“Once, man one, sons two.  Son younger say, Father property your divide:  part my, me give.  Father so.—­Son each, part his give.  Days few after, son younger money all take, country far go, money spend, wine drink, food nice eat.  Money by and by gone all.  Country everywhere food little:  son hungry very.  Go seek man any, me hire.  Gentleman meet.  Gentleman son send field swine feed.  Son swine husks eat, see—­self husks eat want—­cannot—­husks him give nobody.  Son thinks, say, father my, servants many, bread enough, part give away can—­I none—­starve, die.  I decide:  Father I go to, say I bad, God disobey, you disobey—­name my hereafter son, no—­I unworthy.  You me work give servant like.  So son begin go.  Father far look:  son see, pity, run, meet, embrace.  Son father say, I bad, you disobey, God disobey—­name my hereafter son, no—­I unworthy.  But father servants call, command robe best bring, son put on, ring finger put on, shoes feet put on, calf fat bring, kill.  We all eat, merry.  Why?  Son this my formerly dead, now alive:  formerly lost, now found:  rejoice.”

It may be remarked, not only from this example, but from general study, that the verb “to be” as a copula or predicant does not have any place in sign language.  It is shown, however, among deaf-mutes as an assertion of presence or existence by a sign of stretching the arms and hands forward and then adding the sign of affirmation. Time as referred to in the conjunctions when and then is not gestured.  Instead of the form, “When I have had a sleep I will go to the river,” or “After sleeping I will go to the river,” both deaf-mutes and Indians would express the intention by “Sleep done, I river go.”  Though time present, past, and future is readily expressed in signs (see page 366), it is done once for all in the connection to which it belongs, and once established is not repeated by any subsequent intimation, as is commonly the case in oral speech.  Inversion, by which the object is placed before the action, is a striking feature of the language of deaf-mutes, and it appears to follow the natural method by which objects and actions enter into the mental conception.  In striking a rock the natural conception is not first of the abstract idea of striking or of sending a stroke into vacancy, seeing nothing and having no intention of striking anything in particular, when suddenly a rock rises up to the mental vision and receives the blow; the order is that the man sees the rock, has the intention to strike it, and does so; therefore he gestures, “I rock strike.”  For further illustration of this subject, a deaf-mute boy, giving in signs the compound action of a man shooting a bird from a tree, first represented the tree, then the bird as alighting upon it, then a hunter coming toward and looking at it, taking aim with a gun, then the report of the latter and the falling and the dying gasps of the bird.  These are undoubtedly the successive steps that an artist would have taken