it to-day.  As to the theory itself, it is scarcely more credible than its interjectional counterpart.  It is true that a number of words which we do not now feel to have a sound-imitative value can be shown to have once had a phonetic form that strongly suggests their origin as imitations of natural sounds.  Such is the English word “to laugh.”  For all that, it is quite impossible to show, nor does it seem intrinsically reasonable to suppose, that more than a negligible proportion of the elements of speech or anything at all of its formal apparatus is derivable from an onomatopoetic source.  However much we may be disposed on general principles to assign a fundamental importance in the languages of primitive peoples to the imitation of natural sounds, the actual fact of the matter is that these languages show no particular preference for imitative words.  Among the most primitive peoples of aboriginal America, the Athabaskan tribes of the Mackenzie River speak languages in which such words seem to be nearly or entirely absent, while they are used freely enough in languages as sophisticated as English and German.  Such an instance shows how little the essential nature of speech is concerned with the mere imitation of things.

The way is now cleared for a serviceable definition of language.  Language is a purely human and non-instinctive method of communicating ideas, emotions, and desires by means of a system of voluntarily produced symbols.  These symbols are, in the first instance, auditory and they are produced by the so-called “organs of speech.”  There is no discernible instinctive basis in human speech as such, however much instinctive expressions and the natural environment may serve as a stimulus for the development of certain elements of speech, however much instinctive tendencies, motor and other, may give a predetermined range or mold to linguistic expression.  Such human or animal communication, if “communication” it may be called, as is brought about by involuntary, instinctive cries is not, in our sense, language at all.

I have just referred to the “organs of speech,” and it would seem at first blush that this is tantamount to an admission that speech itself is an instinctive, biologically predetermined activity.  We must not be misled by the mere term.  There are, properly speaking, no organs of speech; there are only organs that are incidentally useful in the production of speech sounds.  The lungs, the larynx, the palate, the nose, the tongue, the teeth, and the lips, are all so utilized, but they are no more to be thought of as primary organs of speech than are the fingers to be considered as essentially organs of piano-playing or the knees as organs of prayer.  Speech is not a simple activity that is carried on by one or more organs biologically adapted to the purpose.  It is an extremely complex and ever-shifting network of adjustments—­in the brain, in the nervous system, and in the articulating and auditory organs—­tending