Language

LANGUAGE. There are several Questions proposed relating to this Subject, as 1. Whether God is the Author of the first Language, whether Adam received it from him by Infusion, or formed and invented it himself by his own Industry and Labour. 2. Whether this Language is still in Being. 3. Which is it. It is Matter of Dispute with some, whether Mankind have a natural Language, as Birds are said to have a natural Way of singing, and Animals of crying: Dogs bark, Horses neigh, Wolves howl, and Asses naturally bray: Thus in Proportion Ravens croak, Pigeons coo, and other Birds do something much after the same Manner: Some cry, others chirp, every one according to their Nature and Species. Thus likewise should Men have some certain natural Language, which is the Tongue that all should speak, and probably did speak before the Deluge. And as they groan when they are sorrowful, and make a chearful Noise when they are glad, they threaten and cry very loud when they are angry: And all this they do naturally and uniformly: wherefore it is presumed by some, that they would all speak the same Language, that primitive one, which was Adam’s, if Education did not change our natural Notions, and the Habits which we are made to contract when we are young, did not stifle the Voice of Nature in us.

The Ancients, who were unacquainted with the true History of the World’s Creation, were of Opinion, that under the happy Reign of Saturn, not only all Men, but even all terrestrial Animals, Birds, and even Fishes, spoke the same Language¹: That Mankind not sufficiently sensible of their Happiness, sent a Deputation to Saturn, desiring Immortality of him, and telling him, that it was not just that they should be without a Prerogative granted by him to Serpents, which are every Year refreshed by shedding their old Skin, and assuming a new one. Saturn in great Rage not only refused to comply with their Request, but punished their Ingratitude, by depriving them of that Unity of Language, which kept them linked so close together. He confounded their Languages, and thereby put them under a Necessity of separating from one another.

Others² have believed, that Chance or Nature produced Men and Animals of different Species in different Places, that it gave them certain Sounds and Accents to express their Passions, their Joy, Grief, Astonishment, and Desire: That afterwards Usefulness or Necessity put them upon inventing certain Words and Expressions to signify Things that were without them, and whereof they stood in Need; but that it was folly to imagine any one had named Things, and taught Men to speak. Lucret. l. v. ver. 10. 40.Putare aliquem tunc nomina distribuisse Rebus, & inde homines didicisse vocabula prima Despipere est.

Nature produced Sounds, and Necessity taught Men to invent Language.

Ac varios linguæ sonitus natura subegit Mittere, & utilitas expressit nomina rerum.

Vitruv. l. ii, de Architectura. c. 1.Vitruvius says, that the first Men continued for a long Time like Beasts in Caves under Ground, without having any Use of Speech; the only Way they had of making themselves understood by one another, was by repeated Postures, and ill-articulate Voices; that by signifying the same Thing by the same Sounds, they accustomed themselves to speak, and struck out a regular Language.

Herodot. l. ii. c. 2.Psammetichus King of Egypt, being persuaded that the Earth had produced Men in different Places, and at different Times, was curious to know who were the first created. He imagined one sure Means of discovering this, might be to have a Sight of those who spoke the most antient Language in the World; and to this End he took two new born Infants, and had them brought up separately, so that no one might speak to them: He believed that the Language which these Children should speak, being the natural and primitive Language of Men, he might from thence infer, that the People who still speak it, might well pass for the oldest that the Earth had produced. When therefore the Children were of Age to talk, the Shepherd who had the Care of them observed, that as often as he saw them, they cried out to him Beccos. He gave the King Notice of it, who experienced the same Thing. All the Question that remained was, to know in what Language Beccos was a significant Term, and it was found, that among the Phrygians it meant Bread: Whereupon it was concluded, that the Phrygians were the most ancient People in the World.

This Way of Reasoning was on many Accounts erroneous: For was it certain that the Phrygians, supposing them to have been the most ancient People in the World, had preserved their primitive Language in its Purity? Again, had they consulted generally all People in the World, to know whether there were none besides the Phrygians with whom Beccos signified any Thing? Lastly, might not Chance have produced Beccos, as it does Abundance of other Words in all Languages? It is very credible that these two Children having been bred up by a Shepherd, and among Sheep, might imitate the Voice of these Animals, and might learn from their Bleatings to say Bêc, for os, which is at the End of the Word, is a Greek Termination, in which Language Herodotus has told this Story.

If there were any Language natural to Man, all Men would speak it, or at least they would have a great Propensity, and great Dispositions to speak it, many Footsteps of it would remain among the different People of the World. Children that were abandoned and exposed, or deaf, would speak this Language; all which is contrary to Experience. Let any one leave a Child without talking to it, and it will never speak any Language, either known or unknown. Melabdin Echebas King of Indostan, or Great Mogul³, having appointed a certain Child to be brought up at a Distance from the Company of Men, the Child continued without ever speaking. There were two Boys of about nine Years old found in 1661, amidst a Troop of Bears in Poland, one of which was taken, and great Endeavours were used to teach him to speak; but this could never be accomplished: He should, however, have spoken the Language which was natural to Man, there having been no Defect, as the Physicians reported, in his Tongue.

