339 may be used in simple acquiescence, "very well," "all right!" or
for comprehension, "I understand;" or in impatience, "you have talked
enough!" which may be carried further to express actual anger in the
violent "shut up!" But all these grades of thought accompany the idea
of a cessation of talk. In like manner an acquaintance of the writer
asking the same favor (a permission to go through their camp) of
two chiefs, was answered by both with the sign generally used for
repletion after eating, viz., the index and thumb turned toward the
body, passed up from the abdomen to the throat; but in the one case,
being made with a gentle motion and pleasant look, it meant, "I am
satisfied," and granted the request; in the other, made violently,
with the accompaniment of a truculent frown, it read, "I have had
enough of that!" But these two meanings might also have been expressed
by different intonations of the English word "enough." The class of
signs now in view is better exemplified by the French word _souris_,
which is spelled and pronounced precisely the same with the two wholly
distinct and independent significations of _smile_ and _mouse_. From
many examples may be selected the Omaha sign for _think, guess_, which
is precisely the same as that of the Absaroka, Shoshoni and Banak for
_brave_, see page 414. The context alone, both of the sign and the
word, determines in what one of its senses it is at the time used, but
it is not discriminated merely by a difference in expression.

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.

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