s noise; many times when I think how she give me good things 1 do not think to spell her name.’ And at another time, hearing her in the next room make the peculiar sound for Janet, I hastened to her, and asked her why she made it. She said,4 Because I think how she do love me much, and I love her much.’ ”* It cannot be fairly objected that, if all that I have stated be true, it would lead to the inference that the deaf-mutes, and even the blind deaf-mutes, must be able to attain to a complete phonetic language. For, I have spoken only of the impulsive utterances which form the incipient elements of language, natural to the deaf and blind as they are to the hearing and seeing, and out of which words proper, with all their changes, combinations, and inflections, can be evolved only by constantly repeated and enduring vocal intercourse. Yet, it will be interesting carefully to inquire how far Laura Bridgeman—blind and deaf, indeed, but endowed with a sprightly and delicate mind, and an affection- ate soul—actually possesses the elements of our vocal language. For this purpose we may classify the verbal elements of all phonetic language in the following manner: Interjections, that is, primary phonetic symphenornena of the inner state of man. We have seen that Laura possesses them as a matter of course. If she has not the distinctly articulate interjections of developed languages, it is because her state excludes her from a share in our stock of articulate sounds * The tenth report was published in 1842. Laura speaks now far more correctly. The damsel has, even by this time, acquired a great relish for what we would call high-sounding words. C’est tout comme c/iez nous! 14 VOCAL SOUNDS OF and words. For, articulation is the combined result of a reflecting mind; of an acute ear, which hears the sounds of others and our own; of vocal organs, trained for many years; of the effect of continued traditional utterance; and of a skill, gradually acquired, unconsciously to analyze sounds which we perceive. As the second class may be mentioned positive imitations, or copies of sound —the onomatopy of the grammarians. Man resorts to it at the earliest periods, partly led to it by the inherent imitative principle; partly because sound, wher- ever it is produced at all, is the most distinctive characteristic, and becomes the readiest sign for the being that utters it, inasmuch as the ear perceives a sound, and nothing more ; while the eye perceives at once an object in all its visual relations, as an image which must be analyzed in order to be described. The eye perceives totalities, the ear single characteristics. It is incomparably easier to designate a sheep or a cataract, by imitating the bleating of the one or the rumbling noise of the other, than to describe them by words already existing, or by drawing outlines of these objects. All languages, therefore, are full of such words as Sibilare, Mutter, Whiz, Splash, Boan, Bronte, Claquer, Knarren, Lachen. Men, naturally, take refuge in the onomatopy, when they must commune with one another without mutually knowing their languages. There is a very inter- esting paper by the late Mr. Gallatin in the second volume of the Transactions of the New York Ethnological Society, on the “Jargon,” or Trade Language of Oregon. The reader will find there a long list of onomatopies, such as are frequently formed in our nurseries, where the dog is called bow-wow, or the cow moo-moo. Thus the words tingting, he-he, mash, tumtum, poo, signify in that Oregon Jargon, respectively, bell, to laugh, crushed or broken, the heart, to shoot. Laura not hearing any tones, cannot, of course, originate onomatopies. Two other classes of words are at once formed from the two preceding ones. Interjections themselves are used at an early period as words, (as I have heard children say, “ This is fie,” for this is naughty;) but what is more important, interjections soon form the roots of other words. Thus the feeling of wonder seeks vent from every human breast in the symphenomenal sound of o, or one between o and «, (the latter as in father.) The ideas of admiration and wonder again, and more of height, tallness, power, are closely connected in the human intellect; so that we find in original languages words designating height, eleva- tion, derived from this interjection, as the German Hoch, for high, which is nothing but the interjection o, wrapt as it were in strong aspirates. Every where men cast shame upon others by an interjection sounding Aih; and ai&j,s means, in Greek, actions of which we ought to be ashamed ; and Aetschen, in German, means to call aih at a person, or strongly to deride him. Disgust, mingled with contempt, is expressed by all men by a symphenomenon, which consists of a sharp exhalation of the sound /, which is the combined effect of the lower lip being somewhat protruded, while the upper one is contemptuously drawn up, and the breath is strongly uttered—all, the effects of the prevailing LAURA BRIDGEMAN. 