We must conclude therefore, that there is no national Language peculiar to Man. He has indeed certain Sounds, Motions, and natural Signs to express his Passions, his Joy, Pleasure, Grief, and Desires; but he has no Speech or articulate Sound, whereby to signify his other Thoughts. The Induction which some pretend to draw from other Animals, who have, they say, a kind of Language among them, is many Ways false and defective. Animals have certain Cries and Sounds which are natural to them, whereby they declare their Joy, their Appetite, or Pain: In like Manner as Man gives Indications of his Joy by laughing, and of his Grief by sighing; but this is very different from Speech. It is said farther, that Birds have a sort of Language which is understood among them, and which particular Men have pretended likewise to understand. But let any one make the Experiment, let them take a young singing Bird that has not as yet learnt any Note from the old ones, and it will imitate any other Note or chirping that they would have it learn: It will imitate Birds, or even the Sound of Instruments that is heard by it: And if it were possible to breed it up in such a Manner, that it should hear nothing at all, it would produce only uncertain, undeterminate, and chance Sounds.

So that taking the Matter right, neither Men nor Animals have any natural Language; and for the System which supposes Men and Beasts to have been produced by Chance in different Places of the World, and to have formed each to themselves a particular Language after their own Fancy, as Necessity, Conveniency, or any other Cause required, it is not maintainable. Chance is not a Cause capable of producing a living organized Body, and much less a reasonable Animal; to put Matter in Motion there must be a moving Cause different from Matter; and to impress a regular Motion on Bodies, requires a reasonable and intelligent Cause; and although Man may invent Words, and form a certain Language wherein he may agree with those who are like him; yet it does not follow, that the first Men formed their Language after this Manner, nor that any Nation made one in particular for itself: There is sometimes a great Distance between Possibility and Fact.

Moses represents Adam and Eve to us, as the Father and Mother of all Mankind, and as the Stock from whence all Nations in the World spring. He describes them to us as reasonable and intelligent, speaking and imposing Names on Things as soon as they were created. This Legislator’s System concerning the Creation of the World, is the only one to be maintained; there is a Necessity for supposing the Almighty Power of God to intervene, not only to derive Beings out of nothing, but likewise to give them Form, Life, and Reason; and if we admit God to be the Creator, there is no more Difficulty to be made in owning him as the Author of that Language wherewith he inspired the first Man. The Scripture does not tell us how it was done, but it relates that Adam conversed with his Wife, and named Things at a Time when he could not have had Leisure to have framed a Language.

But what was this first Language which God himself taught Adam? In discussing this Question several Difficulties arise. The Generality believe, that this primitive Language is the Hebrew; others hold for the Syriac, Chaldee, Æthiopian, or Armenian. There is scarce any Eastern Language which has not pretended to this Honour. Becanus⁴ has maintained seriously, that it was the Flemish, and has derived some plausible Etymologies from it, of the Name Adam, Eve, Abel, Cain, Methuselah; Adam he derives from Haasdam, that is to say, who hateth the Heaps; Eve, from Euvat, Vessel of the Age; Abel, from Haas-Belg, who hateth War; Cain, from Quaat-Ende, bad End; Methuselah, from Machtusalig, save your selves, (Supply from the Deluge.) Other learned Men assert, that the first Language is entirely extinct, and is no more to be recovered in any of the Languages which are known to us. Others believe that it still subsists in the Hebrew Tongue, and others derived from it, but so impaired and changged, that some Remains of it only are to be found there.

D. Herbelot. Bibl. orient.If we would refer our selves to the Sabians, the Dispute would be very soon decided; since they shew a Book which they ascribe to Adam; the Character of it is very singular, but the Language is almost entirely Chaldee. Upon this Footing the Language of this Book must carry it, and Chaldee be acknowledged to come nearest to the Language of Adam; but we know how far we may reckon upon the Pretensions of the Sabians, of whom we shall say something in another Article.

Origen⁵, Saint Gregory of Nyssa⁶, and Theodoret⁷ believe, that God among the other Favours which he shewed the Israelites at their Departure out of Egypt, vouchsafed to them immediately the Knowledge of the Hebrew Tongue. To prove this Opinion they cite the Psalmist’s Words, lxxxi. 5. When he came out of the Land of Egypt he heard a strange Language. But it is much more probable that this Passage signifies nothing else, but that the Israelites after their Departure out of Egypt, heard at Mount Sinai the Voice of the Lord, which till then had been never heard among them.

