That is to say, the first articulation probably consisted in nothing further than a semiotic breaking of vocal tones, in a manner resembling that which still occurs in the so-called “chattering” of monkeys—the natural language for the expression of their mental states. The great difference would be that the semiotic value of such incipient articulation must have been more largely intellectual, or less purely emotional: it must have partaken less of the nature of cries, and more of the nature of names. It seems probable that, as all natural cries are given forth by the throat and larynx, with little or no assistance from the tongue and lips, these first efforts at articulation would have been mainly restricted to vowel sounds, sparsely supplemented by guttural and labial consonants. This state of matters might have lasted for an enormous length of time, during which the liquid, and lastly the lingual consonants would perhaps have begun to be used. This is the order in which we might expect the consonants to arise, in view of the consideration that the gutturals and labials would probably have admitted of more easy pronunciation than the liquids and linguals by an almost speechless _Homo_.[319] From this point onwards, the further development of articulation would only be a matter of time and mental growth; but I think it is highly probable that the initial stages thus sketched probably occupied a lapse of time out of all proportion to that which was afterwards required for the higher developments. Moreover, in this connection we must not neglect to notice the “clicks” of the African Bushmen and Hottentots, which appear to furnish us with direct evidence of the survival among these low races of a primordially inarticulate system of sign-making.[320] No one has studied the languages of these peoples with so much labour or so much result as the philosophically minded Dr. Bleek, and he says that the clicks which occur in the great majority of their words, “must be made an object of special attention if we would arrive at even an approximate idea of the original vocal elements from which human language sprang.”[321]