![Another time they gave great help to a poor smith, and every night
they made bran-new pots, pans, kettles and plates for him. His wife
used to leave some milk for them, on which they fell like wolves, and
drained the vessel to the bottom, and then cleaned it and went to
their work. When the smith had grown rich by means of them, his
wife made for each of them a pretty little red coat and cap, and left
them in their way. Paid off! Paid off! cried they, slipped on the new
clothes, and went away without working the iron that was left for
them, and never returned.
There was a being named a Scrat or Schrat, Schretel, Schretlein.
[276] This name is used in old German to translate pilosus in the
narratives of those who wrote in Latin, and it seems sometimes to
denote a House- sometimes a Wood-spirit. Terms similar to it are to
be found in the cognate languages, and it is perhaps the origin of
Old Scratch, a popular English name of the devil.
There is, chiefly in Southern Germany, a species of beings that
greatly resemble the Dwarfs. They are called Wichtlein (Little
Wights), and are about three quarters of an ell high. Their
appearance is that of old men with long beards. They haunt the
mines, and are dressed like miners, with a white hood to their shirts
and leather aprons, and are provided with lanterns, mallets, and
hammers. They amuse themselves with pelting the workmen with
small stones, but do them no injury, except when they are abused
and cursed by them.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/2352318-250527100945-b21181d3/85/The-Evolutionary-Emergence-Of-Language-Evidence-And-Inference-Rudolf-Botha-56-320.jpg)
![They show themselves most especially in places where there is an
abundance of ore, and the miners are always glad to see them; they
flit about in the pits and shafts, and appear to work very hard,
though they in reality do nothing. Sometimes they seem as if
working a vein, at other times putting the ore into buckets, at other
times working at the windlass, but all is mere show. They frequently
call, and when one comes there is no one to be seen.
At Kuttenburg, in Bohemia, the Wichtlein have been seen in great
numbers. They announce the death of a miner by knocking three
times, and when any misfortune is about to happen they are heard
digging, pounding, and imitating all other kinds of work. At times
they make a noise, as if they were smiths labouring very hard at the
anvil, hence the Bohemians call them Haus-Schmiedlein (Little
House-smiths).
In Istria the miners set, every day, in a particular place, a little pot
with food in it for them. They also at certain times in each year buy
a little red coat, the size of a small boy's, and make the Wichtlein a
present of it. If they neglect this, the little people grow very angry.
[277]
In Southern Germany they believe in a species of beings somewhat
like the Dwarfs, called Wild, Wood, Timber, and Moss-people. These
generally live together in society, but they sometimes appear singly.
They are small in stature, yet somewhat larger than the Elf, being
the size of children of three years, grey and old-looking, hairy and
clad in moss. The women are of a more amiable temper than the
men, which last live further back in the woods; they wear green
clothes faced with red, and cocked-hats. The women come to the
wood-cutters and ask them for something to eat; they also take it
away of themselves out of the pots; but they always make a return](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/2352318-250527100945-b21181d3/85/The-Evolutionary-Emergence-Of-Language-Evidence-And-Inference-Rudolf-Botha-57-320.jpg)
![in some way or other, often by giving good advice. Sometimes they
help people in their cooking or washing and haymaking, and they
feed the cattle. They are fond of coming where people are baking,
and beg of them to bake for them also a piece of dough the size of
half a mill-stone, and to leave it in a certain place. They sometimes,
in return, bring some of their own baking to the ploughman, which
they lay in the furrow or on the plough, and they are greatly
offended if it is rejected. The wood-woman sometimes comes with a
broken wheel-barrow, and begs to have the wheel repaired, and she
pays by the chips which turn into gold, or she gives to knitters a ball
of thread which is never ended. A woman who good-naturedly gave
her breast to a crying Wood-child, was rewarded by its mother by a
gift of the bark on which it was lying. She broke a splinter off it and
threw it into her faggot, and on reaching home she found it was
pure gold. Their lives are attached, like those of the Hamadryads, to
the trees, and if any one causes by friction the inner bark to loosen
a Wood-woman dies.
Their great enemy is the Wild-Huntsman, who driving invisibly
through the air pursues and kills them. A peasant one time hearing
the usual baying and cheering in a wood, would join in the cry. Next
morning he found hanging at his stable-door a quarter of a green
Moss-woman as his share of the game. When the woodmen are
felling timber they cut three crosses in a spot of the tree that is to
be hewn, and the Moss-women sit in the middle of these and so are
safe from the Wild-Huntsman.[278]
The following account of the popular belief in the parts of Germany
adjacent to Jutland has been given by a late writer.[279]
In Friesland the Dwarfs are named Oennereeske, in some of the
islands Oennerbänske, and in Holstein Unnerorske.[280] The same](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/2352318-250527100945-b21181d3/85/The-Evolutionary-Emergence-Of-Language-Evidence-And-Inference-Rudolf-Botha-58-320.jpg)
![name of her lover. All her efforts to that effect were in vain, the
dreaded day was fast approaching and she fell into deep melancholy.
On the morning of her wedding-day she went out and strolled in
sorrowful mood through the fields, saying to herself, as she plucked
some flowers, Far happier are these flowers than I. As she was
stooping to gather them, she thought she heard a noise under the
ground. She listened and recognised it as the voice at her lover,
who, in the excess of his joy at the arrival of his wedding-day, was
frolicking and singing, To-day I must bake and boil and roast and
broil and wash and brew; for this is my wedding-day. My bride is the
fair Inge of Rantum, and my name is Ekke Nekkepem. Hurrah!
Nobody knows that but myself! Aye, but I know it too! said Inge
softly to herself, and she placed her nosegay in her bosom and went
home. Toward evening came the Dwarf to claim his bride. Many
thanks, dear Ekke Nekkepem, said she, but if you please I would
rather stay where I am. The smiling face of the bridegroom grew
dark as thunder, but he recollected how he had divulged his secret,
and saw that the affair was past remedy.[281]
The Nis of Jutland is called Puk[282] in Friesland. Like him he wears a
pointed red cap, with a long grey or green jacket, and slippers on his
feet. His usual abode is under the roof, and he goes in and out
either through a broken window, which is never mended, or through
some other aperture left on purpose for him. A bowl of groute must
be left on the floor for him every evening, and he is very angry if
there should be no butter in it. When well treated he makes himself
very useful by cleaning up the house, and tending the cattle. He
sometimes amuses himself by playing tricks on the servants, tickling,
for example, their noses when they are asleep, or pulling off the
bed-clothes. Stories are told of the Puk, similar to some above
related of the Juttish Nis.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/2352318-250527100945-b21181d3/85/The-Evolutionary-Emergence-Of-Language-Evidence-And-Inference-Rudolf-Botha-60-320.jpg)
![THE WILD-WOMEN.
Ein Mägdlein kam im Abendglanz,
Wie ich's noch nie gefunden.
Schreiber.
A maiden came in Evening's glow,
Such as I ne'er have met.
The Wilde Frauen or Wild-women of Germany bear a very strong
resemblance to the Elle-maids of Scandinavia. Like them they are
beautiful, have fine flowing hair, live within hills, and only appear
singly or in the society of each other. They partake of the piety of
character we find among the German Dwarfs.
The celebrated Wunderberg, or Underberg, on the great moor near
Salzburg, is the chief haunt of the Wild-women. The Wunderberg is
said to be quite hollow, and supplied with stately palaces, churches,
monasteries, gardens, and springs of gold and silver. Its inhabitants,
beside the Wild-women, are little men, who have charge of the
treasures it contains, and who at midnight repair to Salzburg to
perform their devotions in the cathedral; giants, who used to come
to the church of Grödich and exhort the people to lead a godly and
pious life; and the great emperor Charles V., with golden crown and
sceptre, attended by knights and lords. His grey beard has twice
encompassed the table at which he sits, and when it has the third
time grown round it, the end of the world and the appearance of the
Anti-christ will take place.[283]
The following is the only account we have of the Wild-women.
The inhabitants of the village of Grödich and the peasantry of the
neighbourhood assert that frequently, about the year 1753, the Wild-](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/2352318-250527100945-b21181d3/85/The-Evolutionary-Emergence-Of-Language-Evidence-And-Inference-Rudolf-Botha-62-320.jpg)
![village often saw this woman going and coming, and he fell deeply
in love with her, especially on account of her beautiful hair. He could
not refrain from going up to her, and he gazed on her with delight;
and at last, in his simplicity, he laid himself, without any repugnance,
down by her side. The second night the Wild-woman asked him if he
had not a wife already? The peasant however denied his wife, and
said he had not.
His wife meanwhile was greatly puzzled to think where it was that
her husband went every evening, and slept every night. She
therefore watched him and found him in the field sleeping near the
Wild-woman:—Oh, God preserve thy beautiful hair! said she to the
Wild-woman; what are you doing there?[284] With these words the
peasant's wife retired and left them, and her husband was greatly
frightened at it. But the Wild-woman upbraided him with his false
denial, and said to him, Had your wife manifested hatred and spite
against me, you would now be unfortunate, and would never leave
this place; but since your wife was not malicious, love her from
henceforth, and dwell with her faithfully, and never venture more to
come here, for it is written, 'Let every one live faithfully with his
wedded wife,' though the force of this commandment will greatly
decrease, and with it all the temporal prosperity of married people.
Take this shoefull of money from me: go home, and look no more
about you.
As the fair maiden who originally possessed the famed Oldenburg
Horn was probably a Wild-woman, we will place the story of it here.
The Oldenburg Horn.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/2352318-250527100945-b21181d3/85/The-Evolutionary-Emergence-Of-Language-Evidence-And-Inference-Rudolf-Botha-64-320.jpg)
![no unity. But when the count gave no heed to what she said, but, as
was not without reason, considered with himself a long time whether
he should drink or not, he held the silver gilded horn in his hand and
swung it behind him, and poured it out, and some of its contents
sprinkled the white horse, and where it fell and wetted him the hair
all came off.
When the maiden saw this, she desired to have her horn back again,
but the count made speed down the hill with the horn, which he
held in his hand, and when he looked round he observed that the
maiden was gone into the hill again. And when terror seized on the
count on account of this, he laid spurs to his horse, and at full speed
hasted to join his attendants, and informed them of what had
befallen him. He moreover showed them the silver gilded horn, and
took it with him to Oldenburg, and the same horn, as it was
obtained in so wonderful a manner, was preserved as a costly jewel
by him, and by all the succeeding reigning princes of the house of
Oldenburg.[285]](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/2352318-250527100945-b21181d3/85/The-Evolutionary-Emergence-Of-Language-Evidence-And-Inference-Rudolf-Botha-66-320.jpg)
![KOBOLDS.[286]
Von Kobolt sang die Amme mir
Von Kobolt sing' ich wieder.
Von Halem.
Of Kobold sang my nurse to me;
Of Kobold I too sing.
The Kobold is exactly the same being as the Danish Nis, and Scottish
Brownie, and English Hobgoblin.[287] He performs the very same
services for the family to whom he attaches himself.
When the Kobold is about coming into any place, he first makes trial
of the disposition of the family in this way. He brings chips and saw-
dust into the house, and throws dirt into the milk vessels. If the
master of the house takes care that the chips are not scattered
about, and that the dirt is left in the vessels, and the milk drunk out
of them, the Kobold comes and stays in the house as long as there is
one of the family alive.
The change of servants does not affect the Kobold, who still
remains. The maid who is going away must recommend her
successor to take care of him, and treat him well. If she does not so,
things go ill with her till she is also obliged to leave the place.
The history of the celebrated Hinzelmann will give most full and
satisfactory information respecting the nature and properties of
Kobolds; for such he was, though he used constantly to deny it. His
history was written at considerable length by a pious minister,
named Feldmann. MM. Grimm gives us the following abridgement of
it.[288]](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/2352318-250527100945-b21181d3/85/The-Evolutionary-Emergence-Of-Language-Evidence-And-Inference-Rudolf-Botha-67-320.jpg)
![Hinzelmann.[289]
A wonderful house-spirit haunted for a long time the old castle of
Hudemühlen, situated in the country of Lüneburg, not far from the
Aller, and of which there is nothing remaining but the walls. It was in
the year 1584 that he first notified his presence, by knocking and
making various noises. Soon after he began to converse with the
servants in the daylight. They were at first terrified at hearing a
voice and seeing nothing, but by degrees they became accustomed
to it and thought no more of it. At last he became quite courageous,
and began to speak to the master of the house himself, and used, in
the middle of the day and in the evening, to carry on conversations
of various kinds; and at meal-times he discoursed with those who
were present, whether strangers or belonging to the family. When all
fear of him was gone he became quite friendly and intimate: he
sang, laughed, and went on with every kind of sport, so long as no
one vexed him: and his voice was on these occasions soft and
tender like that of a boy or maiden. When he was asked whence he
came, and what he had to do in that place, he said he was come
from the Bohemian mountains, and that his companions were in the
Bohemian forest—that they would not tolerate him, and that he was
in consequence obliged to retire and take refuge with good people
till his affairs should be in a better condition. He added that his
name was Hinzelmann, but that he was also called Lüring; and that
he had a wife whose name was Hille Bingels. When the time for it
was come he would let himself he seen in his real shape, but that at
present it was not convenient for him to do so. In all other respects
he was, he said, as good and honest a fellow as need be.
The master of the house, when he saw that the spirit attached
himself more and more to him, began to get frightened, and knew
not how he should get rid of him. By the advice of his friends he
determined at last to leave his castle for some time, and set out for
Hanover. On the road they observed a white feather that flew beside
the carriage, but no one knew what it signified. When he arrived at](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/2352318-250527100945-b21181d3/85/The-Evolutionary-Emergence-Of-Language-Evidence-And-Inference-Rudolf-Botha-68-320.jpg)
![three years old, and two knives sticking crosswise in his heart, and
his whole body streaming with blood. The maid was terrified at this
sight to such a degree, that she lost her senses, and fell in a swoon
on the ground. The spirit immediately took the water that she had
brought with her, and poured it all over her head, by which means
she came to herself again. She looked about for the tray, but all had
vanished, and she only heard the voice of Hinzelmann, who said.
You see now how needful the water was; if it had not been at hand
you had died here in the cellar. I hope your burning desire to see me
is now pretty well cooled. He often afterwards illuded the cook with
this trick, and told it to strangers with great glee and laughter.
He frequently showed himself to innocent children when at play. The
minister Feldmann recollected well, that when he was about
fourteen or fifteen years old, and was not thinking particularly about
him, he saw the Spirit in the form of a little boy going up the stairs
very swiftly. When children were collected about Hudemühlen house,
and were playing with one another, he used to get among them and
play with them in the shape of a pretty little child, so that all the
other children saw him plainly, and when they went home told their
parents how, while they were engaged in play, a strange child came
to them and amused himself with them. This was confirmed by a
maid, who went one time into a room in which four or six children
were playing together, and among them she saw a strange little boy
of a beautiful countenance, with curled yellow hair hanging down his
shoulders, and dressed in a red silk coat; and while she wanted to
observe him more closely, he got out of the party, and disappeared.
Hinzelmann let himself be seen also by a fool, named Claus, who
was kept there, and used to pursue every sort of diversion with him.
When the fool could not anywhere be found, and they asked him
afterwards where he had been so long, he used to reply, I was with
the little wee man, and I was playing with him. If he was farther
asked how big the little man was, he held his hand at a height about
that of a child of four years.[290]](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/2352318-250527100945-b21181d3/85/The-Evolutionary-Emergence-Of-Language-Evidence-And-Inference-Rudolf-Botha-81-320.jpg)
![The spirit departed of his own accord, after he had staid four years,
from 1584 to 1588, at Hudemühlen. He said, before he went away,
that he would return once more when the family would be declined,
and that it would then flourish anew and increase in consequence.
[291]
Hödeken.
Another Kobold or House-spirit took up his abode in the palace of
the bishop of Hildesheim. He was named Hödeken or Hütchen, that
is Hatekin or Little Hat, from his always wearing a little felt hat very
much down upon his face. He was of a kind and obliging disposition,
often told the bishop and others of what was to happen, and he took
good care that the watchmen should not go to sleep on their post.
It was, however, dangerous to affront him. One of the scullions in
the bishop's kitchen used to fling dirt on him and splash him with
foul water. Hödeken complained to the head cook, who only laughed
at him, and said, Are you a spirit and afraid of a little boy? Since
you won't punish the boy, replied Hödeken, I will, in a few days, let
you see how much afraid of him I am, and he went off in high
dudgeon. But very soon after he got the boy asleep at the fire-side,
and he strangled him, cut him up, and put him into the pot on the
fire. When the cook abused him for what he had done, he squeezed
toads all over the meat that was at the fire, and he soon after
tumbled the cook from the bridge into the deep moat. At last people
grew so much afraid of his setting fire to the town and palace, that
the bishop had him exorcised and banished.
The following was one of Hödeken's principal exploits. There was a
man in Hildesheim who had a light sort of wife, and one time when
he was going on a journey he spoke to Hödeken and said, My good
fellow, just keep an eye on my wife while I am away, and see that all
goes on right. Hödeken agreed to do so; and when the wife, after
the departure of her husband, made her gallants come to her, and
was going to make merry with them, Hödeken always threw himself](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/2352318-250527100945-b21181d3/85/The-Evolutionary-Emergence-Of-Language-Evidence-And-Inference-Rudolf-Botha-83-320.jpg)
![make him fall, that his foot-prints might be seen, he came behind
him as he was lighting the fire and hewed him to pieces, which he
put on the spit and roasted, and he began to boil the head and legs.
As soon as the meat was ready it was brought to Vollmar's chamber,
and people heard great cries of joy as it was consumed. After this
there was no trace of King Vollmar; but over the door of his chamber
was found written, that in future the house would be as unfortunate
as it had hitherto been fortunate; the scattered property would not
be brought together again till the time when three Hardenbergs of
Hardenstein should be living at the same time. The spit and the
roast meat were preserved for a long time; but they disappeared in
the Lorrain war in 1651. The pot still remains built into the wall of
the kitchen.[292]
The Heinzelmänchen.
It is not over fifty years since the Heinzelmänchen, as they are
called, used to live and perform their exploits in Cologne. They were
little naked mannikins, who used to do all sorts of work; bake bread,
wash, and such like house-work. So it is said, but no one ever saw
them.
In the time that the Heinzelmänchen were still there, there was in
Cologne many a baker, who kept no man, for the little people used
always to make over-night, as much black and white bread as the
baker wanted for his shop. In many houses they used to wash and
do all their work for the maids.
