The Speech of Monkeys

CHAPTER XVII

Speech Defined – The True Nature of Speech – The Use of Speech – The Limitations of Speech.

What is speech? I shall endeavour to define it in such terms as will relieve it of ambiguity, and deal with it as a known quantity in the problems of mental commerce. Speech is that form of materialised thought which is confined to oral sounds, when they are designed to convey a definite idea from mind to mind. It is, therefore, only one mode of expressing thought, and to come within the limits of speech, the sounds must be voluntary, have fixed values, and be intended to suggest to another mind a certain idea, or group of ideas, more or less complex. The idea is one factor, and sound the other, and the two conjointly constitute speech. The empty sounds alone, however modulated, having no integral value, cannot be speech, nor can the concept unexpressed be speech. Separately, the one would be noise, and the other would be thought; and they only become speech when the thought is expressed in oral sounds. Sounds which only express emotion are not speech, as emotion is not thought, although it is frequently attended by thought, and is a cause of which thought is the effect. Music expresses emotion by means of sounds, but they are not speech; and even though the sounds which express them may impart a like emotion to the hearer, they are not speech. The sounds which express crying, sighing, or laughter, may indeed be a faint suggestion of speech, since we infer from them the state of the mind attending the emotions which produce them, yet they are not truly speech. To be regarded as speech, the expression must be preceded by consciousness, and the desire to make known to another the sensation by which the expression is actuated. As the impulse can only come from within, it appears that emotion is one source from which thought is evolved, and speech is the natural issue of thought. Desire gives rise to a class of thoughts having reference to the sensations which produce them, and such thoughts find expression in such sounds as may suggest supplying the want. As the wants of man have increased with his changing modes of life and thought, his speech has drawn upon the resources of sound to meet those increased demands for expression. It appears only reasonable to me that thought must precede in point of time and order any expression of thought, for thought is the motive of expression, and the expression of thought in oral sounds is speech. NATURE OF SPEECH Speech is not an invention, and therefore is not symbolic in its radical nature. True, that much that is symbolic has been added to it, and its bounds have been widened as men have risen in the scale of civil life, until our higher types of modern speech have departed so far from the natural modes of speech and first forms of expression, that we can rarely trace a single word to its ultimate source. And viewing it as we do from our present standpoint, it appears to be purely symbolic; but if that be so, then we must deny the first law of progress, and assign the origin of this faculty to that class of phenomena known as miracles, which once explained by increasing the mystery what we could not understand, and served at the same time to conceal the exact magnitude of our ignorance; but as we added little by little to our stock of knowledge, such phenomena were brought within the realm of our understanding, and to-day our children are familiar with the causes of many simple effects which our forefathers dared not attempt to solve, but reverently ascribed to the immediate influence of Divinity. If speech in its ultimate nature is symbolic, what must have been the condition of man before its invention, and how did he arrive at the first term or sound of speech? He did not invent sound nor the means of making it. He did not invent thought, the thing which speech expresses, and it is no more reasonable to believe that he invented speech than to believe that he invented the faculties of sight and hearing, which are certainly the natural products of his organic nature and environments. So far as I can find through the whole range of animal life, all forms of land mammals possess vocal organs which are developed in a degree corresponding to the condition of the brain, and seem to be in every instance as capable of producing and controlling sounds as the brain is of thinking: in other words, the power of expression is in perfect keeping with the power of thinking. From my acquaintance with the animal kingdom, it is my firm belief that all mammals possess the faculty of speech in a degree commensurate with their experience and needs, and that domestic animals have a somewhat higher type of speech than their wild progenitors. Why are all forms of mammals endowed with vocal organs? Why should Nature bestow on them these organs if not designed for use? One or the other of two conclusions seems inevitable. As a law of evolution and progress, all organs are imparted to animals for use and not for ornament. It seems consistent with what we know of Nature, to suppose that the vocal organs of these lower forms are being developed to meet a new requirement in the animal economy, or having once discharged some function necessary to the being and comfort of the animal, they are now lapsing into disuse and becoming atrophied. If they are in the course of development, it argues that the creature which possesses them must possess a rudimentary speech which is developing at a like rate into a higher type of speech. If they are in a state of decay or atrophy, it argues that the animal must have been able to speak at some former period, and that now, in losing the power of speech it is gradually losing the organ. In either case, the organs themselves would be in a state of development in harmony with the condition of the speech of the animal. LIMITATIONS OF SPEECH The function which speech discharges is the communication of ideas, and its growth must depend upon the extent of those ideas; and in all conditions of life, and in all forms of the animal kingdom, the uses of speech are confined to, and limited by the desires, thoughts, and concepts of those using it. Its extent is commensurate with requirement. To believe that there was a time in the history of the human race when man could not speak, is to destroy his identity as man, and the romance of the alalus could be justified from a scientific standpoint only as a compromise between the giants of science and superstition. Among the tribes of men whose modes of life are simple, whose wants are few, and whose knowledge is confined to their primitive condition, the number of words necessary to convey their thoughts is very limited. Among some savage races there are languages consisting of only a few hundred words at most, while as we rise in the scale of civil and domestic culture, languages become more copious and expressive as the wants become more numerous and the conditions of life more complex. As we descend from man to the lower animals, we find the types of speech degenerate just in proportion as we descend in the mental and moral plane, but it does not lose its identity as speech. Through the whole animal kingdom from man to protozoa, types of speech differ as do the physical types to which they belong. But as the same vital processes are found throughout the whole circle of life, so the same phonetic basis is found through the whole range of speech.