15 feeling of disgust. This f sound leads to the universal interjection of fie, pfui, fi, or —the vowel, the most liquid element of speech, changing in the different languages, as it would with different individuals, before usage has settled one vowel as the adopted one. This fie, or fi (in French,) is the root of the word Fien, to hate, in Low-German and ancient Franconian, and of Fian in Anglo- Saxon; whence again the noun Fiend, in English, is derived, as likewise Fijend in Low-German, Feind in German, Fient in Swedish, Fiant in ancient Franconian, and Vejant in Dutch, for hateful enemy, a malignant being. The Greek indi- cates more an interjection of pain; but that which is the utterance of pain becomes that of dislike if exclaimed at an object. The two ideas are near akin. We have, therefore, to indulge in sounds of woe, or to call ; and is not tfvyu, to flee, (from that which makes us exclaim that is, from that which is painful, disagreeable to us,) derived from the same root ? Ototoi was the Greek articulated exclamation of grief, and itotvfa is to moan, to give vent to grief. The Greek language requires the addition of a termination which indicates the verb. The same would be the case in German. In English this necessity does not exist; and a leading article of a distinguished London paper* lately said of the Secretary for foreign affairs, u He will pooh-pooh such particu- larity ;” that is to say, he will dismiss such particulars disdainfully as trifles, while uttering the interjection pooh ! pooh ! A member of my own family showed, in early infancy, a peculiar tendency to form new words, partly from sounds which the child caught, as to woh for to stop, from the interjection woh! used by wagoners when they wish to stop their horses ; partly from symphenomenal emissions of sounds. Thus when the boy was a little above a year old he had made and established in the nursery the word Nim for every thing fit to eat. I had watched the growth of this word. First, he expressed his satisfaction at seeing his meal, when hungry, by the natural humming sound, which all of us are apt to produce when approving or pleased with things of a common character, and which we might express thus, hm. Gradually, as his organs of speech became more skilful, and repetition made the sound more familiar and clearer, it changed into the more articulate urn and ini. Finally an N was placed before it, nim being much easier to pro- nounce than im, when the mouth has been closed. But soon the growing mind began to generalize, and nim came to signify every thing edible ; so that the boy would add the words good or b id, which he had learned in the mean time. He now would say good nim, bad nim, his nurse adopting the word with him. On one occasion he said, Fie nim, for bad, repulsive to eat. There is no doubt but that a verb to nim, for to eat, would have developed itself, had not the ripen- ing mind adopted the vernacular language, which was offered to it ready made. We have, then, here the origin and history of a word which commenced in a symphenomenal sound, and gradually became articulate in sound and general in its meaning, as the organs of speech, as well as the mind of the utterer, # London Spectator of the 27th July, 1850. 16 VOCAL SOUNDS OF became more perfect. And is not the history of this word a representative of many thousands in every language, now settled and acknowledged as a legiti- mate tongue ? * We meet with articulated sounds which are yet in a middle state between a pure interjection and a distinct word, as the German sweet expression, Eiapopeia, pronounced i-a-po-pi-a—the endearing and lulling sound with which the German mother sings her babe to sleep. Ei and Eia (the ei pronounced t, as in fire) is the German symphenomenal sound of endearment which accompanies the pat- ting of the rosy cheek of a child, and the maternal desire to bring down slumber upon the infant has drawn out this primative sound into eiapopeia. Now, many cradle songs, as the Germans call the rhymes sung by the cradle side, begin with this—what must it be called, interjection or word ? It is neither. At times, indeed, a “cradle song” is called an Eiapopeia. In this case it is a perfect noun. And is not the English lullaby much the same ? The syllable by is the same sound by, which, in the gentle nursery idiom, means sleep, when the mother sings by, &*/, and lull is depictive of the act it designates. The French, when they desire to imitate the sound of the drum, say rattaplan, for which we say rub-a-dub, and the Germans have brumberum. They are imitative sounds, articulated, yet in an undefined state, so far as grammatical classifica- tion is concerned, while drum has become a distinct noun.f It may be observed, * This child made other remarkable words. Every one who has studied the languages of our In- dians, and some other tribes, as, for instance, that of the natives of Burmah, is struck with their words which express a number of ideas, indicated in our analytical tongues by a series of words. William von Humboldt called this process agglutination; but as this term would indicate a joining of what has been separate before, which is by no means always the case, I preferred the term holo- phrastic words, in a paper on this subject which I published in the March number, of 1837, of the Southern Literary Messenger. It is for the same reason that I preferred the