Now, about this time, there was an expert tailor to whom they
appeared to have taken a great fancy, for when he married he found
in his house, on the wedding day, the finest victuals and the most
beautiful vessels and utensils, which the little folk had stolen
elsewhere and brought their favourite. When, with time, his family
increased, the little ones used to give the tailor's wife considerable
aid in her household affairs; they washed for her, and on holidays
and festival times they scoured the copper and tin, and the house](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/2352318-250527100945-b21181d3/85/The-Evolutionary-Emergence-Of-Language-Evidence-And-Inference-Rudolf-Botha-85-320.jpg)
![from the garret to the cellar. If at any time the tailor had a press of
work, he was sure to find it all ready done for him in the morning by
the Heinzelmänchen. But curiosity began now to torment the tailor's
wife, and she was dying to get one sight of the Heinzelmänchen, but
do what she would she could never compass it. She one time
strewed peas all down the stairs that they might fall and hurt
themselves, and that so she might see them next morning. But this
project missed, and since that time the Heinzelmänchen have totally
disappeared, as has been everywhere the case, owing to the
curiosity of people, which has at all times been the destruction of so
much of what was beautiful in the world. The Heinzelmänchen, in
consequence of this, went off all in a body out of the town with
music playing, but people could only hear the music, for no one
could see the mannikins themselves, who forthwith got into a boat
and went away, whither no one knows. The good times, however,
are said to have disappeared from Cologne along with the
Heinzelmänchen.[293]](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/2352318-250527100945-b21181d3/85/The-Evolutionary-Emergence-Of-Language-Evidence-And-Inference-Rudolf-Botha-86-320.jpg)
![A Water-man once lived on good terms with a peasant who dwelt
not far from his lake. He often visited him, and at last begged that
the peasant would visit him in his house under the water. The
peasant consented, and went down with him. There was everything
down under the water as in a stately palace on the land,—halls,
chambers, and cabinets, with costly furniture of every description.
The Water-man led his guest over the whole, and showed him
everything that was in it. They came at length to a little chamber,
where were standing several new pots turned upside down. The
peasant asked what was in them. They contain, was the reply, the
souls of drowned people, which I put under the pots and keep them
close, so that they cannot get away. The peasant made no remark,
and he came up again on the land. But for a long time the affair of
the souls continued to give him great trouble, and he watched to
find when the Water-man should be from home. When this occurred,
as he had marked the right way down, he descended into the water-
house, and, having made out the little chamber, he turned up all the
pots one after another, and immediately the souls of the drowned
people ascended out of the water, and recovered their liberty.[294]
The Water-Smith.
There is a little lake in Westphalia called the Darmssen, from which
the peasants in the adjacent village of Epe used to hear all through
the night a sound as if of hammering upon an anvil. People who
were awake used also to see something in the middle of the lake.
They got one time into a boat and went to it, and there they found
that it was a smith, who, with his body raised over the water, and a
hammer in his hand, pointed to an anvil, and bid the people bring
him something to forge. From that time forth they brought iron to
him, and no people had such good plough-irons as those of Epe.
One time as a man from this village was getting reeds at the
Darmssen, he found among them a little child that was rough all
over his body. The smith cried out, Don't take away my son! but](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/2352318-250527100945-b21181d3/85/The-Evolutionary-Emergence-Of-Language-Evidence-And-Inference-Rudolf-Botha-88-320.jpg)
![the man put the child on his back, and ran home with it. Since that
time the smith has never more been seen or heard. The man reared
the Roughy, and he became the cleverest and best lad in the place.
But when he was twenty years old he said to the farmer, Farmer, I
must leave you. My father has called me! I am sorry for that, said
the farmer. Is there no way that you could stay with me? I will see
about it, said the water-child. Do you go to Braumske and fetch
me a little sword; but you must give the seller whatever he asks for
it, and not haggle about it. The farmer went to Braumske and
bought the sword; but he haggled, and got something off the price.
They now went together to the Darmssen, and the Roughy said,
Now mind. When I strike the water, if there comes up blood, I must
go away; but if there comes milk, then I may stay with you. He
struck the water, and there came neither milk nor blood. The Roughy
was annoyed, and said, You have been bargaining and haggling,
and so there comes neither blood nor milk. Go off to Braumske and
buy another sword. The farmer went and returned; but it was not
till the third time that he bought a sword without haggling. When
the Roughy struck the water with this it became as red as blood, and
he threw himself into the lake, and never was seen more.[295]
The Working Waterman.
At Seewenweiher, in the Black-Forest, a little Water-man
(Seemänlein) used to come and join the people, work the whole day
long with them, and in the evening go back into the lakes. They
used to set his breakfast and dinner apart for him. When, in
apportioning the work, the rule of Not too much and not too little
was infringed, he got angry, and knocked all the things about.
Though his clothes were old and worn, he steadily refused to let the
people get him new ones. But when at last they would do so, and
one evening the lake-man was presented with a new coat, he said,
When one is paid off, one must go away. After this day I'll come no
more to you. And, unmoved by the excuses of the people, he never
let himself be seen again.[296]](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/2352318-250527100945-b21181d3/85/The-Evolutionary-Emergence-Of-Language-Evidence-And-Inference-Rudolf-Botha-89-320.jpg)
The Evolutionary Emergence Of Language Evidence And Inference Rudolf Botha
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- 6. The Evolutionary Emergence of Language
- 7. Oxford Studies in the Evolution of Language General Editors Kathleen R. Gibson, University of Texas at Houston, and Maggie Tallerman, University of Newcastle upon Tyne RECENTLY PUBLISHED 10 The Origin of Speech Peter F. MacNeilage 11 The Prehistory of Language Edited by Rudolf Botha and Chris Knight 12 The Cradle of Language Edited by Rudolf Botha and Chris Knight 13 Language Complexity as an Evolving Variable Edited by Geoffrey Sampson, David Gil, and Peter Trudgill 14 The Evolution of Morphology Andrew Carstairs McCarthy 15 The Origins of Grammar Language in the Light of Evolution 2 James R. Hurford 16 How the Brain Got Language The Mirror System Hypothesis Michael A. Arbib 17 The Evolutionary Emergence of Language Edited by Rudolf Botha and Martin Everaert 18 The Nature and Origin of Language Denis Bouchard 19 The Social Origins of Language Edited by Daniel Dor, Chris Knight, and Jerome Lewis See the end of the book for a complete list of titles published and in preparation for the series.
- 8. The Evolutionary Emergence of Language Evidence and Inference Edited by Rudolf Botha Martin Everaert 1
- 9. 3 Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, OX2 6DP, United Kingdom Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries # editorial matter and organization Rudolf Botha and Martin Everaert 2013 # the chapters their several authors 2013 The moral rights of the authors have been asserted First Edition published in 2013 Impression: 1 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by licence or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Data available ISBN 978–0–19–965484–0 (hbk.) 978–0–19–965485–7 (pbk.) As printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY
- 10. Contents Preface and acknowledgements vii List of figures ix List of tables x List of abbreviations xi Notes on the contributors xiii 1. Introduction: evidence and inference in the study of language evolution 1 Rudolf Botha and Martin Everaert 2. What is special about the human language faculty and how did it get that way? 18 Stephen R. Anderson 3. Language has evolved to depend on multiple-cue integration 42 Morten H. Christiansen 4. Homesign as a way-station between co-speech gesture and sign language: the evolution of segmentation and sequencing 62 Ann Senghas, Asli Özyürek, and Susan Goldin-Meadow 5. Kin selection, pedagogy, and linguistic complexity: whence protolanguage? 77 Maggie Tallerman 6. Neanderthal linguistic abilities: an alternative view 97 Katharine MacDonald and Wil Roebroeks 7. The archaeology of number concept and its implications for the evolution of language 118 Thomas Wynn, Frederick L. Coolidge, and Karenleigh A. Overmann 8. The evolution of semantics: sharing conceptual domains 139 Peter Gärdenfors 9. Speech-gesture links in the ontogeny and phylogeny of gestural communication 160 Jacques Vauclair and Hélène Cochet
- 11. 10. Exploring the gaps between primate calls and human language 181 Alban Lemasson, Karim Ouattara, and Klaus Zuberbühler 11. Talking about apes, birds, bees, and other living creatures: language evolution in light of comparative animal behaviour 204 Kathleen R. Gibson 12. FoxP2 and deep homology in the evolution of birdsong and human language 223 Alan Langus, Jana Petri, Marina Nespor, and Constance Scharff 13. Genetics, evolution, and the innateness of language 244 Karl C. Diller and Rebecca L. Cann References 259 Index 325 vi Contents
- 12. Preface and acknowledgements This volume grew out of the 8th International Conference on the Evolu- tion of Language (EVOLANG8), held in Utrecht, the Netherlands, in April 2010. Based on a selection of papers presented at the conference, the chapters are state-of-the-art discussions of a wide range of facets of the evolution of language. The chapters considerably extend our under- standing of what the evolution of language may have involved and, moreover, illustrate in a concrete way how scholars in diverse fields deal with issues of evidence and inference that arise in their study of this phenomenon. In clarifying these issues, the volume explores the potential and limitations of various kinds of evidence—linguistic, cognitive (devel- opmental), ethnographic, archaeological, palaeo-anthropological, prima- tological, anatomical, neurological, genetic, molecular, etc.—which seem to bear on hypotheses about language evolution. The linguistic evidence at issue comes from a variety of sources, including variation, structure, use, gesture, homesign and emerging new sign languages, acquisition, and pathology. Contributing authors were encouraged to make their accounts maximally accessible to a wide audience of readers, the evolution of language being an area in which scholars and students from multiple disciplines rub shoulders. We would like to thank the following colleagues for their contribution to organizing EVOLANG8: Bart de Boer, Henriëtte de Swart, Sabine Preuss, Tanja Schols, Marieke Schouwstra, and Willem Zuidema. Without financial support from the Utrecht Institute of Linguistics (OTS), the Municipality of Utrecht, Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press, and John Benjamins Publishing Company, it would not have been possible to hold the conference. We do appreciate the generosity of these institutions. We are also indebted to John Davey, Karen Morgan, and their OUP colleagues for the support that we received in various stages of the editing of this volume. We also warmly thank Walter Winckler for many suggestions from which the readability of the Introduction has benefited greatly, as well as Connie Park for her outstanding work in compiling,
- 13. reformatting, and copy-editing the manuscripts. And we are most grateful to a large number of reviewers whose comments have contributed signifi- cantly to the quality of the volume. Rudolf Botha, Stellenbosch Martin Everaert, Utrecht August 2012 viii Preface and acknowledgements
- 14. List of figures 3.1 The percentage of nouns and verbs correctly classified as such across different frequency bins for a) distributional and phonological cues treated separately, and b) when both cues are integrated with one another 53 4.1 Examples of motion event expressions from participants’ narratives 67 4.2 Conflated and sequential expressions of manner and path 68 4.3 A sample video designed to elicit descriptions of motion events 70 4.4 Examples of Mixed gesture sentences 71 4.5 The proportion of expressions produced by hearing Spanish speakers and the three cohorts of Nicaraguan signers 72 7.1 Engraved bone plaque from Grotte du Taı̈ 119 7.2 Engraved bone plaque from Tossal de la Roca 119 7.3 Engraved bone plaque from Grotte Lartet 120 7.4 Punctured Nassarius shell beads from Blombos Cave 133 8.1 Two steps in achieving joint attention 144 8.2 A two-dimensional emotion space (from Russell 1980) 148 9.1 Mean handedness indices for communicative gestures and bimanual manipulation 172 10.1 Level of perceived threat and ‘krak-oo’ acoustic structure in male Campbell’s monkeys 187 10.2 Socially guided acoustic plasticity in female Campbell’s monkeys 192 10.3 Popularity of elder interlocutors in female Campbell’s monkeys 194 10.4 Affixation and vocal sharing abilities in female Campbell’s monkeys 196 10.5 Affixation in male Campbell’s monkeys 197 10.6 Semantic call combinations in male putty-nosed monkeys 198 10.7 Semantic call combinations in male Campbell’s monkeys 199
- 15. List of tables 3.1 The grammar skeleton used by Christiansen and Dale (2004) 48 3.2 The 16 phonological cues used by Monaghan, Chater, and Christiansen (2005) 51 6.1 Biological, behavioural, and cultural comparisons between the late Middle Palaeolithic and the Upper Palaeolithic in Europe 101
- 16. List of abbreviations ABSL Al-Sayyid Bedouin Sign Language Adp adposition AFP anterior forebrain pathway ASL American Sign Language for the Deaf CMM caudomedial mesopallium CV consonant-vowel DVD Developmental Verbal Dyspraxia ERP Event Related Potential FLB the language faculty broadly construed FLN the language faculty narrowly construed fMRI functional magnetic resonance imaging hIPS horizontal segment of the intraparietal sulcus HRAF Human Relations Area Files HVC cortical/pallial song control region IPS intraparietal sulcus ITL Iambic-Trochaic Law Ka/kya thousand years ago Ma/mya million years ago MRI magnetic resonance imaging mRNA messenger ribonucleic acid N Noun NCM caudomedial nidopallium NP Noun Phrase NSL Nicaraguan Sign Language PFC prefrontal cortex Poss possessive PossP Possessive Phrase PP Prepositional Phrase S Sentence SD standard deviation SE standard error
- 17. SMP song motor pathway SNPs single nucleotide polymorphisms SRN simple recruitment network UG Universal Grammar VC Vapnik-Chervonenkis dimension VP Verb Phrase xii List of abbreviations
- 18. Notes on the contributors STEPHEN R. ANDERSON is the Dorothy R. Diebold Professor of Linguistics, Psychology, and Cognitive Science at Yale University. His interests in linguistics cover all of the major subfields, although his work in recent years has focused on the theory of morphology. Among his publications, the 2004 book Doctor Dolittle’s delusion (Yale University Press) discusses the gulf between human language and the communication systems of other species. RUDOLF BOTHA is Emeritus Professor of General Linguistics at the Univer- sity of Stellenbosch and Honorary Professor of Linguistics at Utrecht University. In 2001–2002 and 2005–2006 he was a fellow-in-residence at the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study. His research includes work on the evolution of language, morphological theory, and word formation, and the conceptual foundations of linguistic theories. He is the author of twelve books, including Unravelling the evolution of language (Elsevier, 2003); he has co-edited various volumes on language evolution, including The prehistory of language (Oxford University Press, 2009) and The cradle of language (Oxford University Press, 2009). REBECCA L. CANN is a Professor of Genetics at the University of Hawaii, Manoa. Her interests include human evolutionary genetics and the molecular conservation of endangered species. She is interested in the shared properties of modern endangered species and the early stages of human evolution. These include small population sizes, gender differences in behaviour, infection disease risks, and geographical isolation. MORTEN H. CHRISTIANSEN is a Professor in the Department of Psychology and co-director of the Cognitive Science Program at Cornell University as well as External Professor at the Santa Fe Institute. His research focuses on the interaction of biological and environmental constraints in the processing, acquisition, and evolution of language. He is the author of
- 19. more than 125 scientific papers and has edited volumes on Connectionist Psycholinguistics, Language Evolution, and Language Universals. HÉLÈNE COCHET received her PhD in Psychology in 2011 from Aix-Mar- seille University, under the supervision of Professor Jacques Vauclair. She has been studying communicative gestures produced by young children, especially pointing gestures, and the laterality of gestures. She has pub- lished papers in several journals, including Cortex. She is currently a postdoctoral fellow in the School of Psychology at the University of St. Andrews. She is working with Professor Richard Byrne on the gestural communication of apes and human children. FREDERICK L. COOLIDGE is a Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs. He has a PhD in psych- ology and completed a postdoctoral fellowship in clinical neuropsycho- logy. His research interests include behavioural genetics, cognitive psychology, and psychological assessment. He has received three Fullbright Fellowships to India and has published five books. He has published articles in the Journal of Human Evolution, Cambridge Archaeological Journal, Paleo- Anthropology, Journal of Anthropological Research, and elsewhere. KARL C. DILLER is researching the evolutionary genetics of language in the Cann laboratory (genetics) at the John A. Burns School of Medicine, University of Hawaii. His PhD in linguistics is from Harvard University. He was formerly Professor of Linguistics at the University of New Hamp- shire, where amongst his special interests was the neurolinguistic founda- tions of second language acquisition. MARTIN EVERAERT is Professor of Linguistics at Utrecht University. He works primarily on the syntax-semantics interface and the lexicon-syntax interface. Together with Johan Bolhuis, he is currently editing the volume Birdsong, speech and language. Exploring the evolution of mind and brain for MIT Press. PETER GÄRDENFORS is Professor of Cognitive Science at Lund University. His main current interests are concept formation using conceptual spaces based on geometrical and topological models, cognitive semantics, and xiv Notes on the contributors
- 20. the evolution of cognition. His main books are Knowledge in flux (MIT Press, 1988), Conceptual spaces: the geometry of thought (MIT Press, 2000), How Homo became Sapiens: on the evolution of thinking (Oxford University Press, 2003), and The dynamics of thought (Springer Verlag, 2005). KATHLEEN R. GIBSON is Professor Emerita of Neurobiology and Anatomy, University of Texas Medical School, Houston and Professor Emerita in the Department of Orthodontics, U.T. School of Dentistry. She has co-edited six books on the development of brains and cognition including ‘Lan- guage’ and intelligence in monkeys and apes (Cambridge University Press, 1990), Tools, language and cognition in human evolution (Cambridge University Press, 1993), Modelling the early human mind (McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, 1996), and Evolutionary anatomy of the primate cerebral cortex (Cambridge University Press, 2001). She is currently co-editor with Maggie Tallerman of the Oxford Series, Studies in the evolution of language. SUSAN GOLDIN-MEADOW (PhD, Developmental Psychology, University of Pennsylvania) is the Beardsley Ruml Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago. She is the founding editor of Language Learning and Development and is currently President of the International Society for Gesture Studies and a member of the board of directors of Cognitive Science. She was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2005. Her research interests focus on gesture—the home-made gestures children create when not exposed to language, and the gestures we all produce when we talk. ALAN LANGUS obtained his PhD in Cognitive Neuroscience from the International School for Advanced Studies (S.I.S.S.A) in Trieste. He is currently a postdoctoral fellow at S.I.S.S.A. and his research focuses on the cognitive bases of the human ability for language, and on the cognitive prerequisites for language acquisition. ALBAN LEMASSON is a Professor in the Laboratory of Animal and Human Ethology (Ethos) at Rennes 1 University, and he is currently a member of the Institut Universitaire de France. He studies the co-evolution of social life and vocal communication in mammals, and more particularly Notes on the contributors xv
- 21. in non-human primates, using an ethological comparative approach. He investigates all the facets of vocal communication (production, usage, perception, comprehension) by doing work on captive and wild animals. KATHARINE MACDONALD obtained her doctorate at the University of South- ampton in 2003, and is a postdoctoral researcher in the Archaeology Faculty, University of Leiden. Her research interests encompass the earliest occupation of north-west Europe, and Neanderthal hunting strategies and communication. She has used evidence from primate studies, eth- nography, genetics, and palaeo-anthropology, to interpret the Palaeolithic record. In 2007 she published in Human Nature the article entitled ‘Cross- cultural comparison of learning in human hunting: implications for life- history evolution’. MARINA NESPOR is presently affiliated to the Language, Cognition, and Development Laboratory of the International School for Advanced Stud- ies (S.I.S.S.A) in Trieste. She focuses in her research programme on the sound system of language and how this conveys information about syntax, on the one hand, and segmentation of the speech flow on the other. She has concentrated on rhythm and its relation to word order, and how rhythm may help acquire different aspects of language. She has recently also investigated the different cognitive mechanisms responsible for dif- ferent orders of words in sentences. KARIM OUATTARA is a lecturer in the Laboratory of Zoology and Animal Biology at Félix Houphouët-Boigny University, and he is also an associate researcher at the Centre Suisse de Recherches Scientifiques in Abidjan. His research focuses on the eco-ethology of wild guenons. KARENLEIGH A. OVERMANN is a graduate student in the Department of Psychology at the University of Colorado Springs. She has a BA in anthropology, philosophy, and English. She has published in Behavioral and Brain Sciences and Persuasions: the Jane Austen Journal, with articles in press in Current Anthropology and Behavioral Sciences and the Law. Her research interests include cognitive and language evolution, embodied cognition, cultural astronomy and timekeeping, and metaphor. xvi Notes on the contributors
