Languages have always fascinated me. As I've grown older, I keep searching for the beginnings of languages and am interested in keeping dying languages alive. Because of my Christian upbringing, I occasionally have thoughts about certain aspects of the beginning of time from the Abrahamic religions point of view. One of those being, was Adam essentially a deist since there was no religion when he was created. But what has always fascinated me was the story of the tower of Babel, especially the part about people having their own tongues (languages).
Part of the interest in it is Abraham's God's dislike of a tower to reach him. Now we've seen the pyramids, but a tower tall enough to reach the heavens seems pretty impossible, and if God really hated it so much, then why do we have skyscrapers? Seems silly to me. Anyway that is part of my interest in the story of Babel.
As a person who finds language interesting, my main fascination with this story is the one language that everyone spoke. Nowhere in the Bible, Torah, or Koran, do we find what the language is. Scholars call it the Divine Language, and others call it the Language of the Birds, both mystical languages that are found in most mythology, which brings me to question what we think is mythological when we believe other mythical type stories are true.
A prime example of this mythology is The Simarillion by Tolkien because in the book you have first section known as the Ainulindale. It deals with the creation myth and "divine language." Makes me think that some day we'll be believing that Tolkien's writings are some how holy.
The Language of the Birds doesn't exist sadly, at least as far as we can tell. The basis for this language comes from the indo-european religions, alchemy, and folklore since certain birds have a tendancy to lead people to things. Even though the Language of the Birds probably doesn't exist, there still was a language that was spoken at the beginning of life be it by some deity or the big bang and evolution. I want to find out what that language is because when we find it, I feel we'll be closer to putting together the puzzle known as the beginning. Oh well, something else to add to my list of impossible things I'd like to accomplish, lol.
Do you think it is possible to find the beginning of language?
Wow, the origin of language? That would be a fascinating thing to discover. I've read about the tower of Babel, of course. But I always figured the story was more symbolic than literal. I think the difficulty with finding the Language of Birds would be that it might not have existed on paper. From what I know, the oldest written language found is cuneiform (story of Gilgamesh and all that). However, that was just in one region of the world.
Now I'm curious. In the Bible, it also said Adam named every animal in the Garden of Eden. I wonder what language he named the animals in? And what if we found the first name of each animal? Is there a language older than caveman drawings? Perhaps it all is just a myth, but I've always loved myth (and language). If you're going to add it to your list of Things to Accomplish, I say all for it!
Right, but the funny thing about Gilgamesh is that not only is it the earliest text, but also the earliest flood story and perdates the Bible and Torah. Leads me to believe that Noah is just a knock-off of the man in Gilgamesh who survived the flood.
Most scholars call the language of Adam, the Divine Language. Obviously language must predate the drawings because even grunts can be considered a language to a small populus. But it depends on your worldview as to whether drawings are the first language, or Adam's Divine Language is it.