The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought by Alexander F. Chamberlain (read full novel txt) 📖

the origin and growth of linguistic diversity and dialectic profusion, to the idea of which he was led by his studies of the multitude 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 illustration 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 fashions 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 schoolfellows, 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 farreaching ramifications of “secret languages” are evidenced by the fact that a language called “Tut” by schoolchildren 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 accumulating 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 classes 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, nobles, courts; women’s languages, etc.; besides a multitude 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 classes.

Farreaching 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, passionate, 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 Nipissing 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 God 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 Association 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 superstitions 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 courtship 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 (Washington, 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 participants 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 assist, and in the rain ceremonial of the Querränna, 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 Querränna 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 principal 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