- 22. ASLI ÖZYÜREK is currently a Professor of Linguistics at Radboud University Nijmegen and a researcher at the Centre for Language Studies, Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, and the Donders Centre for Brain, Cogni- tion, and Behaviour at the same university. She investigates the role played by our bodily meaningful actions (i.e. signs and gestures) in language, cognition, and communication from an interdisciplinary and cross-lin- guistic/cultural perspective. She has published more than fifty-five articles including in Science, PNAS, and Cognition. JANA PETRI is a PhD student at the Freie Universität Berlin in the Scharff Laboratory. She uses zebra finches to study the role of FoxP2 in song learning, concentrating on molecular interaction partners. WIL ROEBROEKS is Professor of Palaeolithic Archaeology at Leiden Univer- sity. He has published extensively on various aspects of the earliest occu- pation history of Europe and the behaviour of the early hominins. He has conducted fieldwork in the Netherlands, UK, France, Russia, and Germany, and is working currently in East Anglia (UK) at the site of Happisburgh. He is one of the founding members of the European Society for the study of Human Evolution (ESHE). CONSTANCE SCHARFF is Professor of Animal Behaviour at the Freie Univer- sität Berlin. She obtained her PhD and subsequently worked at the Rocke- feller University, New York, and has held positions at the Collège de France, Paris and the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics, Berlin. Her group’s research focuses on the neural and molecular substrates for learned acoustic communication, using songbirds as model. She has a theoretical interest in the evolution of human language and music. ANN SENGHAS is presently the Tow Associate Professor at Barnard College, where she is serving as the chair of the Department of Psychology. She received her PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in brain and cognitive sciences. Since 1989, she has been studying the emergence of Nicaraguan Sign Language, exploring how sequential cohorts of human learners have contributed to its structure. Her research is supported by grants from the US National Institutes of Health/NIDCD. Notes on the contributors xvii
- 23. MAGGIE TALLERMAN has spent her professional life in north-east England, at Durham then at Newcastle University, where she is currently Professor of Linguistics. Her edited and authored books include Language origins: perspectives on evolution (Oxford University Press, 2005), Understanding syntax (Hodder/Oxford University Press, third edition 2011), and The syntax of Welsh (co-authored with Robert D. Borsley and David Willis; Cambridge University Press, 2007). She is currently co-editor with Kath- leen Gibson of the Oxford Series, Studies in the evolution of language. She started working on evolutionary linguistics in case a guy on a train asked her where language came from, though some think her real work is on Welsh. JACQUES VAUCLAIR is a Professor of Developmental and Comparative Psych- ology at the University of Provence, Aix-en-Provence, and a senior member of the Institut Universitaire de France. He is director of the Research Centre in the Psychology of Cognition, Language, and Emotion in Aix-en-Provence. His field of interest concerns the comparative study of lateralization processes in object manipulation and communicative gestures in infants and in non-human primates. THOMAS WYNN is Professor of Anthropology at the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs, where he has taught since 1977. He has published extensively in Palaeolithic archaeology, with a particular emphasis on cognitive evolution. His books include The evolution of spatial competence (University of Illinois Press, 1989) and The rise of Homo sapiens: the evolution of modern thinking (with F. Coolidge; Wiley-Blackwell, 2009). KLAUS ZUBERBÜHLER is a Professor of Psychology at the University of St Andrews and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. His scientific interests are in the evolutionary origins of the human mind and its manifestations, including language, culture, and social and non-social cognition. His research is largely based on comparative fieldwork with non-human primates. He is the Scientific Director of the Budongo Con- servation Field Station, Uganda, and is the co-director of the Taı̈ Monkey Project, Ivory Coast. xviii Notes on the contributors
- 24. 1 Introduction: evidence and inference in the study of language evolution RUDOLF BOTHA AND MARTIN EVERAERT Written by leading scholars from diverse disciplines, the chapters of this volume are instructive in two general ways. First, they offer a range of new perspectives on the evolution of language and speech, and thus extend our understanding of what this phenomenon may have involved. Second—and distinctive of the volume—they provide concrete examples of how one of the most challenging problems posed by the evolution of language and speech has been addressed in recent work. This is the problem of the lack of direct evidence about the entities, events, processes, pressures, and other phenomena that had a part in the evolution of language and speech. Direct evidence, in terms of the conventional construal, is evidence contained in natural or man-made records, an instance of a natural record being the fossil record. But the fact is as distilled in a wry quip often made—language does not fossilize. If work on language evolution is to be done in an empirical mode, there is only one way of trying to overcome the problem of the lack of direct evidence. This is to draw inferences about language evolution from the properties of phenomena about which there is direct evidence. The latter phenomena then constitute potential sources of indirect evidence about the evolution of language. The phenomena from which potential indirect evidence has been derived make up a varied range. They include features of modern language such as structure, acquisition, and variation; restric- ted linguistic systems such as pidgin languages, the linguistic systems acquired without instruction by adult second-language learners, and homesign (the gestures made by deaf children to communicate with hearing, non-signing parents); motherese (the sing-song register of lan- guage used by caregivers when addressing babies); the disordered language of aphasics; the communicative, pedagogic, and ritual behaviour of modern
- 25. hunter-gatherers; the cognitive development of children; the communi- cative behaviour and cognition of non-human primates and other animals; genes believed to be involved in language and speech, as well as in birdsong; (fragments of) fossil skulls of prehistoric humans; and pre- historic artefacts such as shell beads, engraved ochres, decorated bone tools, and stone tools. Phenomena such as these can be thought of as providing potential ‘windows’ on language evolution (Botha 2006). The obvious way of trying to overcome the lack of direct evidence is, then, to bring to bear on the evolution of language the indirect evidence derived from such ‘window’ phenomena. But doing this is less straight- forward than it may seem: the inferences involved in moving from data or assumptions about properties of ‘window’ phenomena to conclusions about facets of language evolution are of a complex sort (Botha 2006, 2010). To put it in broad terms: the data or assumptions from which the inferential step starts out are about one kind of thing; the conclusion with which the inferential step ends up, however, is about a thing of some other kind. More exactly, the conclusions are about language evolution, but the data or assumptions are about things of a clearly different kind—variation in modern languages, acquisition of modern languages, pidgin languages, the communicative behaviour of non-human primates, prehistoric shell beads, and so on. This gives rise to a range of questions. Why should data or assumptions about things that differ in kind from language evolution be considered evidence pertinent to conclusions about language evolu- tion? What assumptions need to be made to warrant or license the inferential steps taken in this way? For instance, what assumptions need to be made to provide a ‘bridge’ for moving inferentially from properties of the development of language or cognition in modern children to features of language evolution? How well justified are the various bridging assumptions? What can or cannot be inferred in principle from a particu- lar kind of indirect evidence—for instance, ethnographic or genetic evi- dence—about the evolution of language or speech? How firm are the conclusions drawn from a particular kind of indirect evidence? In this volume, issues such as these are clarified in a concrete way in accounts of facets of the evolution of language and speech. The chapters in which this is done have accordingly a dimension that is additional to that of reporting findings from recent work on the evolution of language and speech. 2 Rudolf Botha and Martin Everaert
- 26. The chapters of the volume are ordered in terms of the main kind(s) of evidence which they bring to bear on the evolution of language and/or speech. For instance, Chapters 2, 3, 4, and 5 draw on evidence derived from, among other things, aspects of modern language(s) or linguistic systems; Chapters 5, 6, and 7 draw on ethnographic evidence, among other things; Chapters 8, 9, 10, 11, and 12 draw on, among other things, evidence about the communicative behaviour of non-human primates and other animals; and Chapters 12 and 13 draw on genetic evidence, among other things. Next, we will take up the individual chapters. As we do so, however, we need to keep in mind that the limitations of an introduction such as this make it impossible to do justice to the full richness of the content of these chapters. Seeing the logical choice of an object of enquiry for linguistics to be the nature and structure of the human language faculty, Stephen Anderson in Chapter 2 takes on two basic questions. The first is: how was this capacity shaped evolutionarily? In answer to this question he claims, in essence, that this faculty, being a consequence of the biological nature of humans, probably arose through natural selection. Anderson’s approach to justify- ing this claim is instructive: in his view such claims need to meet empirical requirements, plausibility arguments being insufficient. And, thought- fully, he does not state these requirements in some ad hoc way, but derives them from Darwin’s original theory of natural selection. Thus, to be able to claim that a trait such as the language faculty is the product of natural selection, it is necessary to furnish evidence from which it is clear that (i) the trait was variable among members of the species, (ii) the variation was transmitted by hereditary mechanisms, and (iii) the variation in the trait correlated with differential reproductive success. In support of the hypothesis that the language faculty evolved through natural selection, Anderson seeks to adduce evidence about the variability of modern language and about language pathology. For this proposal to go through, he needs to make various further assumptions; for instance, that variation in modern language(s) is a reliable indicator of the kind of variation in ancestral language necessary for natural selection. The second basic question taken on by Anderson is: how do we identify the properties that we should attribute to the human language faculty? In the second part of Chapter 2, he shows that identifying these properties is a more difficult task than dealing with the corresponding problem in the study of most other biological traits. He does this by Introduction: evidence and inference in the study of language evolution 3
- 27. discussing in detail the potential and the limitations of the various means—e.g. poverty-of-the-stimulus arguments—by which these prop- erties could be identified. And he ends that discussion with the sobering observation that it ‘is still possible that although we can formulate the fundamental question “What is the structure of the human language faculty?” the tools available to us are not yet adequate to provide a real answer of the sort we seek’. The account of language evolution put forward by Morten Chistiansen in Chapter 3 differs in fundamental ways from the selectionist one pro- posed by Stephen Anderson. Not accepting the existence of a biologically based language faculty, Christiansen takes it that language is best con- strued as a culturally evolved linguistic system. Consequently, he holds, what has evolved is not a set of neural structures specific to language. Instead, cultural evolution yields a set of linguistic constructions specific to a language. A further consequence of viewing language as a culturally evolved linguistic system, Christiansen states, is that language evolution is not conceptually different from language change. He notes, though, that this perspective on language evolution leaves open potentially unanswer- able questions of language origin: questions about how, when, and why language emerged in the human lineage. And this perspective does not rule out the possibility that there may have been biological adaptations of language that improved language learning and use. The specific hypothesis proposed by Christiansen is that cultural evo- lution has shaped languages to depend on multiple-cue integration for their acquisition and processing. In response to the question of how this shaping might have worked, he presents a case study in multiple-cue integration; it focuses on phonological cues as one possible source of information about syntactic structure, more specifically about the lexical categories of nouns and verbs. He gives, too, an account of how these phonological cues may be integrated with distributional information in language acquisition and in language processing. The evidence adduced in this account is drawn by Christiansen from sources all linked to modern language: results from evolutionary simula- tions, quantitative results from corpus analyses, and results from compu- tational modelling. From an evidentiary point of view, it is of interest that Christiansen neither relies exclusively on evidence derived from evolu- tionary modelling nor seems to assign greater weight to such evidence than to evidence from other sources. 4 Rudolf Botha and Martin Everaert
- 28. In Chapter 4 Ann Senghas, Asli Özyürek, and Susan Goldin-Meadow, taking segmentation and combination to be a fundamental feature of modern languages, bring to bear on the evolution of this feature evidence derived from some newly emergent linguistic systems. The systems at issue are the homesign systems used by Nicaraguan and Turkish children, and the emerging Nicaraguan Sign Language (NSL). The authors note a contrast shown in earlier work: in the early stages of an emerging sign language, manner signs and path signs are segmented and sequenced; in the gestures produced by hearing Nicaraguan Spanish speakers who are members of the same community, these signs are conflated into a single unit. Concerned with the steps that might lead from the conflated expres- sions used by the gesturers to the sequenced expressions used by the signers, the authors asked seven Turkish homesigners to describe ani- mated motion events. Often, in a single expression, these homesigners both made gestures that conflated path and manner, thus resembling Spanish speakers, and made segmented gestures for either manner or path, resembling in this NSL signers. A reanalysis of early NSL data by the authors uncovered these same transitional constructions. On the authors’ interpretation, these findings point to an intermediate stage in modern languages that may bridge the transition from conflated forms with no segmentation to sequenced forms with full segmentation; and they believe they have captured with this the earliest stages in the devel- opment of a fundamental property of human language. The Senghas, Özyürek, and Goldin-Meadows findings bear in an inter- esting way on the suggestion by Christiansen and Chater (2008) that there never was a need for the evolution of learning devices specific to language learning. These two authors look on compositionality as a product of the combinatorial structure of human thought, and on sequential ordering as a product of the seriality of vocal output. In this view, Senghas and her co- authors point out, the only evolution that took place in the evolution of language was the adaptation of the signal itself to general human process- ing abilities. And they argue that the data presented in their account both enrich and belie Christiansen and Chater’s view. That is, the segmentation and recombination processes observed by Senghas and her co-authors are not inevitably applied to incoming gestures. On their analysis, the changes occur only when the signal is taken to function as a primary communi- cation system, that is, as language. Introduction: evidence and inference in the study of language evolution 5
- 29. Next, having drawn their inference to the earliest stages in the evolution of language from data about the utterances of homesigners and users of emergent sign languages, Senghas, Özyürek, and Goldin-Meadow embed it in an instructive perspective. That is, they emphasize that they do not claim that the process of language emergence that can be observed today is necessarily a re-enactment of the original process of language evolution. A more indirect relation, described by them in detail, holds between present-day language emergence and language evolution. This view forms a sobering corrective to accounts in which inferences to language evolution from data about restricted linguistic systems such as pidgin languages and homesign, amongst others, are drawn in too facile a manner. According to recent proposals by Dean Falk, Tecumseh Fitch, John Locke, and others, a kin-selected communication system was adaptive in human evolution. It is proposed, that is, that the evolution of (proto) language was driven by interactions between closely related individuals, mothers and infants among them. Appraising such proposals in detail in Chapter 5, Maggie Tallerman argues that the pertinent evidence does not support the idea of kin selection as a critical pressure in the evolution of (proto)language. In particular, she argues that early linguistic traits did not facilitate the teaching of dependent offspring, since the proposed link between kin communication, teaching, and linguistic complexity is very weak. Direct teaching of life skills via verbal instruction, her argument goes, is unlikely to have been any more important for early humans than for modern humans. What is more, teaching does not play an appreciable role in the lives of other apes, according to the literature referred to by Tallerman. From the perspective of the inferences drawn in work on language evolution, Tallerman’s chapter proves to be especially instructive. Expli- citly addressing the problem of the lack of direct evidence for early hominin lifestyles, she sets out two ways of alleviating it. The first involves investigating the use of full language for pedagogy in current non- industrialized (hunter-gatherer) and industrialized societies. For evidence about the use of language in these societies to be brought to bear on claims about the role it may or may not have played in early hominin groups, some bridging assumptions need to be made; two of these Tallerman states in explicit terms. The second, which is the negative variant of the first, reads as follows: ‘If . . . verbal instruction and teaching/learning of life skills 6 Rudolf Botha and Martin Everaert
- 30. are dissociated in modern societies, then it seems highly unlikely that they were linked during, say, the erectus era, when the language available is assumed to have been much more limited than the fully-fledged faculty (but at least cannot have been more sophisticated), and thus would be far less suited for the task.’ Reviewing the pertinent literature, Tallerman finds a sizeable body of evidence about the use of language in modern societies which does not support proposals to the effect that early linguistic traits facilitated the teaching of offspring. (See also Chapter 6, this volume.) The comparative method represents, according to Tallerman, the second possible way of overcoming the problem of the lack of direct evidence about early hominin lifestyles. By this method, data on the role that pedagogy plays in the lives of modern apes can be brought to bear on hypotheses about the role that early linguistic traits could have played in early hominins’ teaching of their offspring. Aware that the data here do not bear directly on the hypotheses, Tallerman explicitly states a number of assumptions which could license the inferential step from the behaviour of modern apes to that of early hominins. She states the first of these bridging assumptions as follows: ‘If pedagogy plays an important role for contemporary apes, it is likely to be a phylogenetically ancient trait, present at least in the common ancestor of Homo and Pan, somewhere around 5–7 mya. It could then be reasonably assumed to have been inherited in our own lineage, and widely used.’ Invoking assumptions such as this, Tallerman finds in the primatological literature what she looks upon as solid evidence against proposals that attribute an adaptive role to kin-selected communication systems for early hominins. In Chapter 6, the potential role of ethnographic evidence in the study of language evolution is further clarified by Katharine MacDonald and Wil Roebroeks. Concerned with what is known about the linguistic capacities of Neanderthals and other early hominins, they observe that attempts to draw inferences about these capacities from data in the archaeological record have to date been unsuccessful. So there is a need to develop ‘other ways of entry into the topic’. What MacDonald and Roebroeks propose is to take Neanderthals’ accomplishment in hunting large animals as a point of departure for a comparative exercise. This exercise starts out from the assumption, made by a number of authors, that efficient forms of com- munication and of knowledge transference by teaching lay at the root of Pleistocene hominin hunting skills. Does the same hold good for the Neanderthals? MacDonald and Roebroeks note that it is not possible to Introduction: evidence and inference in the study of language evolution 7
- 31. investigate this question in any direct manner; it is possible though, they argue, to study the way in which and the contexts where communication enhances efficiency among extant hunter-gatherers whose subsistence practices are in at least some ways comparable to those of Neanderthals. The authors’ focus is the role of verbal instruction in the acquisition of hunting skills by children of modern hunter-gatherers. That role, they consider, is likely to be suggestive of the role played by linguistic commu- nication in Neanderthal transfer of information about animal behaviour. An extensive cross-cultural study of how hunting skills are acquired by the children of hunter-gatherers leads MacDonald and Roebroeks to the finding that verbal instruction about animal behaviour is rare. These children do have access, though, to information about this behaviour as contained in hunting stories and oral traditions. Accordingly, the authors think that verbal instruction has but a relatively limited role in hunter- gatherer children’s acquisition of hunting skills. Indeed, they take it that this applies to these children’s acquisition of subsistence skills in general. They next argue from modern hunter-gatherers to the Neanderthals, by analogy. And they conclude that a range of forms of communication and of social learning were important to the Neanderthals in acquiring hunting skills; but that verbal instruction was ‘not important’ to them. That is, they conclude, language would have been useful to the Neander- thals in the transmission of hunting skills, but was ‘not essential’. Yet a crucial question arises, as MacDonald and Roebroeks see it, about inferences such as this last one: does the ethnographic record provide a suitable analogue for Neanderthal foraging strategies and learning? The question arises since Neanderthals and modern humans might be expected to have undergone changes in the domain of learning skills, given the long separation of the two lineages. To address this crucial question, MacDonald and Roebroeks appeal to what is known about learning processes in humans and other species. On this basis, they assume that Neanderthals and modern humans are likely to share features in regard to the learning of subsistence strategies in particular. Taking number concept to be the ability to conceive of and use other representations of quantity, Thomas Wynn, Frederick Coolidge, and Kar- enleigh Overmann explore in Chapter 7 the ‘side door’ which this concept opens on to language and its evolution. In doing so, they illustrate two things in a striking way. One: inferences about the evolution of language can be highly complex. Two: great care needs to be taken in assessing the 8 Rudolf Botha and Martin Everaert
