gesturaladj.
/ˈdʒɛstjʊrəl/ Of or pertaining to gesture; consisting of gestures. spec. Designating or pertaining to the theory that human speech originated in oral imitation of bodily gestures.
ΘΚΠ
the mind > language > [adjective] > terms relating to origin of language
gestural1613
symphonetic1872
nativistic1922
1613 F. Robartes Revenue of Gospel 23 The verball or gesturall honour which many men..performe to Ministers, is the very same which the Iewes or Iudas did to Christ.
1837 Penny Cycl. VIII. 329/1 Thus it is with the naturally deaf, the radical idea is all that their gestural language is capable of expressing.
1895 Proc. 14th Convent. Amer. Instructors of Deaf 233 In the cases [deaf and blind] in the New York Institution, gestural signs were used to some extent combined with the manual alphabet.
1930 R. Paget Babel iii. 84 The American twang..is mainly due to a tightening of the pharynx, and has nothing to commend it on gestural or phonetic grounds.
1941 D. Efron Gesture & Environm. ii. iii. 95 This gestural vocabulary comprehends no less than 125 manual ‘words’, implying definite meaningful associations.
1949 Trans. Philol. Soc. 1948 49 The Gestural Theory is largely linked with the name of Sir Richard Paget.
Derivatives
ˈgesturally adv.
ΘΚΠ
the mind > language > [adverb] > origin of language
gesturally1930
1930 R. Paget Babel iii. 84 Each word should, so far as possible, be gesturally appropriate to its meaning.
1957 D. L. Bolinger in Publ. Amer. Dial. Soc. xxviii. 11 Wonder is a borderline case when it precedes. Gesturally it is often treated as a Q[uestion], but intonationally it usually is not.
1966 Listener 2 June 814/3 The Sette peccati..represents each of the seven deadly sins gesturally on the stage.
This entry has not yet been fully updated (first published 1899; most recently modified version published online September 2018).
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adj.1613