There is some evidence that where sign language was found among Native American tribes it was largely uniform, simply because many tribes had, at one time, been forced to dwell near together at peace. A collection of signs that was nearly uniform was obtained from a united delegation of the Kaiowa, Comanche, Apache, and Wichita tribes. However, the individuals who gave the signs had actually lived together at or near what was known as Anadarko, Indian Territory, for a considerable time, and the resulting uniformity of their signs might either have been thought of as jargon or as the natural tendency to compromise for mutual understanding—the unification so often observed in oral speech, coming under many circumstances out of former heterogeneity. The rule is that dialects precede languages and that out of many dialects comes one language. It may be found that other individuals of those same tribes who had, from any cause, not lived in the union may have had signs for the same ideas different from those in the above-mentioned collection. This idea gained currency because some signs of other representatives of one of the component bodies—Apache—had actually been reported to differ from those ideas given by the Anadarko group. The uniformity of the signs of those who had been secluded for years at one particular reservation was notable, but some collected signs of other Cheyennes and Sioux differed, not only from those on the reservation, but from each other. Therefore, the signs used in common by the tribes at the reservation seem to have been modified and to a certain extent unified.

7. Which of the following can be inferred from the passage regarding the research about Native American sign language?

A. The researchers studying the Anadarko group had a functional understanding of the signs used by the delegation of tribes.
B. Some of the signs used by the members of the Anadarko delegation differed significantly from those used by other delegation members.
C. Native American tribes who were not forced to share living space did not share any common signs.



8. Select the sentence of the passage in which the author draws a parallel between two different methods of communication.





9. In the context in which it appears, “currency” most nearly means

A. funding
B. acceptance
C. value
D. uniqueness
E. contemporaneity