Elements of Folk Psychology / Outline of a Psychological History of the Development of Mankind

lly 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

lusion 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

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

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 ext

h 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 prim

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

arly 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

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 in

, 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, there

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 Eu

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

ristics 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

s 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,