possible Pre-Tower of Babel language discovered

[50 (out of 10)]

I'll use one of my last two dying posts to share this, as I usually become mortal when I reach five posts.. . I'll have to use and edit this post to respond to posters, as Nym's poodles are nipping at my balls.:

"Scientists" now believe everyone across Europe and Asia can trace their linguistic roots back to a single ancient language (...but strangely, there is no mention of the word "ya'll")

guardian[dot]co[dot]uk/science/2013/may/06/european-asian-language-tongue-superfamily

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Now, all of us bigoted-inbred-bible-believing-throwbacks were already informed of this by the book of Genesis...but how do you non-believers reconcile your disbelief with the fact the author of Genesis knew about this one language?!

And don't tell me "it is obvious all people once spoke the same language", cause that would not have been obvious to someone writing around 1500BC.

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Why wouldn't it have been obvious within the framework of Genesis?  How many languages did Adam need to talk to Eve with?  Any creation story that postulates a small number of initially created humans would imply the existence of a single human language at that point in time.

Well, assuming an already developed Genesis framework, someone could extrapolate backwards and pencil in a story about a common language...but the story of Babel is not so much about language as it is about man’s desire to elevate humanity to deity status by uniting all the peoples of the earth under one government through a common language, and therefore it was God who put an end to their unity by confusing their language…a disunity which within the bible is brought full circle as the nations become united once again against God during the end times (the groundwork for such being laid down during our lifetimes as we witness language barriers deteriorating and governments uniting.)

So, the story of Babel not only correctly pulled a common ancient language out of its historical hat, but it also correctly prophesied mankind’s inclination to reject God and become self-reliant as language barriers are removed  and humanity unites…those are extremely sophisticated, and accurate, observations/conclusions/predictions.

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Also, check out the Comparable myths/Towers section of wikipedia's Tower of Babel page ...it lists various traditions similar to that of the tower of Babel found in Central America...some of which include a great flood, followed by building a tower to reach the heavens, followed by action from God to stop the building of the tower by scattering people across the face of the earth and confusing their language.

Seems to be a common basis to the story and is shared by ancient civilizations throughout the world, with their own local twist added in.

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So that's proof of the Tower of Babel myth? Or that God created language? Or both?

Not proof, rather it is supportive.

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Well, the Tower of Babel mixes other and earlier myths of 1) building big things - like pyramids and other structures, only in this case they were building a tower all the way up to God! Can't go any higher than that. But also of 2) language-creation, and there were plenty of myths told about that. It's nothing more than a fictional story about both of those activities.

There is commonality to this worldwide story (from the Americas, to the Eurasia, to New Guinea):  after a historic deluge, man was united and had a common language, man built a large tower to deify mankind, the Lord of Heaven didn’t like it and scattered mankind and confused the language.

That’s just too many similarities within these stories for me not believe the stories don’t come from a common source.

[Mehmentum]

Obviously everyone on earth spoke the same language at one point. 

If you trace back our genetics, you will find that all humans came from Africa (migrating outwards about 80,000 years ago). Since all of humanity has a common ancester, it would also stand to reason so would all of our languages.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

They always say that.

Let's see if it gets accepted. No doubt there will be much scepticism involved...

[Tetro Kornbluth]

Obviously everyone on earth spoke the same language at one point. 

If you trace back our genetics, you will find that all humans came from Africa (migrating outwards about 80,000 years ago). Since all of humanity has a common ancester, it would also stand to reason so would all of our languages.

Of course. But this is a question of method in historical linguistics.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

And don't tell me "it is obvious people all once spoke the same language", cause that would not have been obvious to someone writing around 1500BC.

Why wouldn't it have been obvious within the framework of Genesis?  How many languages did Adam need to talk to Eve with?  Any creation story that postulates a small number of initially created humans would imply the existence of a single human language at that point in time.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

And don't tell me "it is obvious people all once spoke the same language", cause that would not have been obvious to someone writing around 1500BC.

Why wouldn't it have been obvious within the framework of Genesis?  How many languages did Adam need to talk to Eve with?  Any creation story that postulates a small number of initially created humans would imply the existence of a single human language at that point in time.

Yeah. This really isn't one of those things that requires modern method or theory to figure out.

[DemPGH]

So that's proof of the Tower of Babel myth? Or that God created language? Or both?

Well, the Tower of Babel mixes other and earlier myths of 1) building big things - like pyramids and other structures, only in this case they were building a tower all the way up to God! Can't go any higher than that. But also of 2) language-creation, and there were plenty of myths told about that. It's nothing more than a fictional story about both of those activities.

There is a common ancient language, certainly the Proto-Indo-European language (PIE), but that as well is not proof of any mythical stories. The human brain is wired for language, and when groups split off over a period of about 30,000 years or so language went in a variety of directions, as we see today.

In fact, languages evolved like species. Something became something that's no longer present, and which is usually more efficient / adaptable than what was before it.

[ZuWo]

In fact, languages evolved like species. Something became something that's no longer present, and which is usually more efficient / adaptable than what was before it.