term to that of polysyn- thetic words, which Mr. Du Ponceau had proposed. The child in question had become most impressed with the word Good, when in connection with the noun Boy; that is to say, when he himself had been called a good boy, which he pronounced Goobboy. It formed one word for him, so much so that his infantine mind could not separate the two parts, in this case actually agglutinated, to use the term of William von Humboldt. When the child, therefore, one day desired to express the idea Good Cow, he said Goobboy Cow. He found the same difficulty of expressing good cow, which many of our missionaries have to contend with, when they desire to express Christian ideas by words which carry along with them numerous asso- ciated ideas of different things and relations. Father Sangermano, if I recollect aright, says in his work on Burmah, published by the Oriental Translation Fund, that he eould not simply translate the passage in which it is related that a woman washed the feet of the Saviour; for, although there are ever so many words for washing in the Burmese language, yet each word carries along with it many conditions and relations of washing inapplicable in this case. Similar, so far as the connexion of ideas is concerned, was the case of a little girl who, in my hearing, said to a man, Doctor naughty girl, because he had teased her. Her mind had received the idea of bad chiefly in conjunction with girl, that is, herself, when rebuked for some fault or other. “Bad girl” was, in her mind, one term, or a holophrastic word. t Thus I wrote; but one of the greatest orators of the age, or any age, has since said in the Senate, (Mr. Webster, on July 17, 1850,) “They have been beaten incessantly, every month, and every day, and every hour, by the din, and roll, and rub-a-dub of the abolition presses.” He uses rub-a- LAURA BRIDGE MAN. 17 m passing, that this latter instance shows, in a striking manner, how different tribes view or perceive the same phonetic phenomenon (hear the sound of the drum) differently, according to the different genius of the nation; yet all may be equally correct in their own way. Out of the second class, or purely imitative words, arises another very large one. It consists of those words which, so far as their sound goes, are derived from onomatopies, but have come to mean something which is only occasionally accompanied hy the originally imitated sound, or is not so any longer at all. Such, for instance, is the English word grumbling, which originally indicated the physical sound of grumbling, but now frequently means the mental act of petty dissatisfaction. A man may grumble in a clear voice. To the same class belong the French grondcr, the German krazen, (to scratch, and pronounced krat-sen,) the Greek *>>aw, from which is derived Wat«v, to grave, to engrave, and, ultimately to write, as if we used scratching for writing; and, by a farther ex- tension of the meaning, for composing, corresponding, and other significations, which the expansive word writing has received in the course of time. The German word Schmecken, (of the same root with the English to smack,) which now means to taste, both as an active and a neuter verb, is here in point, [t is derived from the sound which is produced by a person eagerly tasting some substance—an action expressed by the French claquer, and the English smack- ing; the latter of which also signifies to savour of something. For, the active and the passive, the cause and the effect, the state of a thing and the action resulting from it, the perceiving and the causing of the perception, are ideas constantly passing over into one another in the human mind, and produce cor responding results in language.* Hut the German word extends its meaning still farther, for Geschniack is the term for taste, in all its meanings, as if the English smacking were used for the sense of taste and the cultivated aesthetical perception and judgment, or as if the French used claquement for their word gout, in the fine arts, though the very words gout and gouter are derived from the Latin gustus, which, with its guttural sound, belongs likewise to the present class. It was, originally, an imitation of the sound produced by the act of swallowing, or the reversed sound of gulping (also a word to be mentioned here.) The German plump, now meaning clumsy, was suggested by the sound which the fall of a heavy and unelastic body produces. The Greek pneuma, meaning mind, but originally breath, is derived from the sound of breathing forth. The Chinese word gong means the instrument which produces the sound dub as a noun, as din had been used by others before him, and as eiapopeia has been used by the Germans as a substantive. What are the Latin clangor, clamor, the German Klang, but words of this sort? We might imagine a Hudibrastic writer using the expression, “ They rub-a-dubbed it all about.” No dictionary, however, in my possession, has Rub-a-dub; by and by the lexicographer will admit this, as yet, half-wild word. * One of the most striking instances is our UI am told,” for uIt has been told to me;” as if the Latin narror (they say of me) were used for ‘‘they tell me;” or as if the English