- 32. pertinence and strength of kinds of indirect evidence which may seem to bear on hypotheses about language evolution. As indirect evidence that may bear on hypotheses about the evolution of number concept, the authors consider the following kinds of data: data about the acquisition of number concept by children; ethnographic data; palaeoanthropological data about brain size and shape; and archaeological data about prehistoric counting devices and shell beads. And they focus on cardinality as the primary concept behind integers and counting. Cardin- ality, they take it, is reducible to five concepts. These more basic concepts are: subitization (the ability to contrast the numbers of small sets); analogue magnitude (the ability to compare large sets to one another and determine which is bigger); one-to-one correspondence (the ability to match individual items in one set or array to individual items in a second set or array); ordinality (the principle of stable order or sequence with ranking); and labelling (the ability to label values). Wynn, Coolidge, and Overmann approach the evolution of number concept via the development of the concept in children. They observe that the child’s acquisition of the concept leans heavily on the language scaffold of labelling; a reliance which they find thought-provoking from a language evolution perspective. Next, they pursue the idea that the key in the child’s construction of the number concept is the memorized set of words that constitutes the numeral list. This, in turn, raises the possibility that the presence of number concept might correlate with, and consequently be evidence for, the presence of language, provided that the presence of number in deep prehistory could be documented. The authors have reason to think that the evolutionary development of an integer concept may differ from its development in children; hence, for evidence about its evolutionary development they turn to the ethnographic and archaeo- logical records. As for the archaeological record, Wynn, Coolidge, and Overmann believe that evidence about the use of tally boards such as the Lartet Plaque, indicates that the cognitive hardware for constructing a number concept was in place by 28,000 years ago. (Tally boards such as the Lartet Plaque served as lunar calendars; physically, they were flat pieces of bone engraved with a series of lines, slashes, and dots.) In terms of the correl- ation noted above, the presence of the cognitive hardware implies that language was in place by 28,000 years ago; that is, language as a system of labelling comprising specifically words. But what is needed in addition, Introduction: evidence and inference in the study of language evolution 9
- 33. the authors note, is evidence of number concept as antedating 30,000 years ago. It is for this that they turn to palaeoanthropology, which supplies two indirect avenues of investigation, one of which leads via archaeological evidence for some of the cognitive components of number concept. The latter evidence is gleaned by the authors from the 77,000-year-old shell beads excavated at Blombos Cave on the southern coast of South Africa. These beads, they argue, may not have been the ornaments com- municating social identity, contrary to what has been maintained by Christopher Henshilwood and his research associates. Instead, the beads may have been tokens for use in some counting device: the beads would have been both individuated and ordinal in their arrangement on a cord. This leads the authors to suggest that strings of these beads may have served in an interesting artifact; in effect, a scaffold for bootstrapping a true number concept, even in the absence of linguistic labels for numerals. Wynn, Coolidge, and Overmann refrain from drawing conclusions from this about the language of the Stone Age people who inhabited Blombos Cave. The main thesis argued for by Peter Gärdenfors in Chapter 8 is that the evolution of semantics in the human species is to be thought of as a series of expansions of semantic domains. As a ‘clue’ to this evolution, he outlines some of the major steps in the development of semantic domains in children. This development in itself, he argues, corresponds in large measure to the development of intersubjectivity and of theory of mind; and he proposes, as a ‘natural hypothesis’, that the presence of these semantic domains has yielded a selective advantage in the evolution of our species. Drawing on work on child development and on non-human cognition, he points out that these domains seem to arise successively in normal children in all cultures, but to a lesser degree in the young of other species. This suggests to him that they have played an important evolu- tionary role. His claim here is that the most advanced components of intersubjectivity have co-evolved with our communicative capacities, jointly breaking the ground for new forms of cooperation. At the level of specifics, Gärdenfors starts his account by setting out an analysis of how and when the abilities needed for intersubjectivity develop in children; these are the abilities to represent (or share) other people’s emotions, attention, desires, goals and intentions, and beliefs and know- ledge. He identifies six semantic domains that are necessary to this development: the emotional, visual (physical), category, goal, action, 10 Rudolf Botha and Martin Everaert
- 34. and event domains. And, adopting an evolutionary perspective, he argues that these domains, once established, have generated selective benefits through the new forms of cooperation that they have made possible. The expansion of shared semantic domains may be, Gärdenfors thinks, the most central component of cultural evolution. Consider next the way in which Gärdenfors argues. He presents a correlation between different stages in the emergence of intersubjectivity in children and the semantic domains that are involved. The order of these stages, he suggests, corresponds to the order of their evolutionary appear- ance. This he infers from the observation that the number of species which show the different forms of intersubjectivity declines as one goes through the list and that, when understanding the beliefs of others is reached, only humans remain. The selective forces behind the evolution of these com- ponents are conceptualized in terms of the types of cooperation they allow. Gärdenfors refrains, however, from spelling out the selective values of the various forms of cooperation. Nor does he claim that the same forces lie behind the development of intersubjectivity and semantic domains in children, warning thoughtfully that ‘the argumentative move from development to evolution is always precarious’. The central claim made by Jacques Vauclair and Hélène Cochet in Chapter 9 is that a comparative approach can answer some of the ques- tions about the evolution of language, including what the earliest precur- sors of human language were. On their hypothesis, these precursors were communicative gestures; in support of this, they adduce evidence derived from the communicative behaviour of children and non-human primates. In addition, they cite findings made in neuro-imaging studies of the left- hemisphere specialization for language; these hint at a shared evolutionary origin for gesturing and language. In all, as they see it, this provides convincing arguments for their gestural hypothesis of language origin. As Vauclair and Cochet interpret the behavioural studies they review, these bring to light a dynamic interplay between language and gesture in human infants and children. For them this, in turn, means that gestural communication lays the ontogenetic foundation of verbal behaviours. Features of the gestural communication of non-human primates high- light, in their view, the role of gestures in the emergence of human language. The authors point out various continuities between the com- municative gestures of apes and human language in areas such as inten- tionality, flexibility of use, and referential properties. Introduction: evidence and inference in the study of language evolution 11
- 35. In addition, they review work that addresses the question of the hand preference associated with gestural communication. As they interpret the pertinent data, these show that in both humans and non-human primates there is a clear distinction between hand preference for communicative gestures and hand preferences for manipulative actions. In effect, then— they argue—this work yields some evidence that gestures have been a prior medium in the evolution of language. All in all, Vauclair and Cochet’s chapter provides an instructive illustration of how the compara- tive method has been used to ease the problem of the lack of direct evidence about the origin of language. In Chapter 9, as noted, Jacques Vauclair and Hélène Cochet seek to identify continuities that link the communicative gestures of apes to human language; in Chapter 10, Alban Lemasson, Karim Ouattara, and Klaus Zuberbühler set out to identify a number of parallels between properties of human language and the vocalizations used in primate communication. In so doing, they provide a second concrete illustration of how the comparative method can be used to shed light on the evolution of language and speech. By pinpointing these parallels, they aim to counter the currently widely held view that primate vocal behaviour is irrelevant for theories of language evolution. In pursuit of this aim, they take two steps. First, they review recent studies on primate vocal behav- iour which they consider directly relevant to questions of signal flexibility and control. Next, they review the evidence across the primate order which may bear on key language properties that are not related to acoustic plasticity. By this two-pronged exercise, Lemasson, Ouattara, and Zuberbühler hope to bridge a number of current gaps between primate calls, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, human language and speech. The parallels between non-human primate vocalizations and human language/ speech for which there is evidence lie, the authors claim, in the following fiveareas: automatic vs. voluntaryvocalproduction;internallyvs.externally based message coding; genetically determined vs. socially learned call struc- ture; individual calling vs. socially organized conversations; and call sequences vs. call combinations and syntax. Major differences also exist ineachoftheseareas.Nevertheless,theseauthorsmaintain,recent empirical research on a range of primate species has brought to light numerous unexpected parallels with human vocal communication. For them, 12 Rudolf Botha and Martin Everaert
- 36. these parallels point to certain continuities where, for long, all differences have been thought to be unbridgeable. A most instructive feature of Lemasson, Ouattara, and Zuberbühler’s account is the careful way in which its inferences are drawn. Thus, the authors warn against simplistic interpretations of the parallels at issue. Do these parallels point to shared ancestry? Or are they due to convergent evolution? Or are the similarities simply spurious? The authors take care to point out that this is very hard to decide just yet. Clarifying these issue will require evidence from species with known phylogenetic closeness to humans, notably chimpanzees and bonobos, but others as well. The evidence available at present is too limited, they find, to allow them to make meaningful statements about the evolutionary mechanisms respon- sible for the parallels. Primate vocal behaviours, they emphasize, should in any case not be seen as precursors to human language; they may, however, be able to reveal something about the communicative behaviour of the shared ancestor. Findings from work on animal cognition and communication are brought to bear on questions of language evolution in Chapter 11 as well. In the light of comparisons of the behavioural capacities of a wide variety of animal species, Kathleen Gibson puts forward here a tentative model of early hominid adaptations. Two views of hers are central to this model. One: more than by anything else, humans are differentiated from animals by adaptive versatility. Two: hominin versatility may have been shaped by the joint action of diverse selective agents. The idea that modern human behaviours which seem to differ in kind from those of apes may in fact merely differ from them in degree runs through Gibson’s reasoning like a golden thread. She holds, that is, that many of these differences in fact reflect increases in information processing and hier- archical organizational capacities. Particularly insightful is Gibson’s discussion of the large array of pos- sible selective pressures that the language evolution theorist has to face up to. These pressures include tool-assisted omnivorous extractive foraging, social complexity, cooperative breeding, power scavenging, predator defence, and singing and music as agents for sexual selection. Reviewing various animal-based language origin hypotheses which invoke these pressures, she argues that none of them can fully account for the emer- gence of protolanguage. What is more, she shows that these hypotheses are all mutually compatible in that the selective pressures posited by them Introduction: evidence and inference in the study of language evolution 13
- 37. could have acted simultaneously on tool-using cooperative breeders for- aging in semi-open habitats. Gibson holds, that is, that these pressures can all have selected for capacities pertinent to protolanguage. As well as setting out this perspective on the evolution of cognitive capacities, Gibson enhances our understanding of the heuristic potential of various sources of comparative evidence. Great apes, she holds, are still the most appropriate objects of study from which to reconstruct the cognitive and communicative capacities of basal humans. Fleshing out this view, she argues that, since panins are the closest relatives to humans, one possible strategy of behaviour reconstruction is to compare bonobos, chimpanzees, and modern humans. This yields only three data points, however; in contrast, a comparison that includes all great apes yields five such points, and one that includes all monkeys, apes, and humans pro- vides a sample of over 200 species. Studies of other animals, Gibson maintains, remain essential for an insight into the selective pressures that led from ape-like to modern human abilities. In Chapter 12 Alan Langus, Jana Petri, Marina Nespor, and Constance Scharff focus on a number of striking parallels between spoken language and birdsong. They favour the view that, in principle, distinct attributes of human language exist in other species to distinct degrees. The parallels in question, they believe, may constitute an interesting source of information about the evolution of human language. For instance, similarities between the ways the sensory experience of species-specific vocalization in humans and birds is internalized and used to shape vocal outputs suggest to the authors that spoken language and birdsong may use similar neural mech- anisms. They are especially struck by these similarities, in view of the fact that birdsong and speech arose in evolutionary branches that split some 300 million years ago. Such parallels between humans and birds are evidence for deep homology, they maintain. In other words, birdsong and spoken language may be governed by homologous genetic mechan- isms that are conserved across species. Chapter 12, thus, offers a further application of the comparative method. And it shares with preceding chapters the view that cross-species behavioural differences are likely to be graded rather than categorical. In the first half of their account, Langus, Petri, Nespor, and Scharff review a large body of work. From it, they draw a suggestion: that birdsong and human language share features in the domains of sensory-motor processes (perception and production), conceptual-intentional processes 14 Rudolf Botha and Martin Everaert
- 38. (semantics), the computational system (syntax, roughly speaking), and acquisition. While identifying similarities in all four domains, the authors take care to point out various aspects of birdsong that need to be investi- gated in more depth to allow meaningful comparison. They note, for instance, that our knowledge of possible conceptual-intentional processes underlying songbird vocalizations is close to nil. In the second part of their account, Langus, Petri, Nespor, and Scharff survey converging evidence both for the relevance to language of the FoxP2 gene and its associated molecular network, and for the role of this gene in the acquisition and production of birdsong. There remain many unanswered questions in this area about possible similarities between spoken language and birdsong; yet according to the authors there is increasing evidence to suggest that human language and non- human communication systems alike may rely on conserved molecular tool kits that act as genetic modules. They take these as possibly specifying the neural circuits that subserve the behaviours at issue, and that organize their functions. They argue that elucidating these genetic modules prom- ises insights into the evolution of language and other complex traits. However, they also identify various ways in which the genetic and molecu- lar bases of spoken language and birdsong are not well understood. And they are careful not to draw inferences about the evolution of language on which the lack of pertinent knowledge will reflect negatively. In Chapter 13, the final chapter of the volume, Karl Diller and Rebecca Cann present a time line for the co-evolution of human language and the brain. In developing this time line, they proceed from the assumption that the human brain is designed for language and speech, and that the chief evidence for the evolution of the capacity for human language is evidence about the evolving brain. To clear the way for their biological perspective on the evolution of language, Diller and Cann argue that the Chomskyan account of the origin of Universal Grammar, as embodied in recursion or Merge, should be rejected. The main flaw in this account, they contend, is that it makes use of what they call ‘magical thinking’; it does this in claiming that the origin of something as complex as the biological capacity for language or recursive thought could lie in a single minor recent mutation. They cite recent work in genome biology from which it is clear that genes and their products could never act alone; rather, they always act in networks with Introduction: evidence and inference in the study of language evolution 15
- 39. other genes and proteins, doing so in the context of the environment. Diller and Cann argue, in addition, that recursion is not something that is unique in the natural world, as there is evidence that it occurs also in biochemical processes and in visual cognition. As to Diller and Cann’s time line for language and the brain, they hold that the first steps for speech may have occurred 4.4 million years ago by the time of Ardipithecus ramidus, and cite evidence about the symbolic capabilities of apes in the manual/visual sphere which points to this. On the basis of evidence from neuroanatomy and genetics, they argue that the first spoken words were used at least by the time of the emergence of genus Homo more than 2 million years ago. Moving closer to the present on their time line, Diller and Cann assert that Homo erectus, with his great increase in brain size, was ‘on his way’ to building up a ‘decent language’ through the processes of syntactic carpentry, metaphor, and grammaticalization; where syntactic carpentry is the process by which sentences are built by a processing system without the need of Universal Grammar. As for the end of the authors’ time line, they look on the biological evidence as showing that the earliest anatomically modern Homo sapiens some 200,000 years ago had full language capacities, fully modern languages, and a brain capable of higher cognition. In setting up their time line, Diller and Cann first argue that speech is a defining feature of humans and then discuss in considerable depth the evolutionary problem of how humans gained neuromuscular control of speech. When they look at the extensive areas of the human brain dedi- cated to the control of the vocal tract and to the processing of speech, they see evidence of natural selection for speech function (see also Chapter 2, this volume). This, they assert, is another point on which they differ fundamentally from Berwick and Chomsky (2011), who believe that linking speech to the internal language of thought is quite possibly a task that involves no evolution at all. As evidenced by the contributions to this volume, the evolution of language is a multifaceted phenomenon that fascinates scientists from a wide range of disciplines. With them, these scientists bring, amongst other things, different ontologies, theoretical frameworks, approaches to research, conceptual and terminological tool kits, assessments of evidence, and views of what may appear to be the same phenomenon. Work on language evolution is doubtless enriched by this diversity; at the same time, though, it also constitutes a source of potential disagreement. It is 16 Rudolf Botha and Martin Everaert
- 40. accordingly unsurprising that some of the contributors to the present volume differ, or at least appear to differ, in how they view certain phenomena. Thus, Stephen Anderson (Chapter 2), Jacques Vauclair and Hélène Cochet (Chapter 9), and Alban Lemasson, Klaus Zuberbühler, and Karim Ouattara (Chapter 10) appear not to view certain properties of primate calls in exactly the same way. And, to mention an example of a disagreement about linguistic ontology, whereas Stephen Anderson (Chapter 2) accepts the existence of a biologically based language faculty, Morten Christiansen (Chapter 3) does not. The present volume, in sum, does not only put forward a range of new perspectives on the evolution of language and speech; it also illustrates in a concrete way how scholars in diverse fields are dealing with issues of evidence and inference that arise in the work from which these perspec- tives have grown. What is more, in giving this illustration, it spotlights an important area of future work: that of constructing good ‘bridge theories’. These are theories which aim to underpin inferences which are about language evolution but which are drawn from data about phenomena that are distinct from language evolution. Take, as an example, an inference which is about language evolution but which is drawn from data about the cognitive or linguistic development of modern children. Such an inference needs to be underpinned by a well-justified theory of the way in which the cognitive or linguistic capacities of modern humans relate to those of early hominins. A theory that achieved this would serve as a ‘bridge’ across which the inferential move could be made from what is known about the cognitive or linguistic development of modern children, to what is not known about the evolution of the linguistic capacities of early hominins. Borrowing some terminology from Peter Gärdenfors, we may say that this ‘bridge’ would make the argumentative move from development to evo- lution less precarious. Good ‘bridge theories’ are also needed in order to warrant inferences about the evolution of language which are drawn from other ‘window’ phenomena—such as those listed in the first part of this chapter. The soundness of such inferences depends largely on the strength of the ‘bridges’. Introduction: evidence and inference in the study of language evolution 17