If the Hebrew Language is that which God taught Adam, we must conclude from this Passage, that the two Fathers above cited, and they from whom they received this Tradition, believed, that when the Israelites left Egypt, it was entirely forgotten, since it was necessary, that God should by a new Miracle recover it among his People. But it is to no Purpose to insist much on this Opinion, which in Reality deserves no Notice. There can be no Argument deduced from thence for the Antiquity, Preservation, or Loss of the primitive Language.

The Generality of Criticks have declared for the Hebrew Tongue, and given it the Preference before all others. The Conciseness, Simplicity, Energy, and Fertility of it, and the Relation it has to the most ancient oriental Languages, which seem to derive their Origine from it, the Etymology of the Names whereby the first of Mankind were called, which naturally occurs in this Language; the Names of Animals, which are all significant in the Hebrew Tongue, and describe the Nature and Property of these very Animals, Particulars which are not to be observed in any other Language, all these Characters meeting together, raise a Prejudice very much in Favour of its Primacy and Excellency; it has farther another Privilege, which is this, that the most ancient and venerable Books in the World are written in Hebrew.

Nevertheless several very able Criticks⁸ are of Opinion, that the Hebrew Tongue, such as we see it at present in the Bible, and as it was in the Time of Moses, is not the primitive Language, pure, and incorrupted; they observe many Words in the Bible, the Originals whereof are not to be found in Hebrew. They are willing to allow, that there are more Footsteps of Adam’s Language preserved in the Hebrew, than in any other Tongue; but this they say has undergone diverse Changes and Alterations; and in the Series of so many Ages from Adam down to Moses, many Roots of this Language were lost, and others of a foreign Extraction received. It must be confessed, that if the Hebrew Tongue were more known, and we were informed how copious and extensive it was in Moses’s Time, we might be better able to pronounce decisively in this Matter.

Theodoret⁹ and the Maronites maintain, that the Syriac or Chaldee, is the true Language of Adam. This Assertion they found upon the Roots and Etymologies of the Names Adam, Eve, Abel, &c. which are to be seen in the Syriac and Chaldee Tongues; and upon Abraham’s speaking Chaldee, which was his natural Language, before he spoke Hebrew, this being the Language of the Land of Canaan. But to this it is replied, that as to Etymologies, the Hebrew Tongue has the same Advantage as the Chaldee, and is preferable to it with Respect to the Simplicity and Energy of it, and seems to be rather the Parent than the Child of the Chaldee: And lastly, there is so much Affinity between these two Languages, that it is very credible Abraham spoke both, and that Hebrew, as the most simple and ancient, was preferred by this Patriarch and his Descendants.

I shall not stay to confute the other Opinions which are offered with Relation to this Matter. The Eastern Languages are for the most Part derived from the Hebrew. Noah, in all Probability, spoke the same Language as Adam, and Noah’s was preserved among his Descendants till the Confusion of Languages, Gen. xi. 1, 2.which happened at Babel. At that Time, says the Scripture, the whole Earth was of one Language, and of one Speech. Erat terra labii unius, & sermonum eorundem.

The Question is, in what Manner this Confusion happened. 1. Some believe that the Words which we have just now cited from Moses, may be understood as signifying only the Agreement and Union of Opinions, which prevailed among Men at that Time, who were resolved by their joint Labours and Endeavours to build a Tower; in Order to make their Names celebrated. Others think, that God by an Effect of his extraordinary Power wrought a sudden Change in their Memory and Imagination, by producing a Forgetfulness of their natural Language, and teaching them immediately a new one; or at least by putting them under a Necessity of learning another, while they were unable to make Use of that which was before current with them.

St. Gregory of Nyssa¹⁰ is of Opinion, that by this Account from Moses, something very simple and natural was intended, which was no more than this; that while Men were dispersed in different Places of the Earth, it happened, as a natural Consequence of their Dispersion, that every one making some Alteration in the Language which he had learned from his Forefathers, in Process of Time it became so distinct, that they were no longer able to understand one another. This System was adopted by M. Simon¹¹, and M. le Clerc¹², with some little Variation; but the Generality of other Criticks have not approved it; because the whole Miracle which is described to us by Moses, in the History of the Confusion of Babel, is reduced by it to nothing. We need only read his Text to be satisfied, that he intended to describe a miraculous Event. And the Lord came down to see the Tower which the Children of Men builded; and he said, Behold the People is one, and they have all one Language; and this they begin to do: And now nothing will be restrained from them which they have imagined to do. Go to, let us go down, and there confound their Language, that they may not understand one another’s Speech. So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the Face of the Earth, and they left off to build the Tower.

