Evening journal., 1888-08-06
WHENCE COMES SPEECH?
A STRANGE CASE RECORDED IN
A BOSTON NEWSPAPER.

guagc-'A Parallel Case in the state OF
Nevada-The Childrea of tho Bastilo.
Freaks.
A Boston newspaper recently published an
account OF two brothers living in that city,
who, It declares, have grown to mans estate
without ever being able to speak the English
language, although born in the United States
OF American parents, and having heard
English spoken continuously. Their vocal
organs have been examined by the best spe-
cialists and found to be perfectly normal.
These brothers, it Is asserted, speak Ian
guage OF their own, which they perfectly
understand, but which, thus far, has been
unintelligible 20 everybody else Some words
OF the language were given by the Journal
referred 70, and a philolcgist would trace a
resemblance, if nothing more, TO Sanscrit.
But the case referred to is not without its
parallel The writer Of this article saw. on
more than one occasion, two children. a
brother and sister, living al a little stage
station in the state OF Nevada, who had IN
vented u language Of their own, which thsy
constantly used in talking with each other.
The girl was or 10 years OF age, aud the
boy year or two Younger There could be-
no deception and no mistake about the mat
ter. The children would play together aud
chatter in this strange speech Of their own
devising, and il was perfectly apparent THAI
it was not such meaningless gibberish as
children often use in play, but genuine
language. 1t resembled no language with
which the writer had any acquaintance
There conld be detected no resemblance 10
any modern language, no similarity 10 root
forms or stems which may be said, roughly,
to be common TO all spoken languages; nor
was there any hkeness to either Latin or
Greek, and, consequently, none 20 the cog
nate language which is called Sanscrit.
The children were not at all shy about talk
ing in the presence Of strangers, but they
could not DO made to understand what trans
lation from English into their language
meant They understood English, and could
and did speak it when spoken to; but they
either could not or would not give the eqniya-
lents Of English words in their own language
The mother Of the children said she could not
in any way account Tor this strange linguistic
freak. She said that the first time she heard
them, and indeed for many times afterward
she paid no attention, as she supposed they
were 'oniy jabbering nonsense ~ shc er-
pressed it, and 50 she was entirely unable TO
say whether the language was evolutionary
or whether the children spoke y just IA well
the first time as the Inst They certainly
spoke enough Of II when tho writer heard
them to understand them without any difl-
Guilty, although it seemed to the writer from
the cursory observations no could make that
the vocabulary was a very limited one; but
that would have been equally the case with
children Of that age had they been speaking
English
There has been a story in vogue for many
years, although 1t is impossible 20 verify is
and il IS probably apocryphal, that for the
purpose Of determining whether there WINS a
primal language, and if 50 what it was, two
infants We're at one time confined in the Bas-
tile and were never allowed to hear a word
of any language spoken, it being supposed
that nature would supply them with the
means Of communicating with each other as
they grew old enough 70 talk, and that the
controversy as 70 a primal language would
be conclnsively determined The story SAYS,
however that up TO II years Of age the chill
dren never uttered an articulate sound They
communicated with each other in fashion,
but it was entirely by signs, and not by any
thing resembling a spoken language Of any
kind. The story goes ON to say that they
were then released from their confinement
and placed among people where they heard
French spoken all around them, and that
they soon learned to speak the language
which they heard, but never gave any signs
Of knowing any other tongue
The story may be true, or it may not II
it is, it would tend very strongly to show
that our speech is the result Of imitation, and
that the faculty Of articulate speech depends
on the ability to repeat what is gathered from
the speech Of others This view receives
confirmation from the observation Of deaf
and dumb people, who are, as a rule, dumb
because they are deaf. They possess the
vocal organs fully developed, but they can
not speak because they are not able to im-
tate either the sound of language or the
mechanical vocal efforts Of speaking persons,
and this not because of innate inability, but
because of the lack of a medium Of intercom-
munication.
And yet the observation Of tho cases in
Massachusetts, and Nevada to which we have
referred shows that there must be exceptions
TO what would seem to be a general rule
Those children in Nevada knew no more OF
the accepted theories Of philology than they
did Of the diiferential calculus They did
not know the first thing about the develop
ment theory; they never heard of the rules
Of linguistic structure; and yet they con
was, for all practical purposes, just as much
a language as Hebrew or Greek or German
or English. It meant something to them;
each could understand the other; each could
say what he or she wanted to say, and that
constitutes q language.
The Boston case is somewhat different, if
it is told correctly. In that case there would
seem TO be some structural deficiency in the
brain-some distorted convolution or some
thing Of the sort-for, generally speaking, a
man who can speak one language can speak
every other, at least after a fashion. but
these brothers, it is asserted, cannot speak
English, although they can understand it to
q certain extent
These cases, strange as they may be, do not
initiate in any degree against the generally
received doctrines Of philology They are
freaks Of nature, nothing more, and ara, if
we stop to consider, no more strange than
other cases with which we are familiar
San Francisco Chronicle