- 41. 2 What is special about the human language faculty and how did it get that way? STEPHEN R. ANDERSON 2.1 Introduction In making the case for evolutionary shaping of the human language faculty little of what I have to say will be new to most readers of this book. My purpose in building that case, however, is to set the stage for discussing what seems to me to be a false dichotomy in much theorizing about language. That is the notion that we have to choose between attributing a property to the human cognitive faculty of language on the one hand, and providing an account of it that is external to this aspect of the structure of the mind on the other: that these options are mutually exclusive, such that something is either a consequence of the structure of Universal Grammar or else it has a basis in function, or processing, or the workings of historical change, or whatever. I want to suggest that these two foundations for linguistic structure are not incompatible, and that in fact evolutionary considerations ought to lead us to expect a kind of duplication of foundation for much that is important in language. If this is correct, it actually leaves linguists in rather worse shape, with more basic questions than before and less of an idea of how to go about answering them. But that may nonetheless be the situation we face. Linguistics is, fairly uncontroversially, the scientific study of ‘language’. But when we try to be more precise, the sense of what we are studying is less obvious, and has changed a lot over time. For present purposes, I will assume that––following the ‘cognitive revolution’––what we want to study is not sets of sounds, or words, or sentences, or texts in them- selves, ‘E-language’ in the contemporary usage of linguists, but rather the
- 42. knowledge or cognitive capacity that underlies our production and under- standing of these things––linguists’ ‘I-language’. However we eventually characterize this capacity, it does seem clear that it is a property of us as human beings. Absent severe and obvious pathology, all humans acquire and use language spontaneously and with- out the need for explicit instruction; and furthermore, no member of any other species appears to have the capacity to do this, with or without instruction. When we look at the communicative behaviour of other species in nature, we find (as we tell our students in Linguistics I) that all such systems are quite different in character from that of human language. They are based on fixed inventories of messages, essentially limited to the here and now; these inventories cannot be expanded ad hoc by combining elements to form new and different messages. In nearly all cases, these systems emerge in the individual without the need for relevant experience, although in some cases there may be a limited amount of refinement in the precise conditions of use of a given message, based on observation. Even in those cases where vocal learning occurs, of which song in oscine birds, hummingbirds, and perhaps parrots is by far the most robust example, the actual system which is acquired does not transcend the character of such a fixed list of conveyable messages. The most basic properties of human natural language show some limited similarities to other systems, but they are quite different in funda- mental ways. On the one hand, language in the human sense seems to be distinct to our species, and rooted in our biology, just as other animals’ communication systems are part of their specific make-up. Human lan- guage is learned, in the sense that experience affects which possibility from within a limited space (the set of possible human languages) will be realized in a given child. Birdsong provides really the only parallel to this pattern of development, while in most animals, including all of the other primates, communication is entirely innate, and develops in a fixed way that is independent of experience (see Chapter 12, this volume). But where other species have fixed, limited sets of messages they can convey, humans have an unbounded range of things that can be expressed in language. And here there is no analogy with birdsong, since a bird’s song always carries the same message, even in species that learn a number of distinct songs by which it may be conveyed. Human language use is also unusual in being voluntary, controlled mainly by cortical centres, while with the possible exception of some ape gestures, other animals generally What is special about the human language faculty 19
- 43. (though perhaps not exclusively: see Chapter 10 of this volume for some evidence of exceptions) produce communicative signals under various sorts of non-voluntary control. In more specific terms, human languages are distinctive in being based on the combination of discrete elements. Any kind of combination is virtually unknown in the communicative behaviour of other species, and what flexibility they show is usually obtained by variation along continuous dimensions (as in the dances of European honeybees). An important property of human language that is sometimes under- valued is what Hockett (1960a) christened ‘duality of patterning’. In human language, individually meaningless sounds combine to make words by means of a system of phonology; and these words combine by means of a completely distinct system (syntax) to make messages.1 The presence of productive phonology in addition to syntax is not just an ornament: it is what makes large vocabularies practical. Understanding the structure and emergence of the properties of phonology is thus another important task for those who would understand the evolution of language, in addition to the emergence of grammar. All of these properties of human language, and especially the possibility of syntactic combination, are quite unique in the animal world. Despite heroic efforts leading to much research that is fascinating in its own right, all attempts to teach a system that genuinely displays the properties of a human language to other animals have failed. This asser- tion is controversial in some quarters, and its detailed defence is beyond the scope of this chapter: for an outline of the relevant argument see Anderson (2004). The bottom line is that there is no evidence that any other animal is capable of acquiring and using a system with the core properties of human language, one constituting a discrete combinatorial 1 There is a third combinatory system that is almost always left out of such discussions: morphology, the system by which portions of the meanings of complex words are correlated with portions of their form. As Carstairs-McCarthy (2010) argues in detail, the existence of such a second system for forming complex meanings is quite independent of syntax and thus apparently superfluous, posing a puzzle for theories of the evolution of language. For our purposes here, though, we need only point out that morphological organization represents yet another way in which human language differs fundamentally from the communicative behaviour of all other species. 20 Stephen R. Anderson
- 44. system, based on recursive,2 hierarchical syntax, and displaying two inde- pendent levels of systematic structure––one for the composition of mean- ingful units and one for their combination into full messages. Really, though, there is no reason to expect that our means of commu- nication should be accessible to animals with a different biology, any more than we expect ourselves to be able to catch bugs by emitting short pulses of sound and listening for the echo, like a bat. Language as we deploy it is a part of our biological nature, just as echolocation is part of the biology of (microchiroptera) bats. But once we accept the conclusion that lan- guage is a part of human biology, it provides a strong impetus to look for an explanation of its properties in the primary mechanism that accounts for structure in the biological world: evolution. The following section considers the plausibility of an evolutionary account of human language as we find it in modern Homo sapiens. 2.2 The language faculty as the product of evolution In the famous words of the title of Dobzhansky (1973), ‘Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution.’ Once we focus on the species-specific character of language, it stands out as a biological phenomenon, and thus the default assumption is that its character is to be understood in terms of its evolution. Discussion of the origins of human language was largely absent from the scientific literature of linguistics for many years, beginning with the famous proscription of the topic in a clause in the 1866 constitution of the Société Linguistique de Paris, for the very good reason that there was very little relevant science that could be brought to bear on the matter at that time (for a different view of the reason for the proscription, see Chapter 13, this volume). In 1990, however, Pinker and Bloom argued that language has the characteristics of a faculty that has evolved by natural selection, and in that way they re-installed evolutionary questions as legitimate matters of enquiry in the field. Pinker and Bloom argued that language is a system with a complex internal structure, consisting of a number of specifically organized components and mechanisms that fit 2 See Fitch (2010b) for discussion of the relevant notion of recursion that characterizes this property of human language. What is special about the human language faculty 21
- 45. together in a specific way; and in so doing support a particular function for the organism, namely, the expression and communication of know- ledge, a function which is adaptively significant in that it allows us to share and to accumulate the benefits of experience, as well as expressing effectively the character of our relations with our conspecifics. Collectively, these properties point to a capacity that is a good candidate for having been shaped by the processes of evolution. This plausibility argument, however, is insufficient. To argue that the human language faculty is indeed the product of evolution by natural selection, it is neces- sary to show that the empirical requirements of such an account are satisfied. Associating a trait like language with an evolutionary explanation is not just a matter of a general commitment to scientific method; evolution of a given trait by natural selection can only take place to the extent that certain prerequisites are met, as made clear in Darwin’s original account and not significantly revised by subsequent research. The trait has to be shown to be variable among the members of the species, such that the variation is transmitted by hereditary mechanisms––that is, off- spring are similar to their parents along the axes of variability of the trait, independent of other influences from the environment. Furthermore, variation in the trait must be correlated with differential reproductive success: that is, individuals are more or less likely to be able to transmit their character with respect to the given trait as a function of where on the range of variation they fall. 2.2.1 Is the language faculty variable? Looking at these issues one at a time, we can start by asking how variable the language capacity is. Actually, we ought to ask how variable it was at some point in the past when the relevant evolutionary processes came into play, but the question of variability now is still worth exploring. It is in fact an article of faith among linguists, a premise seemingly not in need of explicit justification, that the human language faculty is uniform across the species. It is undoubtedly true that a child raised in any human society will acquire the language(s) of that community regardless of the language of the child’s biological parents. That hardly means, however, that there is no variation in the details of the acquisition of diverse languages by children of diverse parentage––only that whatever variation there may be is insufficient to pose an absolute barrier to the 22 Stephen R. Anderson
- 46. learning of certain languages by certain children. Indeed, many of the same linguists who maintain that the language faculty does not vary across the species are also adherents of the view that the language faculty is a property of our biology. It would be close to impossible to find any non- trivial biologically determined characteristic of humans (or any other species) that displayed no variation at all. The sort of Orwellian double- think required to maintain both of these views simultaneously is unlikely to provide a sound basis for an understanding of human language. In principle, it is surely unnecessary to show that some individuals are incapable of learning certain languages in order to argue that the capacity is not uniform. If we were able to study a set of neonates from diverse genetic backgrounds transposed into communities speaking languages of various structures, and compare the fine details of their acquisition of these languages with those of a corresponding set of children born into those communities, we might well find small differences. Such differ- ences might indicate that some children have a limited but discoverable advantage in acquiring some languages but not others. In practice such an experiment, or others that could be done to establish whether or not the language abilities of some human populations differ in some respects from others, would be too disruptive to the subjects involved and too politically sensitive––implying, as they might, an interest in racial differences––for there to be any likelihood of their being carried out. Bur despite the difficulty of empirical demonstration here, it is hard to maintain that the hypothesis of cross-species invariability is self-evidently true, as often assumed. Evidence to be discussed in section 2.2.2 shows that genetically determined community-specific differences in language capacity do exist at the margins, in the form of heritable language disorders. There is no reason to deny the possibility of much subtler effects with similar bases. We do know that the broad capacity for human language has apparently been roughly uniform for at least 40–50,000 years: since at least the settle- ment of Australia (whose indigenous languages are comparable in structure to those spoken elsewhere in the world). This suggests that there is not much present genetic variation in the basic properties of the language faculty, or that it has not been subject to recent selection. It does not show that the human capacity for language is not an evolved one, because evolution can fix an advantageous trait at 100 per cent in a population. Nor does it show that there is no variation among individuals, at least within some (possibly narrow) limits. And in fact, there is obviously some variation; What is special about the human language faculty 23
- 47. some children learn faster than others, and some individuals have abilities well below the population norm (deficits). Given these facts, there is no reason to doubt that there has long been sufficient variation in language capacities across our species for natural selection to work with. 2.2.2 Is the language faculty heritable? The heritability of a given trait is the proportion of phenotypic variation in the trait that is accounted for by genetic variation. Evidence from a variety of sources for the heritability of variation in language ability is surveyed by Stromswold (2001, 2010). This includes results from three sorts of study that support such heritability: monozygotic twins are more nearly similar with respect to language ability than dizygotic twins; adopted children are more similar to their genetic relatives than to their co-siblings; and certain familial language disorders within the broad class of ‘Specific Language Impairment’ run in families in ways that pattern like simple Mendelian traits. Better evidence would of course be provided if it were possible to identify specific genes responsible for the human language capacity, but this is vastly more complex than the usual portrayal in popular discus- sions. A great amount of excitement has been associated with the identifi- cation of a defective allele of the gene FOXP2 in a specific language impairment, to the extent that FOXP2 has been widely labelled a ‘language gene’. In fact, FOXP2 does not itself code for any particular structure, but rather for a transcription factor which influences the expression of some four dozen or more other genes in a variety of areas of the body. Evidence for the specific set of genes regulated by the FOXP2 protein is presented by Konopka et al. (2009), but the particular role of any of these in the development of language remains obscure. Other examples in which identifiable genetic polymorphisms are related to disorders of language have also come to light, such as the association of a mutation on chromosome 16 with heritable Specific Language Impair- ment in an isolated population in Chile (Villanueva et al. 2010). The complexity of inferences from specific genetic material to cognitive cap- acities in cases like this, with a particular focus on the example of FOXP2, is explored by Fisher (2006). Various recent discoveries concerning FOXP2 are tantalizing, but quite inconclusive. For example, the modern human 24 Stephen R. Anderson
- 48. form of the gene seems to have undergone a selective sweep3 at some point. Furthermore, the derived modern human form of the gene was apparently shared by Homo neanderthalensis. These facts, plus evidence that the form of Foxp2 found in oscine birds is expressed in areas of the brain such as Area X that are important to song learning, are interesting but do not tell us much about what the role of this gene might be in determining the nature and structure of the human language faculty. Another argument supporting the general point that aspects of the language faculty are shaped by heritable factors is discussed by Ladd et al. (2008). They explore two genes recently identified with brain growth and development: ASPM, which is known to be expressed in the sites of prenatal cerebral cortical neurogenesis in mice, and Microcephalin-I, a DNA-damage response protein whose inactivation in humans results in a small brain and mental retardation. New alleles of both (ASPM-D and MCPH-D) were recently identified, and one group associated with this work claimed that the polymorphisms involved were connected with brain size and intelligence. Subsequent studies have shown that there is no correlation with either, and the earlier assertions have become a kind of classic of bad inference from genetic data. There are indications of selec- tions for the individual SNPs characterizing the new alleles, but this actually involves a large piece of the genome that includes (but is not at all limited to) those sites, meaning that the selection may well have nothing to do with ASPM-D and MCPH-D. The original inferences about the functions of these genes may have been bad, but data from a wide population sample showing a non-random geographical distribution is apparently reliable. Specifically, the distribu- tion of the distinct alleles of these genes in human populations correlates significantly with the distribution of tonal contrasts in the world’s lan- guages. Dediu and Ladd (2007) offer a map correlating the presence of linguistic tone with the population frequency of ASPM-D and MCPH-D. The correlation of the allelic variance of these genes with linguistic tone is by no means perfect, but it is suggestive: in particular, populations with high frequencies of both innovative alleles by and large speak languages 3 Selective pressure on beneficial mutations within a region of the genome can be inferred from that region’s remaining relatively unchanged over time. The effect can be approximately dated on the basis of presumed rates of random change in genetic material. What is special about the human language faculty 25
- 49. without tonal contrasts, while those with low frequencies of both are much more likely to have such contrasts. It is important to stress that Dediu and Ladd do not at all claim to have identified ‘genes for tone’. The effect is much subtler than that. What they do suggest is a correlation between specific genetic markers, differ- ences that presumably arose quite independently of anything to do with tone, and the propensity of speakers to develop and/or maintain tonal contrasts in their languages. Tone contrasts in a great many languages can be shown to have come or gone within the relatively recent past: this is a feature of languages that is relatively amenable to change. There are fairly well understood mechan- isms by which tonal contrasts emerge from earlier non-tonal phonological content (see papers in Fromkin 1978 for some discussion). As a result, the observed asymmetry could result from a difference between populations in the predilection to make the kind of reanalysis that leads to the development of tone: if different individuals were more or less likely to make such a reanalysis, this would produce a difference in the likelihood of their developing a tone language, and it would not really take a huge effect for this difference to be quite significant over many generations. The point of this example is really to demonstrate some genetic vari- ation that is related to a feature of language. The genes involved are not the basis of that feature, but they do appear to be correlated with a disposition to develop it. In particular, the innovative alleles are associated with non-tonal languages, and so their effect seems to be to diminish the development of tonal contrasts. Although the genes in question are shown by molecular genetic studies to have been subject to recent selection, this is almost certainly on the basis of effects they have elsewhere, such as on aspects of brain growth and development, quite independent of an ancillary effect on the likelihood of developing tonal contrasts. The rapid progress in analysing the human genome that is taking place today will no doubt lead to the identification of numerous additional genetic markers that are correlated in one way or another with the human capacity for language, and thus reinforce the broad conclusion that this capacity is heritable. Much more needs to be done, however, before our understanding of the relation between genotype and phenotype will be able to support claims about specific aspects of that capacity that are genetically encoded. 26 Stephen R. Anderson
- 50. 2.2.3 Is the language faculty adaptive? Turning to the question of adaptiveness, it might just seem obvious that having language is very advantageous. After all, humanity seems to have been enormously successful over that portion of our history that is coextensive with the possession of language. Perhaps that is true for language as we find it today, but explanations in terms of natural selection generally require us to get to the final state through a series of gradual but individually advantageous adaptations. That is, we need to show that individuals who had a little bit more of the language capacity than those who did not gained a reproductive advantage, under the conditions that obtained for humans at that time, even though they did not have language faculties equivalent to those of fully modern humans. And this is not easy. For example, the plausible notion that language provided an increase in individual’s ‘inclusive fitness’ as an example of kin selection is argued persuasively by Tallerman (see Chapter 5, this volume) to be illusory. It is especially hard to show that the specific details of the language faculty which seem to be common across the species, would have conferred that kind of advantage. In fact, there is a lot of controversy about this, and the very same features of language are seen quite differently by different scholars, in ways that are difficult to adjudicate. Communication, for example, is frequently invoked as a driving force shaping language, but while Pinker and Bloom (1990) argue that the details of language are excellently fitted to its use in communication, Fitch et al. (2005) and Piattelli-Palmarini (2008) argue that in many instances linguistic structure is actually counterproductive for communicative purposes. If, as argued in section 2.2.1, there is variation in the language capacity that can be inherited, we need to show that there is a plausible basis for selecting individuals who possess the capacity over those who do not. That is, we need to show that language provides a selective advantage. The best way to do that, of course, would be to show that aspects of the language faculty actually had been selected: that is, a molecular genetic demonstra- tion that genes coding for language have been under selection pressure. As discussed in section 2.2.2, though, we have not identified such genes yet, much less established the relevant relations between genotype and phenotype, so it is hard to make such an argument. It is true that the human form of FOXP2 has been argued to show evidence of being a What is special about the human language faculty 27
