The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought Part 33

One of the most curious instances of the linguistic inventiveness of children is the case of the Boston twins (of German descent on the mother's side) born in 1860, regarding whose language a few details were given by Miss E. H. Watson, who says: "At the usual age these twins began to talk, but, strange to say, _not_ their 'mother-tongue.'

They had a language of their own, and no pains could induce them to speak anything else. It was in vain that a little sister, five years older than they, tried to make them speak their _native language_,--as it would have been. They persistently refused to utter a syllable of English. Not even the usual first words, 'papa,' 'mamma,'

'father,' 'mother,' it is said, did they ever speak; and, said the lady who gave this information to the writer,--who was an aunt of the children, and whose home was with them,--they were never known during this interval to call their mother by that name. They had their own name for her, but never the English. In fact, though they had the usual affections, were rejoiced to see their father at his returning home each night, playing with him, etc., they would seem to have been otherwise completely taken up, absorbed, with each other.... The children had not yet been to school; for, not being able to speak their 'own English,' it seemed impossible to send them from home. They thus pa.s.sed the days, playing and talking together in their own speech, with all the liveliness and volubility of common children. Their accent was _German_,--as it seemed to the family. They had regular words, a few of which the family learned sometimes to distinguish; as that, for example, for carriage [_ni-si-boo-a_], which, on hearing one pa.s.s in the street, they would exclaim out, and run to the window" (249. 11).

We are further informed that, when the children were six or seven years old, they were sent to school, but for a week remained "perfectly mute"; indeed, "not a sound could be heard from them, but they sat with their eyes intently fixed upon the children, seeming to be watching their every motion,--and no doubt, listening to every sound. At the end of that time they were induced to utter some words, and gradually and naturally they began, for the first time, to learn their 'native English.' With this accomplishment, the other began also naturally to fade away, until the memory with the use of it pa.s.sed from their mind"

(249. 12).

Mr. Horatio Hale, who resumes the case just noticed in his address before the Anthropological Section of the American a.s.sociation for the Advancement of Science (Buffalo, 1886), gives also valuable details of the language of a little four-year-old girl and her younger brother in Albany, as reported by Dr. E. R. Hun (249. 13). The chief facts are as follows: "The mother observed when she was two years old that she was backward in speaking, and only used the words 'papa' and 'mamma.' After that she began to use words of her own invention, and though she readily understood what was said, never employed the words used by others.

Gradually she extended her vocabulary until it reached the extent described below [at least twenty-one distinct words, many of which were used in a great variety of meanings]. She has a brother eighteen months younger than herself, who has learned her language, so that they talk freely together. He, however, seems to have adopted it only because he has more intercourse with her than with others; and in some instances he will use a proper word with his mother, and his sister's word with her.

She, however, persists in using only her own words, though her parents, who are uneasy about her peculiarity of speech, make great efforts to induce her to use proper words."

More may be read concerning this language in the account of Dr. Hun (published in 1868).

Mr. Hale mentions three other cases, information regarding which came to him. The inventors in the first instance were a boy between four and five years old, said to have been "unusually backward in his speech,"

and a girl a little younger, the children of a widower and a widow respectively, who married; and, according to the report of an intimate friend: "He and the little girl soon became inseparable playmates, and formed a language of their own, which was unintelligible to their parents and friends. They had names of their own invention for all the objects about them, and must have had a corresponding supply of verbs and other parts of speech, as their talk was fluent and incessant." This was in Kingston, Ontario, Canada (249. 16).

The second case is that of two young children, twins, a boy and a girl: "When they were three or four years old they were accustomed, as their elder sister informs me, to talk together in a language which no one else understood.... The twins were wont to climb into their father's carriage in the stable, and 'chatter away,' as my informant says, for hours in this strange language. Their sister remembers that it sounded as though the words were quite short. But the single word which survives in the family recollection is a dissyllable, the word for milk, which was _cully_. The little girl accompanied her speech with gestures, but the boy did not. As they grew older, they gradually gave up their peculiar speech" (249. 17).

The third case cited by Mr. Hale is that of two little boys of Toronto, Canada,--five or six years of age, one being about a year older than the other, who attended a school in that city: "These children were left much to themselves, and had a language of their own, in which they always conversed. The other children in the school used to listen to them as they chattered together, and laugh heartily at the strange speech of which they could not understand a word. The boys spoke English with difficulty, and very imperfectly, like persons struggling to express their ideas in a foreign tongue. In speaking it, they had to eke out their words with many gestures and signs to make themselves understood; but in talking together in their own language, they used no gestures and spoke very fluently. She remembers that the words which they used seemed quite short" (249. 18).