CHAPTER XVIII

The Motives of Speech – Expression – The Beginning of Human Speech – The Present Condition of Speech.

In vital economy, the search-light of science has found the protoplasm which from our present state of knowledge seems to be the first point of contact between elemental matter and the vital force. What secrets of biology remain unknown within the realm of life, only those who live in the future may ever know. In the first condition of vitalised matter we find the evidence of autonomy. Whatever may be the ultimate force which actuates this monad, the manifestations of its presence and the result of its energy are seen externally. Whatever may be the nature of that force which imparts motion to matter, the first impulse of the biod is to secure food or to associate itself with a unit of its own kind. This is perhaps the first act of volition within the sphere of life, the first expression of some internal want, and is the first faint suggestion of a consciousness, however feeble; and I may add with propriety, that it is my opinion that the vital and psychic forces operate in a manner not unlike the electric and chemical forces. They appear to polarise, and in this condition act on matter in harmony with that great law of Nature under which positive repels positive and attracts negative, and vice versâ. We shall not attempt to follow the tedious steps of progress from inanimate matter to man, but begin with those intermediate forms which are so far developed as to utter sounds and understand the sounds of others. We will deal only with tangible facts as we find them. From whatever source expression may arise, or at whatever point it may appear, it is prompted by desire or some kindred emotion, either positive or negative.

At the point where we begin to discuss this question there are two distinct modes of expression, either one of which can be used without the other. But I may mention here a cogent fact, that in the lower forms of life the normal mode of expression is by signs with supplemental sounds. In the higher forms, expression is by sounds, and signs are supplemental. And from the lower to the higher forms this transition is in harmony with the development of physical types. It occurs to me that signs were the first form of expression, and that sounds were first used to call attention to the sign made; and by an association of ideas the sounds became a factor of expression, and were used to emphasise signs. As we ascend the scale of life, sounds become more abundant, and signs less significant, and in the middle types they appear to be of nearly equal value, while in the higher tribes of man sounds are the normal mode of expression, and signs or gestures are used to emphasise them; and thus we see that signs and sounds in the development of the faculty of expression have quite changed places. This is consistent with the observed facts within the limits of human speech. There are tribes of mankind whose language is scarcely intelligible among themselves unless accompanied by signs; and it is said of some of the African tribes that their gestures are more eloquent than their speech. It appears to me consistent to believe that speech appears in the animal organism simultaneously with the vocal organs, and that the desire of expression must have preceded this. PRESENT CONDITION OF SPEECH The condition of the vocal organs depends upon the type of speech which they are used to utter, and the speech depends upon the quality of thought it is intended to express. That type of speech used by the Caucasian race within the space of a few centuries has developed from a vocabulary limited to a few thousand words into the polished languages of modern Europe, comprising new types and tens of thousands of new words, until to-day our own language contains more than two hundred and twenty thousand words, very few of which, however, if any, are entirely new. The phonetic elements on which is built up this huge vocabulary do not very greatly exceed in number those found in the lowest types of human speech in the world. The total number of these sounds does not much exceed two score in the highest forms of human speech; and about half this number can be shown as the vocal products of some species of the lower animals. Some philologists claim that the blending of consonant and vowel sounds is the mark which distinguishes human speech from the sounds uttered by the lower animals. To show how poorly this gigantic superstructure of fossilised science is supported by the facts, I have developed such effects in the phonograph from a basis of sounds purely mechanical, and without the aid of any part of the vocal apparatus of man or animal. The sounds from which I have developed such results were neither vowel nor consonant as those sounds are defined, but simply prolonged musical notes. In another chapter will be found some of the experiments which I have performed with the phonograph in the investigation of sounds of various kinds. If I am allowed to think for myself at all, I am not ready to accept as final some of the dogmas on the theory of sound which have long been held and taught, and many of which remain orthodox for no other reason than that no one has denied them. I am not ready at this point to spring upon the world any new theory of sound, but I am quite ready to refuse to believe some of the tenets set forth in the creeds of philology.