- 51. target of direct selection over the past 200,000 years, and to have become essentially fixed across the species. The expression and developmental role of FOXP2 is sufficiently diverse, however, for it to be difficult to argue that whatever selection pressure has affected it was related to its role in language. The two genes referenced by Dediu and Ladd (MCPH-D and ASPM-D) have also been the targets of selection, but too recently to be involved in the emergence of language, and the selection pressures there presumably have to do with other aspects of development, with ancillary consequences (that are selectionally neutral) for language. As a result, we are left having to rely on the a priori argument that language ability would have conferred enhanced fitness, and that it might have been the target of natural selection as a result. In the broadest terms, this is probably quite plausible, but we are still left seeking an account of factors that could have shaped the language faculty in the specific ways we find it today. These are seldom amenable to claims of enhanced fitness in their own right, and so remain problematic from an evolutionary point of view. 2.2.4 The language faculty and evolution Overall, the properties of the language faculty appear to be those of a system shaped by evolution, as Pinker and Bloom (1990) argued many years ago. This is entirely to be expected––when we look at the communication systems of other species, we generally find that they are tightly integrated into the overall biology of the animal, which in turn is undoubtedly shaped by the properties of the communication system. Examples of this integration include the dual olfactory systems found in many species. One of these is centred on the vomeronasal organ, a structure specialized for a range of pheromones, which are substances of great communicative significance for the animal. This system is structur- ally distinct from another, involving the main olfactory epithelium, which is used for a much broader range of olfactory experience. The two sensory organs project to different parts of the brain; the aspect of this that bears on present concerns is that the response of the vomeronasal organ is highly specific to the individual species and in fact rapidly modifiable in genetic terms to suit evolving communicative needs of the animal (for discussion of this in mice and rats, see Grus and Zhang 2004). 28 Stephen R. Anderson
- 52. Examples from other modalities include the tight link between the auditory properties of sound communication in various species and the structure of the corresponding perceptual system. The auditory systems of frogs, bees, and many other species have long been known to display particular, heightened sensitivity in exactly the frequency ranges that are characteristic of conspecific sound production. In comparative perspec- tive, it would actually be rather remarkable if something as important to humanity as our faculty for linguistic communication had not been shaped in our biology along similar lines by evolutionary pressures. But of course there are those who believe otherwise, maintaining that the language faculty is at most the product of a single global genetic change, or perhaps simply an emergent property resulting from the rest of our biology, without any connection between its specific properties and anything in evolution. One prominent argument along those lines main- tains that there is virtually nothing about the language faculty that is specific to it: that the faculty of language in the narrow sense of what is unique both to humans and to language (‘FLN’) is confined to the single property of recursive combination in syntax, as argued by Hauser et al. (2002).4 In support of this, Hauser et al. argue (see also Fitch et al. 2005) that everything else relevant to language in a broad sense (‘FLB’) finds analogues or homologues in other species or in other cognitive domains, and so is not to be analysed in terms of evolutionary pressures related to language per se. That line of reasoning seems unpersuasive to me, however. When we look at the components of FLB for which we might claim analogues or homologues elsewhere, it remains the case that their specific form in our species appears to show adaptation driven by increased utility for their use in supporting language. Where we find analogous properties in other species, such as the capacity for vocal imitation and learning, we still need to account for the fact that they have emerged independently in ours, since they are absent in our close relatives, the other primates. Even where we have reason to believe that a property with a role in language is a homologous one we share with non-linguistic species on the basis of common descent, it is often possible to argue that its role in language has nonetheless shaped the specific form it takes in Homo 4 Interestingly, all three of the authors of this paper qualify that position in various ways in their contributions to Larson et al. (2010). What is special about the human language faculty 29
- 53. sapiens. Thus, even if categorical perception is a general trait of mamma- lian auditory systems, the specific set of categories that come into play in our perception of speech seems to have been shaped by the details of the motoric bases of speech production. Pinker and Jackendoff (2005) review a number of subtle but significant differences along these lines in perceptual categories between humans and other animals. Similarly, we now know (following Fitch 2002) that the lowering of the larynx is not confined to humans, as was long thought. It seems plausible to argue, though, that the reason our larynx is permanently and stably lowered, and not lowered only when necessary for purposes such as exaggerating our size, is that the resulting position plays an essential role in facilitating a wide range of speech articulations. Although the capacity to lower the larynx was surely inherited from a common ancestor shared with non-linguistic species, the position of the modern human larynx has still been shaped to a significant extent by the advantages that position offers in speech. It should be obvious from my remarks in this chapter that I believe the language faculty contains rather more than just a single operation com- bining sentence parts. But wouldn’t it be a lot better to avoid attributing a lot of specific content to the shaping of this faculty by evolution, and instead to derive the details from more general principles of computation, communication, and so on? That is certainly an interesting agenda, but the one possible analogue we know of––song in oscine birds––suggests that it is not likely to work out. These birds are the closest parallel we have to some significant component of human language, in the process by which they learn their songs. In particular, for every one of the several thousand species with learned song, the specific songs that can be acquired are selected from a range that is characteristic of that individual species. This may be relatively narrow, as with swamp sparrows, or broad, as with canaries or nightin- gales, but we have to say that what every bird learns is delimited on the basis of a species-specific song faculty. Suppose that we were nightingales trying to carry out a sort of minim- alist programme. We would observe that although members of our species can learn a large number of songs (at least several hundred per individual), all of these display a uniform four-part structure (an Æ, a , a ª, and an ø part, each of which has particular characteristics: cf. Todt and Hultsch 1998). Songs that deviate from that form are either not learned or adjusted 30 Stephen R. Anderson
- 54. so as to conform to it, demonstrating the force of the pattern for the nightingale learning system. By parity of reasoning with the pro- gramme that sees most properties of human language not as contingent, evolutionarily shaped characteristics of Homo sapiens, but as following from the nature of the computational problem to be solved together with the apparatus available to implement a solution, we would surely want to argue that the four-part structure of nightingale song is a consequence of the nature of song, not the biological nature of nightingales. But then our colleagues, the zebra finches, would point out that we must have that wrong. In their species, song also has a compelling and rather specific form: see the recent work of Fehér et al. (2009) showing that zebra finches converge on species-typical song even in the absence of appropriate input models within a few generations. But the pattern of that song is entirely different from that of nightingales, and our hypothetical zebra finch minimalists would want to attribute that pattern to the nature of the computational problem being solved together with the properties of vocal, auditory, and conceptual systems of the birds. Since none of these factors appear to differ in relevant ways between nightingales and zebra finches (or indeed among the several thousand oscine species for which comparable analyses could potentially be developed), it seems reasonable to see the differences as matters of species-specific biology, shaped by the particular contingent evolutionary history of the various birds involved. When we bring this argument back to apply to our understanding of human language, we see that what differentiates the human case from that of birds is not necessarily the logic of the situation. Discussion of these matters sometimes confuses the diversity of birdsong with the diver- sity of human language, but that analogy is quite misleading. All of the world’s languages fall within the capacity of a single species: Homo sapiens. That is the only species that can learn language, and there is only a single language faculty. We must note that while we can compare the song systems of thousands of different species in the case of birdsong, in the case of human language we only have one species––Homo sapiens––to examine. What may seem logically necessary from our point of view might take on a much different appearance if we had thousands of distinct species of language-using hominins to examine, in which case we might well expect to find a diversity of specific language faculties to have developed across these species. From that perspective, it does not seem implausible to maintain that a large part of the seemingly arbitrary What is special about the human language faculty 31
- 55. Another Random Document on Scribd Without Any Related Topics
- 56. Another time they gave great help to a poor smith, and every night they made bran-new pots, pans, kettles and plates for him. His wife used to leave some milk for them, on which they fell like wolves, and drained the vessel to the bottom, and then cleaned it and went to their work. When the smith had grown rich by means of them, his wife made for each of them a pretty little red coat and cap, and left them in their way. Paid off! Paid off! cried they, slipped on the new clothes, and went away without working the iron that was left for them, and never returned. There was a being named a Scrat or Schrat, Schretel, Schretlein. [276] This name is used in old German to translate pilosus in the narratives of those who wrote in Latin, and it seems sometimes to denote a House- sometimes a Wood-spirit. Terms similar to it are to be found in the cognate languages, and it is perhaps the origin of Old Scratch, a popular English name of the devil. There is, chiefly in Southern Germany, a species of beings that greatly resemble the Dwarfs. They are called Wichtlein (Little Wights), and are about three quarters of an ell high. Their appearance is that of old men with long beards. They haunt the mines, and are dressed like miners, with a white hood to their shirts and leather aprons, and are provided with lanterns, mallets, and hammers. They amuse themselves with pelting the workmen with small stones, but do them no injury, except when they are abused and cursed by them.
- 57. They show themselves most especially in places where there is an abundance of ore, and the miners are always glad to see them; they flit about in the pits and shafts, and appear to work very hard, though they in reality do nothing. Sometimes they seem as if working a vein, at other times putting the ore into buckets, at other times working at the windlass, but all is mere show. They frequently call, and when one comes there is no one to be seen. At Kuttenburg, in Bohemia, the Wichtlein have been seen in great numbers. They announce the death of a miner by knocking three times, and when any misfortune is about to happen they are heard digging, pounding, and imitating all other kinds of work. At times they make a noise, as if they were smiths labouring very hard at the anvil, hence the Bohemians call them Haus-Schmiedlein (Little House-smiths). In Istria the miners set, every day, in a particular place, a little pot with food in it for them. They also at certain times in each year buy a little red coat, the size of a small boy's, and make the Wichtlein a present of it. If they neglect this, the little people grow very angry. [277] In Southern Germany they believe in a species of beings somewhat like the Dwarfs, called Wild, Wood, Timber, and Moss-people. These generally live together in society, but they sometimes appear singly. They are small in stature, yet somewhat larger than the Elf, being the size of children of three years, grey and old-looking, hairy and clad in moss. The women are of a more amiable temper than the men, which last live further back in the woods; they wear green clothes faced with red, and cocked-hats. The women come to the wood-cutters and ask them for something to eat; they also take it away of themselves out of the pots; but they always make a return
- 58. in some way or other, often by giving good advice. Sometimes they help people in their cooking or washing and haymaking, and they feed the cattle. They are fond of coming where people are baking, and beg of them to bake for them also a piece of dough the size of half a mill-stone, and to leave it in a certain place. They sometimes, in return, bring some of their own baking to the ploughman, which they lay in the furrow or on the plough, and they are greatly offended if it is rejected. The wood-woman sometimes comes with a broken wheel-barrow, and begs to have the wheel repaired, and she pays by the chips which turn into gold, or she gives to knitters a ball of thread which is never ended. A woman who good-naturedly gave her breast to a crying Wood-child, was rewarded by its mother by a gift of the bark on which it was lying. She broke a splinter off it and threw it into her faggot, and on reaching home she found it was pure gold. Their lives are attached, like those of the Hamadryads, to the trees, and if any one causes by friction the inner bark to loosen a Wood-woman dies. Their great enemy is the Wild-Huntsman, who driving invisibly through the air pursues and kills them. A peasant one time hearing the usual baying and cheering in a wood, would join in the cry. Next morning he found hanging at his stable-door a quarter of a green Moss-woman as his share of the game. When the woodmen are felling timber they cut three crosses in a spot of the tree that is to be hewn, and the Moss-women sit in the middle of these and so are safe from the Wild-Huntsman.[278] The following account of the popular belief in the parts of Germany adjacent to Jutland has been given by a late writer.[279] In Friesland the Dwarfs are named Oennereeske, in some of the islands Oennerbänske, and in Holstein Unnerorske.[280] The same
- 59. stories are told of them as of the Dwarfs and Fairies elsewhere. They take away, and keep for long periods, girls with whom they have fallen in love; they steal children and leave changelings in their stead, the remedy against which is to lay a bible under the child's pillow; they lend and borrow pots, plates, and such like, sometimes lending money with or even without interest; they aid to build houses and churches; help the peasant when his cart has stuck in the mire, and will bring him water and pancakes to refresh him when at work in the fields. The Dwarf Husband. A poor girl went out one day and as she was passing by a hill she heard a Dwarf hammering away inside of it, for they are handy smiths, and singing at his work. She was so pleased with the song, that she could not refrain from wishing aloud that she could sing like him, and live like him under the ground. Scarcely had she expressed the wish when the singing ceased, and a voice came out of the hill, saying, Should you like to live with us? To be sure I should, replied the girl, who probably had no very happy life of it above ground. Instantly the Dwarf came out of the hill and made a declaration of love, and a proffer of his hand and a share in his subterranean wealth. She accepted the offer and lived very comfortably with him, as he proved an excellent little husband. Inge of Rantum. The Friesland girls are, however, rather shy of these matches, and if they have unwarily been drawn into an engagement they try to get out of it if they possibly can. A girl named Inge of Rantum had some way or other got into an engagement with one of the Underground people. The wedding-day was actually fixed, and she could only be released from her bond on one condition—that of being able, before it came, to tell the real
- 60. name of her lover. All her efforts to that effect were in vain, the dreaded day was fast approaching and she fell into deep melancholy. On the morning of her wedding-day she went out and strolled in sorrowful mood through the fields, saying to herself, as she plucked some flowers, Far happier are these flowers than I. As she was stooping to gather them, she thought she heard a noise under the ground. She listened and recognised it as the voice at her lover, who, in the excess of his joy at the arrival of his wedding-day, was frolicking and singing, To-day I must bake and boil and roast and broil and wash and brew; for this is my wedding-day. My bride is the fair Inge of Rantum, and my name is Ekke Nekkepem. Hurrah! Nobody knows that but myself! Aye, but I know it too! said Inge softly to herself, and she placed her nosegay in her bosom and went home. Toward evening came the Dwarf to claim his bride. Many thanks, dear Ekke Nekkepem, said she, but if you please I would rather stay where I am. The smiling face of the bridegroom grew dark as thunder, but he recollected how he had divulged his secret, and saw that the affair was past remedy.[281] The Nis of Jutland is called Puk[282] in Friesland. Like him he wears a pointed red cap, with a long grey or green jacket, and slippers on his feet. His usual abode is under the roof, and he goes in and out either through a broken window, which is never mended, or through some other aperture left on purpose for him. A bowl of groute must be left on the floor for him every evening, and he is very angry if there should be no butter in it. When well treated he makes himself very useful by cleaning up the house, and tending the cattle. He sometimes amuses himself by playing tricks on the servants, tickling, for example, their noses when they are asleep, or pulling off the bed-clothes. Stories are told of the Puk, similar to some above related of the Juttish Nis.
- 62. THE WILD-WOMEN. Ein Mägdlein kam im Abendglanz, Wie ich's noch nie gefunden. Schreiber. A maiden came in Evening's glow, Such as I ne'er have met. The Wilde Frauen or Wild-women of Germany bear a very strong resemblance to the Elle-maids of Scandinavia. Like them they are beautiful, have fine flowing hair, live within hills, and only appear singly or in the society of each other. They partake of the piety of character we find among the German Dwarfs. The celebrated Wunderberg, or Underberg, on the great moor near Salzburg, is the chief haunt of the Wild-women. The Wunderberg is said to be quite hollow, and supplied with stately palaces, churches, monasteries, gardens, and springs of gold and silver. Its inhabitants, beside the Wild-women, are little men, who have charge of the treasures it contains, and who at midnight repair to Salzburg to perform their devotions in the cathedral; giants, who used to come to the church of Grödich and exhort the people to lead a godly and pious life; and the great emperor Charles V., with golden crown and sceptre, attended by knights and lords. His grey beard has twice encompassed the table at which he sits, and when it has the third time grown round it, the end of the world and the appearance of the Anti-christ will take place.[283] The following is the only account we have of the Wild-women. The inhabitants of the village of Grödich and the peasantry of the neighbourhood assert that frequently, about the year 1753, the Wild-
- 63. women used to come out of the Wunderberg to the boys and girls that were keeping the cattle near the hole within Glanegg, and give them bread to eat. The Wild-women used frequently to come to where the people were reaping. They came down early in the morning, and in the evening, when the people left off work, they went back into the Wunderberg without partaking of the supper. It happened once near this hill, that a little boy was sitting on a horse which his father had tethered on the headland of the field. Then came the Wild-women out of the hill and wanted to take away the boy by force. But the father, who was well acquainted with the secrets of this hill, and what used to occur there, without any dread hasted up to the women and took the boy from them, with these words: What makes you presume to come so often out of the hill, and now to take away my child with you? What do you want to do with him? The Wild-women answered: He will be better with us, and have better care taken of him than at home. We shall be very fond of the boy, and he will meet with no injury. But the father would not let the boy out of his hands, and the Wild-women went away weeping bitterly. One time the Wild-women came out of the Wunderberg, near the place called the Kugelmill, which is prettily situated on the side of this hill, and took away a boy who was keeping cattle. This boy, whom every one knew, was seen about a year after by some wood- cutters, in a green dress, and sitting on a block of this hill. Next day they took his parents with them, intending to search the hill for him, but they all went about it to no purpose, for the boy never appeared any more. It frequently has happened that a Wild-woman out of the Wunderberg has gone toward the village of Anif, which is better than a mile from the hill. She used to make holes and beds for herself in the ground. She had uncommonly long and beautiful hair, which reached nearly to the soles of her feet. A peasant belonging to the
- 64. village often saw this woman going and coming, and he fell deeply in love with her, especially on account of her beautiful hair. He could not refrain from going up to her, and he gazed on her with delight; and at last, in his simplicity, he laid himself, without any repugnance, down by her side. The second night the Wild-woman asked him if he had not a wife already? The peasant however denied his wife, and said he had not. His wife meanwhile was greatly puzzled to think where it was that her husband went every evening, and slept every night. She therefore watched him and found him in the field sleeping near the Wild-woman:—Oh, God preserve thy beautiful hair! said she to the Wild-woman; what are you doing there?[284] With these words the peasant's wife retired and left them, and her husband was greatly frightened at it. But the Wild-woman upbraided him with his false denial, and said to him, Had your wife manifested hatred and spite against me, you would now be unfortunate, and would never leave this place; but since your wife was not malicious, love her from henceforth, and dwell with her faithfully, and never venture more to come here, for it is written, 'Let every one live faithfully with his wedded wife,' though the force of this commandment will greatly decrease, and with it all the temporal prosperity of married people. Take this shoefull of money from me: go home, and look no more about you. As the fair maiden who originally possessed the famed Oldenburg Horn was probably a Wild-woman, we will place the story of it here. The Oldenburg Horn.