Mr. Hale's studies of these comparatively uninvestigated forms of human speech led him into the wider field of comparative philology and linguistic origins. From the consideration of these data, the distinguished ethnologist came to regard the child as a factor of the utmost importance in the development of dialects and families of speech, and to put forward in definite terms a theory of the origin and growth of linguistic diversity and dialectic profusion, to the idea of which he was led by his studies of the mult.i.tude of languages within the comparatively restricted area of Oregon and California (249. 9).

Starting with the language-faculty instinct in the child, says Mr. Hale: "It was as impossible for the first child endowed with this faculty not to speak in the presence of a companion similarly endowed, as it would be for a nightingale or a thrush not to carol to its mate. The same faculty creates the same necessity in our days, and its exercise by young children, when accidentally isolated from the teachings and influence of grown companions, will readily account for the existence of all the diversities of speech on our globe" (249. 47). Approaching, in another essay, one of the most difficult problems in comparative philology, he observes: "There is, therefore, nothing improbable in the supposition that the first Aryan family--the orphan children, perhaps, of some Semitic or Accadian fugitives from Arabia or Mesopotamia--grew up and framed their new language on the southeastern seaboard of Persia." Thus, he thinks, is the Aryo-Semitic problem most satisfactorily solved (467. 675). In a second paper (250) on _The Development of Language_, Mr. Hale restates and elaborates his theory with a wealth of ill.u.s.tration and argument, and it has since won considerable support from the scientists of both hemispheres.

Professor Romanes devotes not a few pages of his volume on _Mental Evolution in Man_, to the presentation of Mr. Hale's theory and of the facts upon which it is based (338. 138-144).

_Secret Languages._

That the use of secret languages and the invention of them by children is widespread and prevalent at home, at school, in the playground, in the street, is evident from the exhaustive series of articles in which Dr. F. S. Krauss (281) of Vienna has treated of "Secret Languages." Out of some two hundred forms and fas.h.i.+ons there cited a very large proportion indeed belong to the period of childhood and youth and the scenes of boyish and girlish activity. We have languages for games, for secret societies, for best friends, for school-fellows, for country and town, for boys and girls, etc. Dr. Oscar Chrisman (206) has quite recently undertaken to investigate the nature and extent of use of these secret languages in America, with gratifying results. A study of the child at the period in which the language-making instinct is most active cannot be without interest to pedagogy, and it would not be without value to inquire what has been the result of the universal neglect of language-teaching in the primary and lower grade grammar schools--whether the profusion of secret languages runs parallel with this diversion of the child-mind from one of its most healthful and requisite employments, or whether it has not to some extent atrophied the linguistic sense.

The far-reaching ramifications of "secret languages" are evidenced by the fact that a language called "Tut" by school-children of Gonzales, Texas, is almost identical in its alphabet with the "Guitar Language,"

of Bonyhad, in Hungary, the "Bob Language," of Czernowitz, in Austria, and another language of the same sort from Berg. The travels of the Texas secret language are stated by Dr. Chrisman to be as follows: "This young lady ... learned it from her mother's servant, a negro girl; this girl learned it from a negro girl who got it at a female negro school at Austin, Texas, where it was brought by a negro girl from Galveston, Texas, who learned it from a negro girl who had come from Jamaica" (208.

305).

Evidence is acc.u.mulating to show that these secret languages of children exist in all parts of the world, and it would be a useful and instructive labour were some one to collect all available material and compose an exhaustive scientific monograph on the subject.

Interesting, for comparative purposes, are the secret languages and jargons of adults. As Paul Sartori (528) has recently shown, the use of special or secret languages by various individuals and cla.s.ses in the communities is widespread both in myth and reality. We find peculiar dialects spoken by, or used in addressing, deities and evil spirits; giants, monsters; dwarfs, elves, fairies; ghosts, spirits; witches, wizards, "medicine men"; animals, birds, trees, inanimate objects. We meet also with special dialects of secret societies (both of men and of women); sacerdotal and priestly tongues; special dialects of princes, n.o.bles, courts; women's languages, etc.; besides a mult.i.tude of jargons, dialects, languages of trades and professions, of peasants, shepherds, soldiers, merchants, hunters, and the divers slangs and jargons of the vagabonds, tramps, thieves, and other outcast or criminal cla.s.ses.

