Notes on sign language (the method of communicating by signs )

Note: this text is extracted from Book I, chapter 7:

“... The king’s daughter made him a sign to come near with one finger, looking like love’s command in fleshly form. Then he came near her, and she came out of the women’s apartments, and took with her teeth a flower and threw it down to him. He, not understanding this mysterious sign made by the princess, puzzled as to what he ought to do, went home to his preceptor. There he rolled on the ground unable to utter a word, being consumed within with burning pain, like one dumb and distracted; his wise preceptor guessing what was the matter by these love symptoms, artfully questioned him, and at last he was with difficulty persuaded to tell the whole story.”

The method of communicating by signs made with objects is widely distributed through the East, and has also been noticed in different parts of Africa and America. The seclusion of women in the East, their ignorance of writing and the risk of conveying a letter to an admirer was quite sufficient to create a necessity for the language of signs, so that the maiden peeping through her lattice of meshrebiya could convey messages quickly and discreetly to her lover or the passing stranger.

Consequently we find the language of signs largely introduced into Eastern fiction. A curious fact is that the man to whom the signs are made never understands them, but has them interpreted by a friend or teacher. This is the case in our story of Devadatta, and also in two stories in the Nights (see Burton, vol. ii, p. 302 et seq., and vol. ix, p. 269). In the first of these stories, that of “Azīz and Azīzah,” are numerous examples of the sign language.

The following may be quoted:—

The woman appears at the window with a mirror and a red kerchief. She then

“bared her forearms and opened her five fingers and smote her breast with palms and digits; and after this she raised her hands and, holding the mirror outside the wicket, she took the red kerchief and retired into the room with it, but presently returned and putting out her hand with the kerchief, let it down towards the lane three several times, dipping it and raising it as often. Then she wrung it out and folded it in her hands, bending down her head the while; after which she drew it in from the lattice and, shutting the wicket-shutter, went away without a single word.”

The explanation is, the sign with her palm and five fingers:

“Return after five days; and the putting forth of her head out of the window, and her gestures with the mirror and the letting down and raising up and wringing out of the red kerchief, signify, Sit in the dyer’s shop till my messenger come to thee.”

After similar other messages our hero meets the lady, but always goes to sleep while waiting for her. Each time on awakening he finds she has been, and deposited objects on his body while asleep. On one occasion he finds lying on his stomach a cube of bone, a single tip-cat stick, the stone of a green date and a carob-pod.

The meaning of these articles is:

“By the single tip-cat stick and the cube of bone which she placed upon thy stomach she saith to thee, Thy body is present but thy heart is absent; and she meaneth, Love is not thus: so do not reckon thyself among lovers. As for the date-stone, it is as if she said to thee, An thou wert in love thy heart would be burning with passion and thou wouldst not taste the delight of sleep; for the sweet of love is like a green date which kindleth a coal of fire in the vitals. As for the carob-pod, it signifies to thee, The lover’s heart is wearied; and thereby she saith, Be patient under our separation with the patience of Job.”

Lane ( Arabian Nights, i, 608 , and Arabian Society in the Middle Ages, p. 130) says that the art of sign language was first “ made known to Europeans by a. Frenchman, M. du Vigneau, in a work entitled Secrétaire Turc, contenant l’Art d’exprimer ses pensées sans se voir, sans se parler, et sans sécrire: Paris, 1688 : in- 12 . Von Hammer has also given an interesting paper on this subject in the Mines de VOrient, No. 1 : Vienna, 1809 (note to Marcel’s Contes du Cheykh El-Mohdy, iii, 327, 328: Paris, 1833).” He gives an example of messages answered in the same manner.

It is well worth quoting:

“An Arab lover sent to his mistress a fan, a bunch of flowers, a silk tassel, some sugar-candy, and a piece of cord of a musical instrument; and she returned for answer a piece of an aloe-plant, three black cumin-seeds, and a piece of plant used in washing. His communication is thus interpreted. The fan, being called mirwaḥah, a word derived from a root which has among its meanings that of ‘going to any place in the evening,’ signified his wish to pay her an evening visit: the flowers, that the interview should be in her garden: the tassel, being called shurrābeh, that they should have shàrāb (or wine): the sugar-candy, being termed sukkar nebāt, and nebāi also signifying ‘we will pass the night’ denoted his desire to remain in her company until the morning: and the piece of cord, that they should be entertained by music. The interpretation of her answer is as follows. The piece of an aloe-plant, which is called sabbarah (from sabr, which signifies patience —because it will live for many months together without water), implied that he must wait: the three black cumin-seeds explained to him that the period of delay should be three nights: and the plant used in washing informed him that she should then have gone to the bath, and would meet him.”

Similar sign language occurs in Swynnerton, Indian Nights’ Entertainments, p. 167 et seq. See also Stein and Grierson, Hatims Tales, 1923, pp. 21 , 22 , where in the story of the goldsmith the lady turns her back, shows a mirror, throws some water, a posy of flowers and a hair out of the window. Finally she scratches the sill of the window with an iron stiletto. All this means that someone else was in the room, but that he can meet her by the water-drain in the garden and must be prepared to file through iron railings. At the moment she was combing her hair.

The ancient Peruvians used knotted strings, called quipus, in a most elaborate manner, the colour chosen usually denoting objects and the knots numbers, The system is still found in the north of South America. For full details and excellent illustrations see J. L. Locke, The Ancient Quipu, Amer. Mus. Nat. Hist., New York, 1923.

The Australian message-stick is merely an aid to memory when conveying a message. In China chopsticks are sometimes used as a means of giving instructions in code, but here we are nearly toucing on signalling in the modern sense of the word, which is outside our note.

The language of signs has a distinct connection with the British rule in India, for it was employed by the natives at the outbreak of the Indian Mutiny. In 1856 mysterious chupattees, or griddle-cakes, were circulated from village to village, while among the regiments a lotus-flower was passed round. Each man took it, looked at it and passed it on. The exact meaning of these symbols has never been explained. See “Secret Messages and Symbols used in India,” Joum. Bihar and Orissa Research Soc., 1919, vol. v, pp. 451, 452. W. Crooke, the author of this article, gives instances of the use of sticks, twigs, spears, arrows, etc., used symbolically. After referring to the Nights he says that in India a leaf of pawn with betel and sweet spices inside, accompanied by a certain flower, means, “I love you.” If much spice is put inside the leaf and one corner turned down in a peculiar way, it signifies “Come.” If turmeric is added it means, “ I cannot come,” while the addition of a piece of charcoal means, “Go, I have done with you.” (See T. H. Lewin, The Wild Races of South-Eastern India, p. 123.) —n.m.p.