- 65. In the time of count Otto of Oldenburg, who succeeded his father Ulrich in the year 967, a wonderful transaction occurred. For as he, being a good sportsman, and one who took great delight in the chase, had set out early one day with his nobles and attendants, and had hunted in the wood of Bernefeuer, and the count himself had put up a roe, and followed him alone from the wood of Bernefeuer to the Osenberg, and with his white horse stood on the top of the hill, and endeavoured to trace the game, he said to himself, for it was an excessively hot day, Oh God! if one had now but a cool drink! No sooner had the count spoken the word than the Osenberg opened, and out of the cleft there came a beautiful maiden, fairly adorned and handsomely dressed, and with her beautiful hair divided on her shoulders, and a garland on her head. And she had a rich silver vessel, that was gilded and shaped like a hunter's horn, well and ingeniously made, granulated, and fairly ornamented. It was adorned with various kinds of arms that are now but little known, and with strange unknown inscriptions and ingenious figures, and it was soldered together and adorned in the same manner as the old antiques, and it was beautifully and ingeniously wrought. This horn the maiden held in her hand, and it was full, and she gave it into the hand of the count, and prayed that the count would drink out of it to refresh himself therewith. When the count had received and taken this gilded silver horn from the maiden, and had opened it and looked into it, the drink, or whatever it was that was in it, when he shook it, did not please him, and he therefore refused to drink for the maiden. Whereupon the maiden said, My dear lord, drink of it upon my faith, for it will do you no harm, but will be of advantage; adding farther, that if the count would drink out of it, it would go well with him, count Otto, and his, and also with the whole house of Oldenburg after him, and that the whole country would improve and flourish. But if the count would place no faith in her, and would not drink of it, then for the future, in the succeeding family of Oldenburg, there would remain
- 66. no unity. But when the count gave no heed to what she said, but, as was not without reason, considered with himself a long time whether he should drink or not, he held the silver gilded horn in his hand and swung it behind him, and poured it out, and some of its contents sprinkled the white horse, and where it fell and wetted him the hair all came off. When the maiden saw this, she desired to have her horn back again, but the count made speed down the hill with the horn, which he held in his hand, and when he looked round he observed that the maiden was gone into the hill again. And when terror seized on the count on account of this, he laid spurs to his horse, and at full speed hasted to join his attendants, and informed them of what had befallen him. He moreover showed them the silver gilded horn, and took it with him to Oldenburg, and the same horn, as it was obtained in so wonderful a manner, was preserved as a costly jewel by him, and by all the succeeding reigning princes of the house of Oldenburg.[285]
- 67. KOBOLDS.[286] Von Kobolt sang die Amme mir Von Kobolt sing' ich wieder. Von Halem. Of Kobold sang my nurse to me; Of Kobold I too sing. The Kobold is exactly the same being as the Danish Nis, and Scottish Brownie, and English Hobgoblin.[287] He performs the very same services for the family to whom he attaches himself. When the Kobold is about coming into any place, he first makes trial of the disposition of the family in this way. He brings chips and saw- dust into the house, and throws dirt into the milk vessels. If the master of the house takes care that the chips are not scattered about, and that the dirt is left in the vessels, and the milk drunk out of them, the Kobold comes and stays in the house as long as there is one of the family alive. The change of servants does not affect the Kobold, who still remains. The maid who is going away must recommend her successor to take care of him, and treat him well. If she does not so, things go ill with her till she is also obliged to leave the place. The history of the celebrated Hinzelmann will give most full and satisfactory information respecting the nature and properties of Kobolds; for such he was, though he used constantly to deny it. His history was written at considerable length by a pious minister, named Feldmann. MM. Grimm gives us the following abridgement of it.[288]
- 68. Hinzelmann.[289] A wonderful house-spirit haunted for a long time the old castle of Hudemühlen, situated in the country of Lüneburg, not far from the Aller, and of which there is nothing remaining but the walls. It was in the year 1584 that he first notified his presence, by knocking and making various noises. Soon after he began to converse with the servants in the daylight. They were at first terrified at hearing a voice and seeing nothing, but by degrees they became accustomed to it and thought no more of it. At last he became quite courageous, and began to speak to the master of the house himself, and used, in the middle of the day and in the evening, to carry on conversations of various kinds; and at meal-times he discoursed with those who were present, whether strangers or belonging to the family. When all fear of him was gone he became quite friendly and intimate: he sang, laughed, and went on with every kind of sport, so long as no one vexed him: and his voice was on these occasions soft and tender like that of a boy or maiden. When he was asked whence he came, and what he had to do in that place, he said he was come from the Bohemian mountains, and that his companions were in the Bohemian forest—that they would not tolerate him, and that he was in consequence obliged to retire and take refuge with good people till his affairs should be in a better condition. He added that his name was Hinzelmann, but that he was also called Lüring; and that he had a wife whose name was Hille Bingels. When the time for it was come he would let himself he seen in his real shape, but that at present it was not convenient for him to do so. In all other respects he was, he said, as good and honest a fellow as need be. The master of the house, when he saw that the spirit attached himself more and more to him, began to get frightened, and knew not how he should get rid of him. By the advice of his friends he determined at last to leave his castle for some time, and set out for Hanover. On the road they observed a white feather that flew beside the carriage, but no one knew what it signified. When he arrived at
- 69. Hanover he missed a valuable gold chain that he wore about his neck, and his suspicions fell upon the servants of the house. But the innkeeper took the part of his servants, and demanded satisfaction for the discreditable charge. The nobleman, who could prove nothing against them, sat in his chamber in bad spirits, thinking how he should manage to get himself out of this unpleasant affair, when all of a sudden he heard Hinzelmann's voice beside him, saying, Why are you so sad? If there is anything gone wrong with you tell it to me, and I shall perhaps know how to assist you. If I were to make a guess, I should say that you are fretting on account of a chain you have lost. What are you doing here? replied the terrified nobleman; why have you followed me? Do you know anything about the chain? Yes, indeed, said Hinzelmann, I have followed you, and I kept you company on the road, and was always present: did you not see me? why, I was the white feather that flew beside the carriage. And now I'll tell you where the chain is:—Search under the pillow of your bed, and there you'll find it. The chain was found where he said; but the mind of the nobleman became still more uneasy, and he asked him in an angry tone why he had brought him into a quarrel with the landlord on account of the chain, since he was the cause of his leaving his own house. Hinzelmann replied, Why do you retire from me? I can easily follow you anywhere, and be where you are. It is much better for you to return to your own estate, and not be quitting it on my account. You see well that if I wished it I could take away all you have, but I am not inclined to do so. The nobleman thought some time of it, and at last came to the resolution of returning home, and trusting in God not to retreat a step from the spirit. At home in Hudemühlen, Hinzelmann now showed himself extremely obliging, and active and industrious at every kind of work. He used to toil every night in the kitchen; and if the cook, in the evening after supper, left the plates and dishes lying in a heap without being washed, next morning they were all nice and clean, shining like looking-glasses, and put up in proper order. She therefore might depend upon him, and go to bed in the evening after supper without
- 70. giving herself any concern about them. In like manner nothing was ever lost in the kitchen; and if anything was astray Hinzelmann knew immediately where to find it, in whatever corner it was hid, and gave it into the hands of the owner. If strangers were expected, the spirit let himself be heard in a particular manner, and his labours were continued the whole night long: he scoured the pots and kettles, washed the dishes, cleaned the pails and tubs. The cook was grateful to him for all this, and not only did what he desired, but cheerfully got ready his sweet milk for his breakfast. He took also the charge of superintending the other men and maids. He noticed how they got through their business; and when they were at work he encouraged them with good words to be industrious. But if any one was inattentive to what he said, he caught up a stick and communicated his instructions by laying on heartily with it. He frequently warned the maids of their mistress's displeasure, and reminded them of some piece of work which they should set about doing. He was equally busy in the stable: he attended to the horses, and curried them carefully, so that they were as smooth in their coats as an eel; they also throve and improved so much, in next to no time, that everybody wondered at it. His chamber was in the upper story on the right hand side, and his furniture consisted of only three articles. Imprimis, of a settle or arm-chair, which he plaited very neatly for himself of straw of different colours, full of handsome figures and crosses, which no one looked upon without admiration. Secondly, of a little round table, which was on his repeated entreaties made and put there. Thirdly, of a bed and bedstead, which he had also expressed a wish for. There never was any trace found as if a man had lain in it; there could only be perceived a very small depression, as if a cat had been there. The servants, especially the cook, were obliged every day to prepare a dish full of sweet milk, with crums of wheaten bread, and place it upon his little table; and it was soon after eaten up clean. He sometimes used to come to the table of the master of the house, and they were obliged to put a chair and a plate for him at a particular place. Whoever was helping, put his food on his plate, and
- 71. if that was forgotten he fell into a great passion. What was put on his plate vanished, and a glass full of wine was taken away for some time, and was then set again in its place empty. But the food was afterwards found lying under the benches, or in a corner of the room. In the society of young people Hinzelmann was extremely cheerful. He sang and made verses: one of his most usual ones was, If thou here wilt let me stay, Good luck shalt thou have alway; But if hence thou wilt me chase, Luck will ne'er come near the place. He used also to repeat the songs and sayings of other people by way of amusement or to attract their attention. The minister Feldmann was once invited to Hudemühlen, and when he came to the door he heard some one above in the hall singing, shouting, and making every sort of noise, which made him think that some strangers had come the evening before, and were lodged above, and making themselves merry. He therefore said to the steward, who was standing in the court after having cut up some wood, John, what guests have you above there? The steward answered, We have no strangers; it is only our Hinzelmann who is amusing himself; there is not a living soul else in the hall. When the minister went up into the hall, Hinzelmann sang out to him My thumb, my thumb, And my elbow are two. The minister wondered at this unusual kind of song, and he said to Hinzelmann, What sort of music is that you come to meet me with? Why, replied Hinzelmann, it was from yourself I learned the song, for you have often sung it, and it is only a few days since I heard it from you, when you were in a certain place at a christening.
- 72. Hinzelmann was fond of playing tricks, but he never hurt any one by them. He used to set servants and workmen by the ears as they sat drinking in the evening, and took great delight then in looking at the sport. When any one of them was well warmed with liquor, and let anything fall under the table and stooped to take it up, Hinzelmann would give him a good box on the ear from behind, and at the same time pinch his neighbour's leg. Then the two attacked each other, first with words and then with blows; the rest joined in the scuffle, and they dealt about their blows, and were repaid in kind; and next morning black eyes and swelled faces bore testimony of the fray. But Hinzelmann's very heart was delighted at it, and he used afterwards to tell how it was he that began it, on purpose to set them fighting. He however always took care so to order matters that no one should run any risk of his life. There came one time to Hudemühlen a nobleman who undertook to banish Hinzelmann. Accordingly, when he remarked that he was in a certain room, of which all the doors and windows were shut fast, he had this chamber and the whole house also beset with armed men, and went himself with his drawn sword into the room, accompanied by some others. They however saw nothing, so they began to cut and thrust left and right in all directions, thinking that if Hinzelmann had a body some blow or other must certainly reach him and kill him; still they could not perceive that their hangers met anything but mere air. When they thought they must have accomplished their task, and were going out of the room tired with their long fencing, just as they opened the door, they saw a figure like that of a black marten, and heard these words, Ha, ha! how well you caught me! But Hinzelmann afterwards expressed himself very bitterly for this insult, and declared, that he would have easily had an opportunity of revenging himself, were it not that he wished to spare the two ladies of the house any uneasiness. When this same nobleman not long after went into an empty room in the house, he saw a large snake lying coiled up on an unoccupied bed. It instantly vanished, and he heard the words of the spirit—You were near catching me.
- 73. Another nobleman had heard a great deal about Hinzelmann, and he was curious to get some personal knowledge of him. He came accordingly to Hudemühlen, and his wish was not long ungratified, for the spirit let himself be heard from a corner of the room where there was a large cupboard, in which were standing some empty wine-jugs with long necks. As the voice was soft and delicate, and somewhat hoarse, as if it came out of a hollow vessel, the nobleman thought it likely that he was sitting in one of these jugs, so he got up and ran and caught them up, and went to stop them, thinking in this way to catch the spirit. While he was thus engaged, Hinzelmann began to laugh aloud, and cried out, If I had not heard long ago from other people that you were a fool, I might now have known it of myself, since you thought I was sitting in an empty jug, and went to cover it up with your hand, as if you had me caught. I don't think you worth the trouble, or I would have given you, long since, such a lesson, that you should remember me long enough. But before long you will get a slight ducking. He then became silent, and did not let himself be heard any more so long as the nobleman stayed. Whether he fell into the water, as Hinzelmann threatened him, is not said, but it is probable he did. There came, too, an exorcist to banish him. When he began his conjuration with his magic words, Hinzelmann was at first quite quiet, and did not let himself be heard at all, but when he was going to read the most powerful sentences against him, he snatched the book out of his hand, tore it to pieces, so that the leaves flew about the room, caught hold of the exorcist himself, and squeezed and scratched him till he ran away frightened out of his wits. He complained greatly of this treatment, and said, I am a Christian, like any other man, and I hope to be saved. When he was asked if he knew the Kobolds and Knocking-spirits (Polter Geister), he answered, What have these to do with me? They are the Devil's spectres, and I do not belong to them. No one has any evil, but rather good, to expect from me. Let me alone and you will have luck in everything; the cattle will thrive, your substance will increase, and everything will go on well.
- 74. Profligacy and vice were quite displeasing to him; he used frequently to scold severely one of the family for his stinginess, and told the rest that he could not endure him on account of it. Another he upbraided with his pride, which he said he hated from his heart. When some one once said to him that if he would be a good Christian, he should call upon God, and say Christian prayers, he began the Lord's Prayer, and went through it till he came to the last petition, when he murmured Deliver us from the Evil one quite low. He also repeated the Creed, but in a broken and stammering manner, for when he came to the words, I believe in the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and life everlasting, he pronounced them in so hoarse and indistinct a voice that no one could rightly hear and understand him. The minister of Eicheloke, Mr. Feldmann, said that his father was invited to dinner to Hudemühlen at Whitsuntide, where he heard Hinzelmann go through the whole of the beautiful hymn, Nun bitten wir den heiligen Geist, in a very high but not unpleasant voice, like that of a girl or a young boy. Nay, he sang not merely this, but several other spiritual songs also when requested, especially by those whom he regarded as his friends, and with whom he was on terms of intimacy. On the other hand, he was extremely angry when he was not treated with respect and as a Christian. A nobleman of the family of Mandelsloh once came to Hudemühlen. This nobleman was highly respected for his learning; he was a canon of the cathedral of Verden, and had been ambassador to the Elector of Brandenburg and the King of Denmark. When he heard of the house-spirit, and that he expected to be treated as a Christian, he said he could not believe that all was right with him: he was far more inclined to regard him as the Enemy and the Devil, for that God had never made men of that kind and form, that angels praised God their Lord, and guarded and protected men, with which the knocking and pounding and strange proceedings of the House-spirit did not accord. Hinzelmann, who had not let himself be heard since his arrival, now made a noise and cried out, What say you Barthold? (that was the nobleman's name) am I the Enemy? I advise you not
- 75. to say too much, or I will show you another trick, and teach you to deliver a better judgment of me another time. The nobleman was frightened when he heard a voice without seeing any one, broke off the discourse, and would hear nothing more of him, but left him in possession of his dignity. Another time a nobleman came there, who, when he saw a chair and plate laid for Hinzelmann at dinner, refused to pledge him. At this the spirit was offended, and he said, I am as honest and good a fellow as he is; why then does he not drink to me? To this the nobleman replied, Depart hence, and go drink with thy infernal companions; thou hast nothing to do here. When Hinzelmann heard that, he became so highly exasperated, that he seized him by the strap with which, according to the custom of those days, his cloak was fastened under his chin, dragged him to the ground, and choked and pressed him in such a manner that all that were present were in pain lest he should kill him; and the gentleman did not come to himself for some hours after the spirit had left him. Another time an esteemed friend of the master of Hudemühlen was travelling that way, but he hesitated to come in on account of the House-spirit, of whose mischievous turn he had heard a great deal, and sent his servant to inform the family that he could not call upon them. The master of the house sent out and pressed him very much to come in and dine there, but the stranger politely excused himself, by saying that it was not in his power to stop; he, however, added, that he was too much terrified at the idea of sitting at the same table eating and drinking with a devil. Hinzelmann, it appears, was present at this conversation out in the road; for when the stranger had thus refused they heard these words, Wait, my good fellow, you shall be well paid for this talk. Accordingly, when the traveller went on and came to the bridge over the Meisse, the horses took fright, entangled themselves in the harness, and horses, carriage and all, were within an ace of tumbling down into the water. When everything had been set to rights, and the carriage had got on about
- 76. a gun-shot, it was turned over in the sand on the level ground, without, however, those who were in it receiving any farther injury. Hinzelmann was fond of society, but the society he chiefly delighted in was that of females, and he was to them very friendly and affable. There were two young ladies at Hudemühlen, named Anne and Catherine, to whom he was particularly attached; he used to make his complaint to them whenever he was angry at anything, and held, besides, conversations of every kind with them. Whenever they travelled he would not quit them, but accompanied them everywhere in the shape of a white feather. When they went to sleep at night, he lay beneath, at their feet, outside the clothes, and in the morning there was a little hole to be seen, as if a little dog had lain there. Neither of these ladies ever married; for Hinzelmann frightened away their wooers. Matters had frequently gone so far as the engagement, but the spirit always contrived to have it broken off. One lover he would make all bewildered and confused when he was about to address the lady, so that he did not know what he should say. In another he would excite such fear as to make him quiver and tremble. But his usual way was to make a writing appear before their eyes on the opposite white wall, with these words in golden letters: Take maid Anne, and leave me maid Catherine. But if any one came to court lady Anne, the golden writing changed all at once, and became Take maid Catherine, and leave me maid Anne. If any one did not change his course for this, but persisted in his purpose, and happened to spend the night in the house, he terrified and tormented him so in the dark with knocking and flinging and pounding, that he laid aside all wedding-thoughts, and was right glad to get away with a whole skin. Some, when they were on their way back, he tumbled, themselves and their horses, over and over, that they thought their necks and legs would be broken, and yet knew not how it had happened to them. In consequence of this, the two ladies remained unmarried; they arrived to a great age, and died within a week of each other.
- 77. One of these ladies once sent a servant from Hudemühlen to Rethem to buy different articles; while he was away Hinzelmann began suddenly to clapper in the ladies' chamber like a stork, and then said, Maid Anne, you must go look for your things to-day in the mill-stream. She did not know what this meant; but the servant soon came in, and related, that as he was on his way home, he had seen a stork sitting at no great distance from him, which he shot at, and it seemed to him as if he had hit it, but that the stork had remained sitting, and at last began to clap its wings aloud and then flew away. It was now plain that Hinzelmann knew this, and his prophecy also soon came to pass. For the servant, who was a little intoxicated, wanted to wash his horse, who was covered with sweat and dirt, and he rode him into the mill-stream in front of the castle; but owing to his drunkenness he missed the right place, and got into a deep hole, where, not being able to keep his seat on the horse, he fell off and was drowned. He had not delivered the things he had brought with him; so they and the body together were fished up out of the stream. Hinzelmann also informed and warned others of the future. There came to Hudemühlen a colonel, who was greatly esteemed by Christian III. King of Denmark, and who had done good service in the wars with the town of Lübeck. He was a good shot and passionately fond of the chase, and used to spend many hours in the neighbouring woods after the harts and the wild sows. As he was getting ready one day to go to the chase as usual, Hinzelmann came and said, Thomas (that was his name), I warn you to be cautious how you shoot, or you will before long meet with a mishap. The colonel took no notice of this, and thought it meant nothing. But a few days after, as he was firing at a roe, his gun burst, and took the thumb off his left hand. When this occurred, Hinzelmann was instantly by his side, and said, See, now, you have got what I warned you of! If you had refrained from shooting this time, this mischance would not have befallen you.
