While we know our northern friends may not feel it, in the South, Spring is
here. So we thought we'd share a few of our gardening sites appropriate
for this time of the year. Along with gardening, there's grilling, and getting
ready to diet so that you can fit back into that bathing suit this summer!
When human beings have been long in solitary
confinement, been abandoned, or otherwise have become
isolated from their fellows, they have lost speech either
partially or entirely, and required to have it renewed
through gestures. There are also several recorded cases of
children, born with all their faculties, who, after having
been lost or abandoned, have been afterwards found to have
grown up possessed of acute hearing, but without anything
like human speech. One of these was Peter, "the Wild Boy,"
who was found in the woods of Hanover in 1726, and taken to
England, where vain attempts were made to teach him
language, though he lived to the age of seventy. Another was
a boy of twelve, found in the forest of Aveyron, in France,
about the beginning of this century, who was destitute of
speech, and all efforts to teach him failed. Some of these
cases are to be considered in connection with the general
law of evolution, that in degeneration the last and highest
acquirements are lost first. When in these the effort at
acquiring or re-acquiring speech has been successful, it has
been through gestures, in the same manner as missionaries,
explorers, and shipwrecked mariners have become acquainted
with tongues before unknown to themselves and sometimes to
civilization. All persons in such circumstances are obliged
to proceed by pointing to objects and making gesticulations,
at the same time observing what articulate sounds were
associated with those motions by the persons addressed, and
thus vocabularies and lists of phrases were formed.
This site includes some historical
materials that may imply negative stereotypes reflecting the culture or
language of a particular period or place. These items are presented as
part of the historical record and should not be interpreted to mean that
the WebMasters in any way endorse the stereotypes implied.
Sign Language
Among North American Indians Compared with
that Among Other Peoples and Deaf-Mutes,
1881
