REGIONAL SIGNALS

The way signals change from country to country and district to district

A Regional Signal is one that has a limited geographical range. If a Norwegian, a Korean and a Masai were marooned together on a desert island, they would easily be able to communicate their basic moods and intentions to one another by their actions. All humanity shares a large repertoire of common movements, expressions and postures. But there would also be misunderstandings. Each man would have acquired from his own culture a special set of Regional Signals that would be meaningless to the others. If the Norwegian were shipwrecked instead with a Swede and a Dane, he would find his task much easier, because their closer origins would mean a greater share of these regional gestures, since localized actions, like many words, do not follow precisely the present-day national boundaries.

This comparison of gestures with words is significant because it reveals immediately our state of ignorance as regards gestural geography. We already know a great deal about linguistic maps, but we know far too little about Gesture Maps. Ask a linguist to describe the distribution of any language you like to name and he will be able to provide accurate, detailed information for you. Take any word, and he will be able to demonstrate its spread from country to country. He can even present you with local dialect maps for some parts of the world and show you, like Professor Higgins in Pygmalion, how slang expressions are limited to certain small areas of big cities. But ask anyone for a world-wide gesture atlas, and you will be disappointed.

A start has already been made, however, and new field work is now beginning. Although this research is only in its infancy, recent studies in Europe and around the Mediterranean are providing some valuable clues about the way gestures change as one travels from locality to locality. For example, there is a simple gesture in which the forefinger taps the side of the nose. In England most people interpret this as meaning secrecy or conspiracy. The message is: 'Keep it dark, don't spread it around.' But as one moves down across Europe to central Italy, the dominant meaning changes to become a helpful warning: 'Take care, there is danger-they are crafty.' The two messages are related, because they are both concerned with cunning. In England it is we who are cunning, by not divulging our secret. But in central Italy it is they who are cunning, and we must be warned against them. The Nose Tap gesture symbolizes cunning in both cases, but the source of the cunning has shifted.

This is an example of a gesture keeping the same form over a wide range, and also retaining the same basic meaning, but nevertheless carrying a quite distinct message in two regions. The more gestures that are mapped in the field, the more common this type of change is proving to be. Another instance is found in the Eye Touch gesture, where the forefinger touches the face just below the eye and pulls the skin downwards, opening the eye wider. In England and France this has the dominant meaning: 'You can't fool me - I see what you are up to.' But in Italy this shifts to: 'Keep your eyes peeled - pay attention, he's a crook.' In other words the basic meaning remains one of alertness, but it changes from 'I am alert' to 'You be alert'.

In both these cases, there is a small number of people in each region who interpret the gesture in its other meaning. It is not an all-or-none situation, merely a shift in dominance of one message over the other. This gives some idea of the subtlety of regional changes. Occasionally there is a total switch as one moves from one district to the next, but more often than not the change is only a matter of degree.

Sometimes it is possible to relate the geography of modern Regional Signals to past historical events. The Chin Flick gesture, in which the backs of the fingers are swept upwards and forwards against the underside of the chin, is an insulting action in both France and northern Italy. There it means 'Get lost-you are annoying me.' In southern Italy it also has a negative meaning, but the message it carries is no longer insulting. It now says simply 'There is nothing' or 'No' or 'I cannot' or 'I don't want any'. This switch takes place between Rome and Naples and gives rise to the intriguing possibility that the difference is due to a surviving influence of ancient Greece. The Greeks colonized southern Italy, but stopped their northern movement between Rome and Naples. Greeks today use the Chin Flick in the same way as the southern Italians. In fact, the distribution of this, and certain other gestures, follows remarkably accurately the range of the Greek civilization at its zenith. Our words and our buildings still display the mark of early Greek influence, so it should not be too surprising if ancient Greek gestures are equally tenacious. What is interesting is why they did not spread farther as time passed. Greek architecture and philosophy expanded farther and farther in their influences, but for some reason, gestures like the Chin Flick did not travel so well. Many countries, such as England, lack them altogether, and others, like France, know them only in a different role.

Another historical influence becomes obvious when one moves to North Africa. There, in Tunisia, the Chin Flick gesture once again becomes totally insulting: a Tunisian gives a 'French' Chin Flick, rather than a 'Southern Italian' Chin Flick, despite the fact that France is more remote. The explanation, borne out by other gesture links between France and Tunisia, is that the French colonial influence in Tunisia has left its imperial mark even on informal body-language. The modern Tunisian is gesturally more French than any of his closer neighbours who have not experienced the French presence.

This gives rise to the question as to whether gestures are generally rather conservative, compared with other social patterns. One talks about the latest fashions in clothing, but one never hears of 'this season's crop of new gestures'. There does seem to be a cultural tenacity about them, similar to the persistence found in much folklore and in many children's games and rhymes. Yet new gestures do occasionally manage to creep in and establish themselves. Two thousand years ago it was apparently the Greeks who were the 'gesturally virile' nation. Today it is the British, with their Victory-sign and their Thumbs-up, and the Americans with their OK Circle-sign. These have spread right across Europe and much of the rest of the world as well, making their first great advance during the turmoil of the Second World War, and managing to cling on since then, even in the gesture-rich countries of southern Europe. But these are exceptions. Most of the local signs made today are centuries old and steeped in history.

(From Manwatching by Desmond Morris)