Far-reaching indeed is the field opened by the consideration of but a single aspect of child-speech, that doll-language which Joaquin Miller so aptly notes:--

"Yet she carried a doll, as she toddled alone, And she talked to that doll in a tongue her own."

_Diminutives._

Both the golden age of childhood and the golden age of love exercise a remarkable influence upon language. Mantegazza, discussing "the desire to merge oneself into another, to abase oneself, to aggrandize the beloved," etc., observes: "We see it in the use of diminutives which lovers and sometimes friends use towards each other, and which mothers use to their children; we lessen ourselves thus in a delicate and generous manner in order that we may be embraced and absorbed in the circle of the creature we love. Nothing is more easily possessed than a small object, and before the one we love we would change ourselves into a bird, a canary--into any minute thing that we might be held utterly in the hands, that we might feel ourselves pressed on all sides by the warm and loving fingers. There is also another secret reason for the use of diminutives. Little creatures are loved tenderly, and tenderness is the supreme sign of every great force which is dissolved and consumes itself. After the wild, pa.s.sionate, impetuous embrace there is always the tender note, and then diminutives, whether they belong to expression or to language, always play a great part" (499. 137). The fondness of boys for calling each other by the diminutives of their surnames belongs here.

In some languages, such as the Nip.i.s.sing dialect of Algonkian in North America, the Modern Greek or Romaic, Lowland Scotch, and Plattdeutsch, the very frequent employment of diminutives has come to be a marked characteristic of the common speech of the people. The love for diminutives has, in some cases, led to a charm of expression in language which is most attractive; this is seen perhaps at its best in Castilian, and some of the Italian dialects (202 and 219). A careful study of the influence of the child upon the forms of language has yet to be made.

CHAPTER XVI.

THE CHILD AS ACTOR AND INVENTOR.

The child is a born actor.

The world's a theatre, the earth a stage, Which G.o.d and Nature do with actors fill.--_Heywood_.

Man is an imitative creature, and the foremost leads the flock.

--_Schiller_.

_Imitative Games_.

In her article on _Imitation in Children_, Miss Haskell notes the predilection of children for impersonation and dramatic expression, giving many interesting examples. S. D. Warren, in a paper read before the American a.s.sociation for the Advancement of Science, at the Brooklyn Meeting, 1894 (_Proc_., Vol. xliii., p. 335), also notes these activities of children, mentioning, among other instances, "an annual celebration of the surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown," "playing railroad," playing at pulling hand fire-engines, as the representatives of two rival villages.

The mention of the celebration of Cornwallis' surrender by children brings up the question of the child as recorder. As historian and chronicler, the child appears in the countless games in which he preserves more or less of the acts, beliefs, and superst.i.tions of our ancestors. Concerning some of these, Miss Alice Gomme says: "It is impossible that they have been invented by children by the mere effort of imagination, and there is ample evidence that they have but carried on interchangeably a record of events, some of which belong to the earliest days of the nation" (242.11).

As Miss Gomme points out, many of the games of English children are simply primitive dramas,--of the life of a woman ("When I was a Young Girl"), of courts.h.i.+p and marriage ("Here comes Three Dukes a-Riding,"

"Poor Mary sits a-Weeping"), of funerals ("Jenny Jones," "Green Gravel"), of border warfare ("We are the Rovers"), etc. Mr. W. W. Newell had previously remarked the importance of the dramatic element in children's games, citing as historical plays "Miss Jennia Jones"

(funeral), "Down she comes as White as Milk," "Green Gravel," "Uncle John," "Barbara Allen," and others more or less partaking of this character, based upon historical ballads, of some of which traces only are now preserved.

By means of carved or graven images in wood or stone, given to children as playthings or as targets to practise skill in shooting or striking with miniature bow-and-arrow or spear, an early acquaintance is formed with many animals. The imitation of animals, their habits and peculiarities, often forms no small part of the dances and games of children of the lower races.

_The Child as Actor_.

Wallaschek, in his study of the primitive drama and pantomime (546.

