Where would we be without languages? It is the means of communication one with another. A dog barks, the birds sing but man has a unique ability to speak. The Bible tells us that when God created Adam and Eve, the first man and woman, he instilled in them a complete language. The first couple never had to learn how to linguistically communicate the way babies learn to speak by mimicry. They did not copy the sounds they heard and keep trying until they pronounced it correctly. We know that they spoke a complete language from the beginning because of the evidence that followed man’s creation: God spoke to Adam, and Adam responded with understanding and obedience. He then used his God-given language to name the animals and speak to Eve, who understood him clearly. So where did all the other languages come from? The Bible again gives us the answer. After some time, God told man to multiply and fill the earth, sadly they didn’t obey God. They were fuelled by pride and preferred to “make a name” for themselves and build a city with a high tower, hoping to enable them to remain together in defiance of God’s command. The city was intended to be permanent and impressive—a fortress against any natural or supernatural attempt to disperse mankind throughout the earth. But God was displeased with their disobedience and so he judged them. He instead divided their single language into multiple language families and so the people could not understand each other.
For the first time in earth’s history, there was a language barrier. Without a common language, the people who had been so adamant about staying together were now unable to even understand each other. The attempted “one-world kingdom” fractured. Construction of the city and tower ceased, and smaller groups formed from those sharing each of the new languages, and people began scattering from the area. The people stayed within their language groups as they could communicate one with another. Therefore, they separated from those groups they could not understand. Every language spoken today stems from one of those languages, each of which sprouted many branches and changed due to illiteracy, wars, colonization, immigration, science, and human progress.
While an evolutionary worldview might expect all languages to trace back to a single parent language that isn’t what researchers have found. Instead, language families of today trace back to multiple unrelated parent languages—exactly what one would predict from the account in the Bible. Today there are around 7,151 languages in the world. Over 1/3 of them are found in Africa and Asia respectively.
Language helps us understand the world by allowing us to create order. We use language to name and thereby bestow identity upon animal and plant species, geologic landmarks, weather events, heavenly bodies, microscopic organisms, and every other thing we’ve discovered. And when we uncover something new, we bequeath to it a name and description. Beyond naming the material universe, we also have words for concepts and thoughts. Without language, we could not reason or analyse.
The fact that language is the foundation of creation is no surprise when we consider that God spoke the world into existence (Genesis 1) and that Jesus is the Word, John 1 verse 1 ‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.’ Jesus is called the Alpha and Omega Revelations 21 verse 6 ‘And he said unto me, It is done. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely.’ Jesus is saying I am the Word that brought all things into formation, I am the beginning of all things and I am the end of all things. The Creator’s identity is wrapped up in language, and language is a primary means by which he reveals himself to mankind, through the Bible.
P. Pilgrim pilgrimway101@yahoo.com
