Sign Talk

Seton, Ernest Thompson, 1860-1946Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.2

Word count: 360K words
Chapters: 36

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971, and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today. Sign Talk by Ernest Thompson Seton. Author: Seton, Ernest Thompson, 1860-1946. Language: English. Class: P: Language and Literatures. Release Date: Jan 16, 2016

Editor's review

This classic little book by Ernest Thompson Seton offers a systematic survey of gesture language—concise in length, yet wide-ranging in scope—covering the sign communication used by Native North Americans and other peoples. Seton was both a naturalist and a writer, deeply concerned with communication between humans and nature, and his records of signs thus bear the distinct stamp of field observation. Readers can see how language can shed sound and convey meaning through the body, and can sense the plain wisdom of early human communication. It is a book to dip into for anyone interested in the origins of language, nonverbal communication, Indigenous cultures, or outdoor life. As an English public-domain work, its expression and diction carry the marks of its era; it is best read as a historical document—attending both to the sign entries and to the recorder's perspective. The language is fluent, but some cultural background knowledge is involved; when encountering unfamiliar entries, readers may rely on context rather than trying to memorize each one.

Who it's for

A good fit for

General readers interested in nonverbal communication and gesture
Readers interested in Native North American culture and historical records
Language enthusiasts drawn to the origins of language and symbolic communication
Outdoor educators or camp leaders seeking knowledge of field communication

Not a good fit for

Readers seeking a systematic course in modern sign language
Readers who only read Chinese and prefer not to read the English original
Readers expecting a lengthy theoretical argument or academic monograph

Reading tips

Read through the table of contents first, pick out the categories of signs that interest you, and then examine them one by one.
Keep pen and paper at hand and imitate the signs as you read to deepen your understanding of how actions correspond to meanings.
Treat the book as a cultural and historical source; note the recorder's observational stance and the limitations of his era rather than accepting everything wholesale.
Read it alongside other popular books on nonverbal communication to form a more complete picture.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

Is this book a guide to modern sign language?

No. It records the gesture communication that interested Seton and is closer to a compilation of historical and ethnographic material than to a modern sign language textbook. Those who wish to learn standard sign language should choose dedicated courses and textbooks.

Can I read this book if my English is not good?

The book consists mostly of entry-style explanations, and the sentences are not complex, but it involves cultural background and period vocabulary; readers with weaker English may need辅助 tools. They can read paragraph by paragraph with a dictionary, or start with the introduction to understand the book's structure.

Is this book suitable for children?

Some content reflects early recorders' observations of Indigenous cultures and carries the perspective of its time. If giving it to a child, it is advisable for an adult to accompany the reading, briefly explain the background, and guide the child toward understanding how different cultures communicate.

Comments

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About the author

Seton, Ernest Thompson, 1860-1946 Author

Ernest Thompson Seton (1860-1946) was a writer and creator of wildlife-themed works active in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, though details of his life remain limited in publicly available sources. The library holds twenty-one of his works, including Two Little Savages, Wild Animals I Have Known, The Biography of a Grizzly, The Trail of the Sandhill Stag, and Rolf in the Woods, some of which also appear in Finnish translations such as Harmaan karhun elämäntarina and Villejä eläimiä. These works show that his writing centered on wild animals and natural life, often taking individual animals as protagonists and blending storytelling with observation in a plain yet engaging style that has had a lasting influence on the animal-story genre.