Evening star., 1934-06-25
BY THOMAS r. HENRY.

Richard Sanderville, 70-year-old
Blackfoot Indian, and probably the
greatest living authority on the Indian
sign Language, has been brought to
Washington by the Bureau Of Amer
ican Ethnology to preserve for all
time one of the most remarkable sys-
TENS of communication known to man.
When Mai. Gen. Hugh L. Scott,
veteran Indian fighter and peace
maker, died in Washington few
weeks ago. he left unfinished work to
which he had devoted the later years
Of his life-compilation of a die
tionary of this language. 1t was an
inter tribal. continental system OF
communication. 1t extended from the
Atlantic to the Pacific Practically
all Indians learned it in childhood and
became proficient in it. 1t was the
language of tribal conferences.
1t reached its highest development
among the Indians of the Great
Plains area. With these Indians Gen.
Scott formed his closest contacts, first
as foe and later as closest friend and
defender. When he died he left more
than 1000 cards, each of which was
intended to contain a word and its
sign symbol. The vocabulary OF the
sign language was at least that large
and probably much larger. But at the
found that many contained only an
English word without its manual
counterpart.
Use Of the language has declined
almost to the vanishing point. Few
of the younger generation of Indians
know much about it. Sanderville was
Gen. SCOTS closest friend and in
formant among the Indians and con-
stitutes a remarkable bridge between
two ages and two cultures.
Several hundred languages were
spoken by the North American alb
originals Many of these can be ar
ranged in families. such as the 1ro-
Cuoian, the Algonquinian and the
Muskegean. Such a group was rough
ly comparable to the great Indo-Eu-
ropean language family with variants
ranging from Sanscript to English.
They had the same basic grammatical
structure and, making allowance for
linguistic shifts of one sort or an
other, the same root words. Between
the groups themselves there is no very
clear relationship, and some of them
seem about as far from others as
English from Chinese.
Tribes were isolated and self-cen-
tered. Under such conditions Ian
guage soon became set in a tribal
mold, and what started as a dialect
soon departs so far from its parent
tongue that only an expert can detect
any likeness. The Indians had no
written literature in which to pre-
serve classic forms of their tongues
from generation to generation.
So when the first white explorers
penetrated the interior of the conti-
nent they found a literal babel of
speech, with a multiplicity OF tongues
often developed in a comparatively
restricted region.
Utility of Symbols.
Under such conditions communica-
tion between tribes was practically
impossible unless some common sys-
tenn of symbols was brought into use.
The answer was the sign language,
which apparently was taught to al
most every Indian child, which varied
little from tribe to tribe, and which
would enable any Indian to converse
with any other Indian, regardless OF
difference in race or mother tongue.
The great advantages OF the sign
language were its simplicity and
naturalness. If conversation"
were conducted slowly, even person
who never had heard of 1t before
might get a fair idea of what the
communicant wished to convey.
For exampe: An Indian "cupped"
his hands, placed them to his mouth
in imitation of the act Of drinking;
then with his right arm he made a
flowing motion; then with his right
hand he made the motions of paint
ing his cheek. The first act was the
root sign, meaning water" Com
bined with the second, flowing
water" or "river," was indicated. The
motion Of painting the face was the
root symbol for red" Hence the COM
plex Of the three signs meant "Red
River" And, It can be seen, such
an Interpretation would be apt to
follow naturally without any arbitrary
learning.
The cupped hands placed at the
| mouth IN imitation of the act Of
drinking meant "water" everywhere,