Deut. xxxii. 8.Another Question is proposed relating to the Number of Languages which were formed at the Confusion of Babel. The Ancients¹³, for the most Part, were of Opinion, that the Number of Languages which were then formed, was equal to the Number of those who undertook the Edifice of the Tower; as there were at that Time seventy Heads of Families, there were likewise seventy Languages. But where have they Intelligence of these seventy Heads of Families? In Deuteronomy, where it is said, that when the most High divided to the Nations their Inheritance, when he separated the Sons of Adam, he set the Bounds of the People according to the Number of the Children of Israel: Now the Children of Israel who went down into Egypt with Jacob were seventy Deut. xlvi. 27.in Number: Omnes animæ domus Jacob, quæ ingressæ sunt in Ægyptum fuere Septuaginta.

Others take this Number precisely of seventy Languages from the Enumeration which Moses makes of Noah’s Descendants. Gen. x.Japheth had fourteen Sons, Ham had thirty, and Shem twenty six, in all seventy. Some reckon seventy two, because the Septuagint added two Persons to those enumerated by Moses; namely, Elisa to the Genealogy of Japheth, and Caïnan to that of Ham. Euphorus, who is cited in Clemens Alexandrinus, reckoned seventy five Languages, and PacianusClem. Alex. l. i. Strom. Pacian. Ep. contra Novatianos. Bishop of Barcelona an Hundred and twenty.

Without entring at present into an Enquiry concerning the Number of Languages, but examining only the Nature of the Proofs on which this Number of seventy is founded; we may say, that nothing herein is solid, besides the Passages of Deuteronomy and Genesis, taken in the Sense which we have shewn. The Septuagint instead of these Words; according to the Number of the Children of Israel, read according to the Number of the Children of God: From whence some have concluded, that they intended to describe seventy Nations under the Government of so many tutelar Angels. The Names Caïnan and Elisa, added by the Septuagint to the Text of Moses, no Way concern those who adhere to the Hebrew; they reject the Number of seventy two Languages, and are content with seventy. They who believe that Arphaxad, Salah, and Eber were not concerned about the Tower of Babel, nor in the Punishment of that Division which was the Consequence of it, lessen the Number seventy by three; Joktan the Son of Eber, and his Sons, to the Number of thirteen, in all Probability were not born at the Time of this Tower of Babel, and consequently here is again a new Diminution.

Some reckon but twenty Sorts of Languages in Scripture, which too were more perhaps than were formed at the Confusion of Babel. Others will have it, that at first there were but three Languages, one for each great Family of Shem, Ham and Japheth. The Number of seventy Languages appears too large, and was not at all necessary for God’s Design; three would not have been sufficient to oblige Men to a Separation, but ten or twelve Languages were more than were requisite for such a Purpose.

The Chinese Language we know has no Analogy with any others. The Teutonick or German, from which all those spoken in the North are derived; Biscayan, or the Language of lower Britany, are likewise Mother Tongues, which were spoken formerly in Gaul and Great Britain; as is also the Sclavonian Language, which is used in Illyria and other Countries. But of these last Languages we have no Mention in the Scripture.

Acts xi. 4, 5, &c. Acts xiv. 11.Saint Luke in the Acts of the Apostles relates, that the Holy Ghost having descended on the Apostles upon the Day of Pentecost, in the Form of fiery Tongues, they began to speak all Sorts of Languages; so that Strangers, who came to Jerusalem from all Parts of the World, were amazed when they heard them speaking every one in his own Language. They said hereupon among themselves, Are not all these which speak Galileans? And how hear we every Man in our own Tongue, wherein we were born? Parthians and Medes and Elamites, and the Dwellers in Mesopotamia, in Judæa and Cappadocia, in Pontus and Asia, in Phrygia and Pamphylia, in Egypt, and in the Parts of Lybia, about Cyrene, Strangers of Rome, Jews and Proselytes, Cretes and Arabians. Saint Luke speaks also of the Lycaonian Language, The People lift up their Voices, saying in the Speech of Lycaonia, the Gods are come down to us in the Likeness of Men. But these Languages, for the most Part, are either modern, or are but Dialects of the original and Mother Tongues.

Dan. iii. 4, 7, &c.In Daniel, the People who were under the Dominion of Nebuchadnezzar were distinguished by Languages, Tribes and Nations; Vobis dicitur, Populis, Tribubus & linguis.Rev. 5, 9, &c. alibi, &c. Gen. x. 5, 20, 31. In the Revelations in like Manner the Kingdom of the Messiah is distributed by People, Nations, Tribes and Languages, Thou hast redeemed us out of every Kindred, and Tongue, and People and Nation. Moses relating the Distribution of the several Countries of the World among the Sons of Ham, Shem, and Japheth, says, that they were divided in their Lands every one after his Tongue, after their Families, and after their Nations.

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