Bump of Language

A phrenological diagram (Combes, 1934,
p. 20, citing Dolci, 1562)

Despite having done languages at secondary school, I sadly do not have a "bump of language" 😭. Five years of French and Japanese tutoring was no match for my lack of linguistic skill.

I am not a dilettante, falling at the first hurdle; I certainly did try. I also thought that perhaps it was that the two languages I was taught may have been simply those which I was most unsuited for. I have since tried Russian, German, and Maori. I am pretty evenly crap at all of them.

I can remember individual words, I can generally 'hear' the sounds reasonably accurately (except for the tonal languages like Mandarin) and mimic them, but for the life of me, I cannot conjugate a non-English verb anywhere, anyhow. By the time I have worked out how to say "I said" the conversation has moved on to something completely unrelated... and that probably happened ten minutes ago.

So I don't have a bump of language. And that got me thinking about where that saying, a "bump of language" came from. I assumed it was probably from phrenology, but have no idea where I had picked it up from. However, a quick search found the source online at Project Gutenburg, in the second memoir of Canadian author, Susanna Moodie: "Life in the Clearings versus the Bush" (1853) where the author recalls, towards the end of chapter 4:

"going with my husband to hear the lectures of a [US hypnotist and probable charlatan] Professor R---" who charged "two dollars for examining a head phrenologically, and drawing out a chart", as well as hypnotising various people in the audience. Professor R chose "a man who had lectured a few nights before on the science of mnemonics, and had been disappointed in a very scanty attendance".

The author noted that "the new subject yielded very easily to the professor's magic passes, and fell into a profound sleep". Professor R led the mnemonics scientist "with his eyes shut, to the front of the stage, and pointed out to the spectators the phrenological development of his head; he then touched the bump of language, and set the seeming automaton talking. But here the professor was caught in his own trap. After once setting him going, he of the mnemonics refused to hold his tongue until he had given, to his weary listeners, the whole lecture he had delivered a few nights before. He pranced to and fro on the platform, declaiming in the most pedantic voice" for an hour before shutting up. "It was a droll scene: [...] the declaimer pretending to be asleep, and wide awake all the time -- and the thin, long-faced American, too wise to betray [the subject], but evidently annoyed beyond measure at the trick [...] played [on] him".

A bump of language. An old phrase indeed. 

Sam

References:

Goodreads. (2024). Life in the Clearings versus the Bush [review]. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/496350.Life_in_the_Clearings_versus_the_Bush

Moodie, S. (1853). Life in the Clearings versus the Bush. https://www.gutenberg.org/files/8132/8132-h/8132-h.htm