214-229), notes the presence of children as dancers and performers among the Andaman Islanders, the Tagals of the Philippines, the Tahitians, Fijis, Polynesians and other more or less primitive races. Of Tibet and some portions of China Mr. Rockhill, in his _Diary of a Journey through Mongolia, and Tibet, in 1891 and 1892_ (Was.h.i.+ngton, D. C., 1894), informs us that the lads in every village give theatrical performances, the companies of young actors being known as _Hsiao sheng huei_, "young men's amateur theatrical company" (p. 68).

Among the aborigines of the New World we find also children as actors and partic.i.p.ants in the ceremonies and ritual performances of various tribes. In certain ceremonials of the Sia, as Mrs. Stevenson informs us, young children take part. A boy of eight was allowed to hear the sacred songs on one occasion, and to witness the making of the "medicine-water," but a boy of four was not permitted to be present; the boy also took part in the dance (538. 79). In the rain ceremonial of the "Giant Society," a little girl, eight years old, painted the fetiches quite as dexterously as her elders, and took apparently quite as much interest in the proceedings. In the rain ceremonial of the "Knife Society," boys a.s.sist, and in the rain ceremonial of the Querranna, a child (boy) with wand and rattle joins in the celebration of the rites, "requiring no rousing to sing and bend his tiny body to the time of the rattle, and joining in the calls upon the cloud-people to gather to water the earth, with as much enthusiasm as his elders." When children, boys or girls, are about ten or twelve years of age, and have, as the Indians say, "a good head," they are initiated, if they so desire, into some of the mysteries of the dances of the Ka'tsuna, in charge of the Querranna Society (538. 106-117).

Dr. J. W. Fewkes, in his detailed article on the _Flute Observance_ of the Tusayan Indians of Walpi, an interesting study of primitive dramatization, notes the part played by children in these ceremonies.

The princ.i.p.al characters are the "Snake Boy," the "Snake Girl," and some girl carriers of the sacred corn, besides lads as acolytes.

The story of the child as an actor has yet to be written. When the ancient Greeks crowded the theatres to hear and see the masterpieces of dramatic and histrionic genius, their "women, slaves, and children" were for the most part left at home, though we do find that later on in history, front seats were provided for the chief Athenian priestesses.

No voices of children were heard in chorus, and childhood found no true interpreter upon the stage. In France, in the middle of the seventeenth century, women appear as actors; in England it was not until long after the death of her greatest dramatist that (in 1660) women could fill a _role_ upon the stage without serious hindrance or molestation; in j.a.pan, even now, play-acting is not looked upon as a respectable profession for women. For a long time in England and elsewhere, female parts were taken by children and youths. Here also we meet with companies of child-actors, such as the "Boys of the Grammar School at Westminster," "The Children of Paul's," etc. The influence which produced these survives and flourishes to-day in the fondness of high-school pupils and university students for dramatic performances and recitations, and the number of schools of gesture, elocution, and the like, testifies to the abiding interest of the young in the mimic art.

This is also evidenced by the number of child actors and actresses in the theatrical world, and the remarkable precocity of the members of the profession in all lands. In England, the pantomime offers a special outlet for this current of expression, and there the child is a most important factor in stage-life. The precocity of girls in these respects is noteworthy.

_The Child as Inventor_.

Borrowing his figure of speech from the environment of child-hood, C.

J. Weber has said: "_Die Gesellschaft ist die Gross.m.u.tter der Menschkeit durch ihre Tochter, die Erfindungen_,--Society is the grandmother of humanity through her daughters, the inventions," and the familiar proverb--Necessity is the mother of invention--springs from the same source. Isaac Disraeli aptly says: "The golden hour of invention must terminate like other hours; and when the man of genius returns to the cares, the duties, the vexations, and the amus.e.m.e.nts of life, his companions behold him as one of themselves,--the creature of habits and infirmities," and not a few of the "golden hours of invention" seem to belong to the golden age of childhood. Even in these "degenerate" days the child appears as an inventor. A contributor to the periodical literature of the day remarks: "Children have taken out a number of patents. The youngest inventor on record is Donald Murray Murphy, of St. John, Canada, who, at the age of six years, obtained from the United States exclusive rights in a sounding toy. Mabel Howard, of Was.h.i.+ngton, at eleven years, invented an ingenious game for her invalid brother and got a patent for it. Albert Gr. Smith, of Biehwood, Illinois, at twelve years invented and patented a rowing apparatus"

(_Current Lit_., K T., xiv. 1893, p. 138).