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The Confessions of St. Augustin In Thirteen Books

Chapter VIII.--That When a Boy He Learned to Speak, Not by Any Set Method, But from the Acts and Words of His Parents.

13. Did I not, then, growing out of the state of infancy, come to boyhood, or rather did it not come to me, and succeed to infancy? Nor did my infancy depart (for whither went it?); and yet it did no longer abide, for I was no longer an infant that could not speak, but a chattering boy. I remember this, and I afterwards observed how I first learned to speak, for my elders did not teach me words in any set method, as they did letters afterwards; but myself, when I was unable to say all I wished and to whomsoever I desired, by means of the whimperings and broken utterances and various motions of my limbs, which I used to enforce my wishes, repeated the sounds in my memory by the mind, O my God, which Thou gavest me. When they called anything by name, and moved the body towards it while they spoke, I saw and gathered that the thing they wished to point out was called by the name they then uttered; and that they did mean this was made plain by the motion of the body, even by the natural language of all nations expressed by the countenance, glance of the eye, movement of other members, and by the sound of the voice indicating the affections of the mind, as it seeks, possesses, rejects, or avoids. So it was that by frequently hearing words, in duly placed sentences, I gradually gathered what things they were the signs of; and having formed my mouth to the utterance of these signs, I thereby expressed my will. ¹ Thus I exchanged with those about me the signs by which we express our wishes, and advanced deeper into the stormy fellowship of human life, depending the while on the authority of parents, and the beck of elders.

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Confessiones (PL)

CAPUT VIII. Unde puer loqui didicerit.

13. Nonne ab infantia huc pergens veni in pueritiam; vel potius ipsa in me venit, et successit infantiae; Nec discessit illa: quo enim abiit? et tamen jam non erat. Non enim eram infans qui non farer, sed jam puer loquens eram. Et memini hoc; et unde loqui didicerim post adverti. Non enim docebant me majores homines praebentes mihi verba certo aliquo ordine doctrinae, sicut paulo post litteras: sed ego ipse mente quam dedisti mihi, Deus meus, cum gemitibus et vocibus variis, et variis membrorum motibus edere vellem sensa cordis mei ut voluntati pareretur, nec valerem quae volebam omnia, nec quibus volebam omnibus, praesonabam memoria; cum ipsi appellabant rem aliquam, et cum secundum eam vocem corpus ad [Col. 0667] aliquid movebant, videbam et tenebam hoc ab eis vocari rem illam, quod sonabant, cum eam vellent ostendere. Hoc autem eos velle ex motu corporis aperiebatur, tanquam verbis naturalibus omnium gentium, quae fiunt vultu et nutu oculorum, caeterorumque membrorum actu, et sonitu vocis indicante affectionem animi, in petendis, habendis, rejiciendis, fugiendisve rebus. Ita verba in variis sententiis, locis suis posita, et crebro audita, quarum rerum signa essent, paulatim colligebam, measque jam voluntates edomito in eis signis ore, per haec enuntiabam. Sic cum his inter quos eram, voluntatum enuntiandarum signa communicavi, et vitae humanae procellosam societatem altius ingressus sum, pendens ex parentum auctoritate, nutuque majorum hominum.