"There have always been sign languages for the benefit of the deaf and mute, but sometimes there have been ritual bans on speech -- temporary or even occasionally permanent -- that made species of gesture not only necessary but indispensable. Not all of them were monastic in nature; married Armenian women in the Caucasus were prevented by convention from speaking to their husbands' male relatives, and solved the problem by adopting a convenient language of gesture."Art historian and curator Angus Trumble writing in his new book The Finger