Heresy is the author of progress, and I confess myself a heretic on many of the current doctrines of the science of sounds.

CHAPTER XIX

Language embraces Speech – Speech, Words, Grammar, and Rhetoric.

A definition of the word speech as used in this particular work is given elsewhere, and by this definition the word is used only in that sense which limits it to the sphere of oral sounds. It is that form of language which addresses itself only to the ear. The sounds which constitute it may be supplemented by signs or gestures, but such signs are only adjuncts, and are not to be regarded as an integral part of speech in its true sense. Speech cannot be acquired by those forms of life which occupy the lowest horizons of the animal kingdom, and have no organs with which to produce sound. In the light of modern use and acceptation language, broadly interpreted, includes all modes and means of communication between mind and mind. It therefore includes speech as one form, while signs or gestures constitute another form. Writing in all its various modes is another form of language. It may be substituted for either speech or gestures, but it does not thereby become speech in a literal sense, but within itself it constitutes another form of language. There seems to be some vague and subtle method of communication found in certain spheres of life which is called telepathy. While it is a mere ghost of language, so to speak, it has an identity which cannot be denied. This may perhaps be called another form of language.

By some eminent men of letters it is claimed that speech was invented, and therefore cannot be universally the same; and this is proven by the fact that different tribes of men have different tongues. They do not appear to realise, that to the first cardinal sounds of speech so much has been added age by age, by slow accretions, that the radex of speech is but a mere drop in the great ocean of sounds. The mobility of speech is such as to make it more susceptible to change than matter is; and yet we find that, by the laws of change, man has been evolved from a less complex state of matter, and that in these latter years he can only be identified as the descendant of his prototype by the most scrutinising care, and by picking up the dropped stitches in the great fabric of Nature. To illustrate the slow and imperceptible, yet never ceasing, never failing process of evolution, we may imagine a man picking up a single grain of sand at a certain point and carrying it a distance of a thousand feet, where he deposits it at another certain point; returning, takes a second grain of sand from the same place as he secured the first, and carries it to the point at which he deposited the first, and thus continues through his life. At his death his son succeeds him in the task, and continues through his life, and at the death of this man his son succeeds; and thus in turn each one succeeds the other through a million generations. Supposing the wind and rain left these grains of sand unmolested during this long lapse of time, it is evident that at the place from which the sand was taken there would be a hole, and where it was deposited there would be a hill. It is by such slight changes that Nature does her work; and thus it is that speech, as well as matter, has been transformed from what it was to what it is. The physical basis of life retains its identity through all those varied forms, from protozoa to the highest type; and so the phonetic basis of speech adheres through all the changing modes of thought and expression. Speech is the highest type of language and the most accurate mode of expression, and belongs only to the higher forms of the animal kingdom. It has passed through all inferior horizons coinciding with the mental, moral, and social planes through which man has passed in the course of his evolution.

Words are the factors of speech and the highest development of that faculty. A word may be composed of one or more sounds so articulated as to preclude any interval of time between the utterance of any two of them, as "tune," in which the sounds appear to overlap and blend into each other. A single word may signify more than a single thing, and sometimes will suggest to the mind a category or group of connected thoughts, as "eat" or "telegraph," and such is the value of many of our words. This is especially true of words which combine two roots; but such a combination is usually found only in the higher types of human speech. But in these higher types words bear such relations to each other that we cannot well convey a complete idea with a single word; and hence it is that in the modes of expression used by man, each separate statement consists of two or more words bearing certain relations to each other, and these are often qualified by other words of less importance. This redundancy is due to the higher and more complex modes of thought used by man; and it is on such a state of facts that we have founded that branch of science called grammar, which would be of little use among those forms which occupy the planes of life inferior to man, and it is found of little use among the lower tribes of man, where it does not exist in any written form. Grammar does not make language, but serves as a kind of anchor by which the dialects of human speech are somewhat unified and made more stable; and to this is due in some measure the fact that savage tongues and dialects are more susceptible to change in their structure, while the phonetic basis upon which they rest remains the same.