- 78. Another time a certain lord Falkenberg, who was a soldier, was on a visit at Hudemühlen. He was a lively, jolly man, and he began to play tricks on Hinzelmann, and to mock and jeer him. Hinzelmann would not long put up with this, and he began to exhibit signs of great dissatisfaction. At last he said,—Falkenberg, you are making very merry now at my expense, but wait till you come to Magdeburg, and there your cap will be burst in such a way that you will forget your jibes and your jeers. The nobleman was awed: he was persuaded that these words contained a hidden sense: he broke off the conversation with Hinzelmann, and shortly after departed. Not long after the siege of Magdeburg, under the Elector Maurice, commenced, at which this lord Falkenberg was present, under a German prince of high rank. The besieged made a gallant resistance, and night and day kept up a firing of double-harquebuses, and other kinds of artillery; and it happened that one day Falkenberg's chin was shot away by a ball from a falconet, and three days after he died of the wound, in great agony. Any one whom the spirit could not endure he used to plague or punish for his vices. He accused the secretary at Hudemühlen of too much pride, took a great dislike to him on account of it, and night and day gave him every kind of annoyance. He once related with great glee how he had given the haughty secretary a sound box on the ear. When the secretary was asked about it, and whether the Spirit had been with him, he replied, Ay, indeed, he has been with me but too often; this very night he tormented me in such a manner that I could not stand before him. He had a love affair with the chamber-maid; and one night as he was in high and confidential discourse with her, and they were sitting together in great joy, thinking that no one could see them but the four walls, the crafty spirit came and drove them asunder, and roughly tumbled the poor secretary out at the door, and then took up a broomstick and laid on him with it, that he made over head and neck for his chamber, and forgot his love altogether. Hinzelmann is said to have made some verses on the unfortunate lover, and to have often sung them for his
- 79. amusement, and repeated them to travellers, laughing heartily at them. One time some one at Hudemühlen was suddenly taken in the evening with a violent fit of the cholic, and a maid was despatched to the cellar to fetch some wine, in which the patient was to take his medicine. As the maid was sitting before the cask, and was just going to draw the wine, Hinzelmann was by her side, and said, You will be pleased to recollect that, a few days ago, you scolded me and abused me; by way of punishment for it, you shall spend this night sitting in the cellar. As to the sick person, he is in no danger whatever; his pain will be all gone in half an hour, and the wine would rather injure him. So just stay sitting here till the cellar door is opened. The patient waited a long time, but no wine came; another maid was sent down, and she found the cellar door well secured on the outside with a good padlock, and the maid sitting within, who told her that Hinzelmann had fastened her up in that way. They wanted to open the cellar and let the maid out, but they could not find a key for the lock, though they searched with the greatest industry. Next morning the cellar was open, and the lock and key lying before the door. Just as the spirit said, all his pain left the sick man in the course of half an hour. Hinzelmann had never shown himself to the master of the house at Hudemühlen, and whenever he begged of him that if he was shaped like a man, he would let himself be seen by him, he answered, that the time was not yet come; that he should wait till it was agreeable to him. One night, as the master was lying awake in bed, he heard a rushing noise on one side of the chamber, and he conjectured that the spirit must be there. So he said Hinzelmann, if you are there, answer me. It is I, replied he; what do you want? As the room was quite light with the moonshine, it seemed to the master as if there was the shadow of a form like that of a child, perceptible in the place from which the sound proceeded. As he observed that the spirit was in a very friendly humour, he entered into conversation with him, and said, Let me, for this once, see and feel you. But
- 80. Hinzelmann would not: Will you reach me your hand, at least, that I may know whether you are flesh and bone like a man? No, said Hinzelmann; I won't trust you; you are a knave; you might catch hold of me, and not let me go any more. After a long demur, however, and after he had promised, on his faith and honour, not to hold him, but to let him go again immediately, he said, See, there is my hand. And as the master caught at it, it seemed to him as if he felt the fingers of the hand of a little child; but the spirit drew it back quickly. The master further desired that he would let him feel his face, to which he at last consented; and when he touched it, it seemed to him as if he had touched teeth, or a fleshless skeleton, and the face drew back instantaneously, so that he could not ascertain its exact shape; he only noticed that it, like the hand, was cold, and devoid of vital heat. The cook, who was on terms of great intimacy with him, thought that she might venture to make a request of him, though another might not, and as she felt a strong desire to see Hinzelmann bodily, whom she heard talking every day, and whom she supplied with meat and drink, she prayed him earnestly to grant her that favour; but he would not, and said that this was not the right time, but that after some time, he would let himself be seen by any person. This refusal only stimulated her desire, and she pressed him more and more not to deny her request. He said she would repent of her curiosity if she would not give up her desire; and when all his representations were to no purpose, and she would not give over, he at last said to her, Come to-morrow morning before sun-rise into the cellar, and carry in each hand a pail full of water, and your request shall be complied with. The maid inquired what the water was for: That you will learn, answered he; without it, the sight of me might be injurious to you. Next morning the cook was ready at peep of dawn, took in each hand a pail of water, and went down to the cellar. She looked about her without seeing anything; but as she cast her eyes on the ground she perceived a tray, on which was lying a naked child apparently
- 81. three years old, and two knives sticking crosswise in his heart, and his whole body streaming with blood. The maid was terrified at this sight to such a degree, that she lost her senses, and fell in a swoon on the ground. The spirit immediately took the water that she had brought with her, and poured it all over her head, by which means she came to herself again. She looked about for the tray, but all had vanished, and she only heard the voice of Hinzelmann, who said. You see now how needful the water was; if it had not been at hand you had died here in the cellar. I hope your burning desire to see me is now pretty well cooled. He often afterwards illuded the cook with this trick, and told it to strangers with great glee and laughter. He frequently showed himself to innocent children when at play. The minister Feldmann recollected well, that when he was about fourteen or fifteen years old, and was not thinking particularly about him, he saw the Spirit in the form of a little boy going up the stairs very swiftly. When children were collected about Hudemühlen house, and were playing with one another, he used to get among them and play with them in the shape of a pretty little child, so that all the other children saw him plainly, and when they went home told their parents how, while they were engaged in play, a strange child came to them and amused himself with them. This was confirmed by a maid, who went one time into a room in which four or six children were playing together, and among them she saw a strange little boy of a beautiful countenance, with curled yellow hair hanging down his shoulders, and dressed in a red silk coat; and while she wanted to observe him more closely, he got out of the party, and disappeared. Hinzelmann let himself be seen also by a fool, named Claus, who was kept there, and used to pursue every sort of diversion with him. When the fool could not anywhere be found, and they asked him afterwards where he had been so long, he used to reply, I was with the little wee man, and I was playing with him. If he was farther asked how big the little man was, he held his hand at a height about that of a child of four years.[290]
- 82. When the time came that the house-spirit was about to depart, he went to the master of the house and said to him, See, I will make you a present; take care of it, and let it remind you of me. He then handed him a little cross—it is doubtful from the author's words whether of silk (seide) or strings (saiten)—very prettily plaited. It was the length of a finger, was hollow within, and jingled when it was shaken. Secondly, a straw hat, which he had made himself, and in which might be seen forms and figures very ingeniously made in the variously-coloured straw. Thirdly, a leathern glove set with pearls, which formed wonderful figures. He then subjoined this prophecy: So long as these things remain unseparated in good preservation in your family, so long will your entire race flourish, and their good fortune continually increase; but if these presents are divided, lost, or wasted, your race will decrease and sink. And when he perceived that the master appeared to set no particular value on the present, he continued: I fear that you do not much esteem these things, and will let them go out of your hands; I therefore counsel you to give them in charge to your sisters Anne and Catherine, who will take better care of them. He accordingly gave the gifts to his sisters, who took them and kept them carefully, and never showed them to any but most particular friends. After their death they reverted to their brother, who took them to himself, and with him they remained so long as he lived. He showed them to the minister Feldmann, at his earnest request, during a confidential conversation. When he died, they came to his only daughter Adelaide, who was married to L. von H., along with the rest of the inheritance, and they remained for some time in her possession. The son of the minister Feldmann made several inquiries about what had afterwards become of the House-spirit's presents, and he learned that the straw-hat was given to the emperor Ferdinand II., who regarded it as something wonderful. The leathern glove was still in his time in the possession of a nobleman. It was short, and just exactly reached above the hand, and there was a snail worked with pearls on the part that came above the hand. What became of the little cross was never known.
- 83. The spirit departed of his own accord, after he had staid four years, from 1584 to 1588, at Hudemühlen. He said, before he went away, that he would return once more when the family would be declined, and that it would then flourish anew and increase in consequence. [291] Hödeken. Another Kobold or House-spirit took up his abode in the palace of the bishop of Hildesheim. He was named Hödeken or Hütchen, that is Hatekin or Little Hat, from his always wearing a little felt hat very much down upon his face. He was of a kind and obliging disposition, often told the bishop and others of what was to happen, and he took good care that the watchmen should not go to sleep on their post. It was, however, dangerous to affront him. One of the scullions in the bishop's kitchen used to fling dirt on him and splash him with foul water. Hödeken complained to the head cook, who only laughed at him, and said, Are you a spirit and afraid of a little boy? Since you won't punish the boy, replied Hödeken, I will, in a few days, let you see how much afraid of him I am, and he went off in high dudgeon. But very soon after he got the boy asleep at the fire-side, and he strangled him, cut him up, and put him into the pot on the fire. When the cook abused him for what he had done, he squeezed toads all over the meat that was at the fire, and he soon after tumbled the cook from the bridge into the deep moat. At last people grew so much afraid of his setting fire to the town and palace, that the bishop had him exorcised and banished. The following was one of Hödeken's principal exploits. There was a man in Hildesheim who had a light sort of wife, and one time when he was going on a journey he spoke to Hödeken and said, My good fellow, just keep an eye on my wife while I am away, and see that all goes on right. Hödeken agreed to do so; and when the wife, after the departure of her husband, made her gallants come to her, and was going to make merry with them, Hödeken always threw himself
- 84. in the middle and drove them away by assuming terrific forms; or, when any one had gone to bed, he invisibly flung him so roughly out on the floor as to crack his ribs. Thus they fared, one after another, as the light-o'-love dame introduced them into her chamber, so that no one ventured to come near her. At length, when the husband had returned home, the honest guardian of his honour presented himself before him full of joy, and said, Your return is most grateful to me, that I may escape the trouble and disquiet that you had imposed upon me. Who are you, pray? said the man. I am Hödeken, replied he, to whom, at your departure, you gave your wife in charge. To gratify you I have guarded her this time, and kept her from adultery, though with great and incessant toil. But I beg of you never more to commit her to my keeping; for I would sooner take charge of, and be accountable for, all the swine in Saxony than for one such woman, so many were the artifices and plots she devised to blink me. King Goldemar. Another celebrated House-spirit was King Goldemar, who lived in great intimacy with Neveling von Hardenberg, on the Hardenstein at the Ruhr, and often slept in the same bed with him. He played most beautifully on the harp, and he was in the habit of staking great sums of money at dice. He used to call Neveling brother-in-law, and often gave him warning of various things. He talked with all kinds of people, and used to make the clergy blush by discovering their secret transgressions. His hands were thin like those of a frog, cold and soft to the feel; he let himself be felt, but no one could see him. After remaining there for three years, he went away without offending any one. Some call him King Vollmar, and the chamber in which he lived is still said to be called Vollmar's Chamber. He insisted on having a place at the table for himself, and a stall in the stable for his horse; the food, the hay, and the oats were consumed, but of man or horse nothing more than the shadow ever was seen. When one time a curious person had strewed ashes and tares in his way to
- 85. make him fall, that his foot-prints might be seen, he came behind him as he was lighting the fire and hewed him to pieces, which he put on the spit and roasted, and he began to boil the head and legs. As soon as the meat was ready it was brought to Vollmar's chamber, and people heard great cries of joy as it was consumed. After this there was no trace of King Vollmar; but over the door of his chamber was found written, that in future the house would be as unfortunate as it had hitherto been fortunate; the scattered property would not be brought together again till the time when three Hardenbergs of Hardenstein should be living at the same time. The spit and the roast meat were preserved for a long time; but they disappeared in the Lorrain war in 1651. The pot still remains built into the wall of the kitchen.[292] The Heinzelmänchen. It is not over fifty years since the Heinzelmänchen, as they are called, used to live and perform their exploits in Cologne. They were little naked mannikins, who used to do all sorts of work; bake bread, wash, and such like house-work. So it is said, but no one ever saw them. In the time that the Heinzelmänchen were still there, there was in Cologne many a baker, who kept no man, for the little people used always to make over-night, as much black and white bread as the baker wanted for his shop. In many houses they used to wash and do all their work for the maids. Now, about this time, there was an expert tailor to whom they appeared to have taken a great fancy, for when he married he found in his house, on the wedding day, the finest victuals and the most beautiful vessels and utensils, which the little folk had stolen elsewhere and brought their favourite. When, with time, his family increased, the little ones used to give the tailor's wife considerable aid in her household affairs; they washed for her, and on holidays and festival times they scoured the copper and tin, and the house
- 86. from the garret to the cellar. If at any time the tailor had a press of work, he was sure to find it all ready done for him in the morning by the Heinzelmänchen. But curiosity began now to torment the tailor's wife, and she was dying to get one sight of the Heinzelmänchen, but do what she would she could never compass it. She one time strewed peas all down the stairs that they might fall and hurt themselves, and that so she might see them next morning. But this project missed, and since that time the Heinzelmänchen have totally disappeared, as has been everywhere the case, owing to the curiosity of people, which has at all times been the destruction of so much of what was beautiful in the world. The Heinzelmänchen, in consequence of this, went off all in a body out of the town with music playing, but people could only hear the music, for no one could see the mannikins themselves, who forthwith got into a boat and went away, whither no one knows. The good times, however, are said to have disappeared from Cologne along with the Heinzelmänchen.[293]
- 87. NIXES. Kennt ihr der Nixen, munt're Schaar? Von Auge schwarz und grün von Haar Sie lauscht am Schilfgestade. Matthisson. Know you the Nixes, gay and fair? Their eyes are black, and green their hair— They lurk in sedgy shores. The Nixes, or Water-people, inhabit lakes and rivers. The man is like any other man, only he has green teeth. He also wears a green hat. The female Nixes appear like beautiful maidens. On fine sunny days they may be seen sitting on the banks, or on the branches of the trees, combing their long golden locks. When any person is shortly to be drowned, the Nixes may be previously seen dancing on the surface of the water. They inhabit a magnificent region below the water, whither they sometimes convey mortals. A girl from a village near Leipzig was one time at service in the house of a Nix. She said that everything there was very good; all she had to complain of was that she was obliged to eat her food without salt. The female Nixes frequently go to the market to buy meat: they are always dressed with extreme neatness, only a corner of their apron or some other part of their clothes is wet. The man has also occasionally gone to market. They are fond of carrying off women whom they make wives of, and often fetch an earthly midwife to assist at their labour. Among the many tales of the Nixes we select the following:— The Peasant and the Waterman.
- 88. A Water-man once lived on good terms with a peasant who dwelt not far from his lake. He often visited him, and at last begged that the peasant would visit him in his house under the water. The peasant consented, and went down with him. There was everything down under the water as in a stately palace on the land,—halls, chambers, and cabinets, with costly furniture of every description. The Water-man led his guest over the whole, and showed him everything that was in it. They came at length to a little chamber, where were standing several new pots turned upside down. The peasant asked what was in them. They contain, was the reply, the souls of drowned people, which I put under the pots and keep them close, so that they cannot get away. The peasant made no remark, and he came up again on the land. But for a long time the affair of the souls continued to give him great trouble, and he watched to find when the Water-man should be from home. When this occurred, as he had marked the right way down, he descended into the water- house, and, having made out the little chamber, he turned up all the pots one after another, and immediately the souls of the drowned people ascended out of the water, and recovered their liberty.[294] The Water-Smith. There is a little lake in Westphalia called the Darmssen, from which the peasants in the adjacent village of Epe used to hear all through the night a sound as if of hammering upon an anvil. People who were awake used also to see something in the middle of the lake. They got one time into a boat and went to it, and there they found that it was a smith, who, with his body raised over the water, and a hammer in his hand, pointed to an anvil, and bid the people bring him something to forge. From that time forth they brought iron to him, and no people had such good plough-irons as those of Epe. One time as a man from this village was getting reeds at the Darmssen, he found among them a little child that was rough all over his body. The smith cried out, Don't take away my son! but
- 89. the man put the child on his back, and ran home with it. Since that time the smith has never more been seen or heard. The man reared the Roughy, and he became the cleverest and best lad in the place. But when he was twenty years old he said to the farmer, Farmer, I must leave you. My father has called me! I am sorry for that, said the farmer. Is there no way that you could stay with me? I will see about it, said the water-child. Do you go to Braumske and fetch me a little sword; but you must give the seller whatever he asks for it, and not haggle about it. The farmer went to Braumske and bought the sword; but he haggled, and got something off the price. They now went together to the Darmssen, and the Roughy said, Now mind. When I strike the water, if there comes up blood, I must go away; but if there comes milk, then I may stay with you. He struck the water, and there came neither milk nor blood. The Roughy was annoyed, and said, You have been bargaining and haggling, and so there comes neither blood nor milk. Go off to Braumske and buy another sword. The farmer went and returned; but it was not till the third time that he bought a sword without haggling. When the Roughy struck the water with this it became as red as blood, and he threw himself into the lake, and never was seen more.[295] The Working Waterman. At Seewenweiher, in the Black-Forest, a little Water-man (Seemänlein) used to come and join the people, work the whole day long with them, and in the evening go back into the lakes. They used to set his breakfast and dinner apart for him. When, in apportioning the work, the rule of Not too much and not too little was infringed, he got angry, and knocked all the things about. Though his clothes were old and worn, he steadily refused to let the people get him new ones. But when at last they would do so, and one evening the lake-man was presented with a new coat, he said, When one is paid off, one must go away. After this day I'll come no more to you. And, unmoved by the excuses of the people, he never let himself be seen again.[296]
- 90. The Nix-Labour. A midwife related that her mother was one night called up, and desired to make haste and come to the aid of a woman in labour. It was dark, but notwithstanding she got up and dressed herself, and went down, where she found a man waiting. She begged of him to stay till she should get a lantern, and she would go with him; but he was urgent, said he would show her the way without a lantern, and that there was no fear of her going astray. He then bandaged her eyes, at which she was terrified, and was going to cry out; but he told her she was in no danger, and might go with him without any apprehension. They accordingly went away together, and the woman remarked that he struck the water with a rod, and that they went down deeper and deeper till they came to a room, in which there was no one but the lying-in woman. Her guide now took the bandage off her eyes, led her up to the bed, and recommending her to his wife, went away. She then helped to bring the babe into the world, put the woman to bed, washed the babe, and did everything that was requisite. The woman, grateful to the midwife, then secretly said to her: I am a Christian woman as well as you; and I was carried off by a Water- man, who changed me. Whenever I bring a child into the world he always eats it on the third day. Come on the third day to your pond, and you will see the water turned to blood. When my husband comes in now and offers you money, take no more from him than you usually get, or else he will twist your neck. Take good care! Just then the husband came in. He was in a great passion, and he looked all about; and when he saw that all had gone on properly he bestowed great praise on the midwife. He then threw a great heap of money on the table, and said, Take as much as you will! She, however, prudently answered, I desire no more from you than from others, and that is a small sum. If you give me that I am content; if you think it too much, I ask nothing from you but to take me home
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