It would have been very remarkable if precisely the same sign were not used by different or even the same persons or bodies of people with wholly distinct significations.  The graphic forms for objects and ideas are much more likely to be coincident than sound is for similar expressions, yet in all oral languages the same precise sound is used for utterly diverse meanings.  The first conception of many different objects must have been the same.  It has been found; indeed, that the homophony of words and the homomorphy of ideographic pictures is noticeable in opposite significations, the conceptions arising from the opposition itself.  The differentiation in portraiture or accent is a subsequent and remedial step not taken until after the confusion has been observed and become inconvenient.  Such confusion and contradiction would only be eliminated if sign language were absolutely perfect as well as absolutely universal.

SYMMORPHS.

In this class are included those signs conveying different ideas, and really different in form of execution as well as in conception, yet in which the difference in form is so slight as practically to require attention and discrimination.  An example from oral speech may be found in the English word “desert,” which, as pronounced “des’-ert” or “desert’,” and in a slightly changed form, “dessert,” has such widely varying significations.  These distinctions relating to signs require graphic illustration.

[Illustration:  Fig. 112.]

[Illustration:  Fig. 113.]

The sign made by the Dakota, Hidatsa, and several other tribes, for tree is made by holding the right hand before the body, back forward, fingers and thumb separated, then pushing it slightly upward, Fig. 112.  That for grass is the same made near the ground; that for grow is made like grass, though instead of holding the back of the hand near the ground the hand is pushed upward in an interrupted manner, Fig. 113.  For smoke, the hand (with the back down, fingers pointing upward as in grow) is thrown upward several times from the same place instead of continuing the whole motion upward.  Frequently the fingers are thrown forward from under the thumb with each successive upward motion.  For fire, the hand is employed as in the gesture for smoke, but the motion is frequently more waving, and in other cases made higher from the ground.

The sign for rain, made by the Shoshoni, Apache, and other Indians, is by holding the hand (or hands) at the height of and before the shoulder, fingers pendent, palm down, then pushing it downward a short distance, Fig. 114.  That for heat is the same, with the difference that the hand is held above the head and thrust downward toward the forehead; that for to weep is made by holding the hand as in rain, and the gesture made from the eye downward over the cheek, back of the fingers nearly touching the face.