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Excerpt from:
On The Natural Language of Signs; And Its Value And Uses In The Instruction Of The Deaf And Dumb, Part 1
This natural language of signs, spontaneously employed by the deaf-mute, and gradually enlarged and rendered more and more accurately descriptive by himself, and sometimes by the ingenuity also of the members of the family, develops itself with a remarkable similarity of features in all such families. Its similarity is so great that two uneducated deaf-mutes, who have never had any intercourse with others in a similar condition, can, at their first interview, communicate with each other on a considerable number of common subjects....