That's a view of language change which resembles the Stammbaumtheorie, which was put forward by August Schleicher in the 19th century. Schleicher tried to apply scientific insights from biology, more specifically the field of botany, to linguistics. While his model is still considered influential, language change is much more complex than that. In fact, most of the changes that occur in languages have nothing to do with "efficiency" or "adaptibility". For example, the fact that the early speakers of Germanic began to realize Proto-Indo-Germanic plosives as fricatives cannot be explained by these terms at all. To put it in other words, we know that all languages change over time but we usually have no clue why this happens.

[DemPGH]

In fact, languages evolved like species. Something became something that's no longer present, and which is usually more efficient / adaptable than what was before it.

That's a view of language change which resembles the Stammbaumtheorie, which was put forward by August Schleicher in the 19th century. Schleicher tried to apply scientific insights from biology, more specifically the field of botany, to linguistics. While his model is still considered influential, language change is much more complex than that. In fact, most of the changes that occur in languages have nothing to do with "efficiency" or "adaptibility". For example, the fact that the early speakers of Germanic began to realize Proto-Indo-Germanic plosives as fricatives cannot be explained by these terms at all. To put it in other words, we know that all languages change over time but we usually have no clue why this happens.

Well, there are sociological factors behind the evolution of language, I would think. A language has to be malleable in order to continue and of course it has to be the language of the dominant culture(s).

Language has to adapt to reflect cultural changes as well as technological changes and probably other things beyond that. In any event, my point was that it was not created "as is" and generally adapts to serve the people who use it.

[ilikeverin]

You rang?

I hate how this story has gotten so much press attention - not because I'm inherently predisposed against historical linguistics, but because there's so much cooler and more relevant language science research out there that would never in a million years get the press attention than this completely random blip (which, almost assuredly, is full of lies, as any sort of stupid "Proto-Five-Million-Language-Families" paper is).  Meanwhile, perfectly reasonable replies to this article will be manifestly ignored by the press, and I'll be badgered for a few months by uninformed people about what I think about this amazing language finding that assuredly is of incredible importance for my research, right?  Blah.

In any case, I'm amused that people haven't challenged jmfcst on the main premise of his post, given that, as he says himself:

You must be logged in to read this quote.

This article doesn't even propose a Proto-World language like some fools have proposed, just a Proto-Mostly-Languages-Westerners-Have-Heard-Of language.  Good luck reconstructing a language that can successfully model every world language, from English to !Xóõ.

Also, to contradict people's assertions about there having to be a time when everyone spoke the same language even if one doesn't take Genesis literally, that's not necessarily true.  Let's say that language is the result of multiple genetic changes.  At some time point, it's possible that some some number of groups independently had the genetic changes that led to language; the founders of such populations would thus speak unrelated languages, as they were each kind of "blank slates" for whatever it is that makes language special.  Well, not quite "blank slates"; there seems to be cultural variation in quite a few other animals, so by that point maybe "proto-language" had been culturally diversified by then, too.  A similar situation emerged for lactase persistence in humans, as the trait seems to have emerged simultaneously in multiple parts of the world.

[John Dibble]

Nothing in the article states there's any evidence that all people spoke the same language around 15,000 BC, only that a number of major European and Asian languages share a common ancestor language from back then. Notice how African languages aren't even mentioned once? Additionally, the Babel story occurs in the area Mesopotamia where Shinar would be whereas this language is placed in southern Europe, and there is no evidence to suggest that a united humanity ever lived in either of those locations.e.

[ilikeverin]

Here's an article about why the study is bad science: http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=4612

[ZuWo]

You rang?

I hate how this story has gotten so much press attention - not because I'm inherently predisposed against historical linguistics,

I sure hope so! Historical linguistics is a lot of fun and studies in this field are still relevant. However, as a historical linguist you should be aware of the limitations of this field. Reconstructing older stages of a language group makes sense up to a certain point (when it comes to most of our Western and some Asian languages that point is "Proto-Indo-Germanic"), but everything which goes beyond that point is, to a large extent, pure speculation. 

[Oldiesfreak1854]

This is yet more evidence of the historical authenticity of the Bible.

FTR, I always assumed that the pre-Tower of Babel language was Hebrew.

[afleitch]

This is yet more evidence of the historical authenticity of the Greek Pantheon as it confirms that Hermes indeed brought about diversity in speech and the creation of nations.

I always assumed that the pre-Hermean language was Ancient Greek.

[Northeast Rep Snowball]

This is yet more evidence of the historical authenticity of the Bible.

FTR, I always assumed that the pre-Tower of Babel language was Hebrew.

did you even read the fact that this article is not of the highest quality, needless to say.

[John Dibble]

This is yet more evidence of the historical authenticity of the Bible.

FTR, I always assumed that the pre-Tower of Babel language was Hebrew.

did you even read the fact that this article is not of the highest quality, needless to say.

Or, you know, any of the rather obvious reasons given why it doesn't support the Babel story?