I came across this little nugget of infomation whilst browsing a forum.
The English archers were so efficient against French knights that whenever the French captured one, they would cut of two fingers to ensure that they couldn't draw a bow string again. A gesture, that today is considered obscene, was originally a taunt to French knights meaning: "Come and get them!".
Wanting to find out more about this, as well as other gestures. I took a step back to figure out if a word exists that describes the study of the origin of gestures, but have had no success in finding this word.
Whilst Etyomology is the study of the history of words, is there a word that specifically applies to gestures or does the same word apply?