Verified answer

Because the story of Babel was written at a time when people knew there were lots of languages in the world but didn't have the tools to figure out exactly how those languages came to be, or the relationships between languages that on the surface appear to be completely unrelated (e.g. Irish Gaelic and French, English and Persian).

Language is dynamic.

As languages rub up against each other there is borrowing and fusion.

English has been strongly influenced by both Latin and French.

As they are separated there is a diversion. Compare British English to American English.

None of this negates the fact that there was a tower of Babel and creation of languages. It just means that these languages were the starting points of what we have today for languages.

Some languages have died others have mutated into various forms.

If you would do a bit more study of the history of languages you would perhaps have a greater appreciation of linguistic history.

Evidence for one single proto language?

‘The ultimate question, is’, says Ruhlen, ‘whether all human languages are genetically related’,8 but the evidence for this is scarce. There are a few words which, he says, are similar in all languages. However, the words he gives in his example do not have the same meaning in every language. The meanings vary from ‘one’ to ‘finger’ and ‘hand’.9 There are similarities between them, but this is not convincing evidence of genetic relationship between language families.

It must be pointed out, though, that we cannot go back too far in time. Core vocabulary is stable, but does change. In some languages this change has been measured for more than 2,000 years. The result shows that 19.5% of the core vocabulary changes every 1,000 years.10 If this is the same for all languages, it means that statistically all words in a language should be replaced within a period of about 10,000 years. That would make any research beyond that period of time impossible. This, in turn, makes it impossible to prove that all language families are ultimately related.

Evidence for the evolution of speech?

Trask shows that humans differ from their ‘closest relatives, the apes’ in that their vocal tracts are much longer and differently shaped, thus making speech possible. However, the shape is also dangerous, as it could lead to choking. ‘The idea is’, says Trask, ‘that speech and language proved to be so beneficial to the species that we became specialised for it even at the cost of losing a number of fellows to death by choking every year.’11 However, Trask remains unsure as to how and when this change occurred.

O’Grady and Dobrovolsky, similarly, despite describing in some detail how the brain processes speech, admit ignorance as to how and when speech developed. ‘We know considerably less about the evolutionary specialisation for non vocal aspects of language … and the interpretation of meaning.’12 Again, there is no evidence to back their view that speech evolved.

It seems clear from their writings that they take the Evolution Theory for granted. Ruhlen admits that ‘scholars supporting monogenesis or the relatability of all languages run the risk of being branded Creationists and of therefore having their work disregarded by colleagues’.9

Evidence pointing to Babel

It seems that there is little evidence to support the view that all languages evolved from one or more proto-languages.

We have seen that the history of languages cannot be traced back for more than 10,000 years. We have also seen lack of knowledge regarding the evolution of human speech. It seems that there is little evidence to support the view that all languages evolved from one or more proto-languages. There is, however, another explanation for the existence of the language families in the world today. This explanation is found in Genesis.

We will now examine the evidence supporting the Babel account found in Genesis 11. We will focus in particular on three areas where the findings of historical and comparative linguistics back this account.

Language families

We are unsure how many languages spread out from Babel. The Bible teaches that everyone at Babel spoke the same language; it says ‘the whole world had one language and a common speech’. Clearly not enough time had passed for other fully fetched languages to develop since Noah and his family left the Ark, especially since all the people were in one place—though slightly different dialects might have developed in the period between Noah leaving the Ark and the tower of Babel. In any case, the conclusions reached in this essay that Genesis adequately explains the findings of historical and comparative linguistics would be the same. The exact location of Babel is unknown. It is possible that one of the Ziggurats unearthed in modern Iraq is the remains of the infamous tower. As the number of people alive at the time would not have been great, about a dozen or so languages would probably have been plenty.13 Keeping in mind how languages change, we would expect, as Wieland suggests, to find several distinct language families today.

‘ … it should be possible to group [languages] together into “families” like the Indo-European family of languages. But there should be no links between one “family” and another. That is because, in this model, each distinct language family is the offshoot of an original Babel “stem language” which did not arise by chance from a previous ancestral language.’14

The Babel account suggests that several languages came into existence on that day. It is presented as a miraculous intervention by God. It is unlikely to have been acceleration of normal language changes (i.e. they did speak the same language, but dialects began to form) as people in the same area generally speak the same dialect.

We have already seen that at present about twenty language families are being distinguished, with yet some ‘isolated’ languages

Because, in this, as in many other things, the bible is wrong. The tower of Babel story is strictly fiction. Digression: in the Semitic languages, Babel means "gateway to god."

Language is CONSTANTLY changing.

Also, Spanish and Portuguese are close...but they're still different language.

Italian and Latin are similar...but they're different.

French and English have a lot of similarities...but they're still different.

hmmm, seems kinda funny too doesnt it, when the Bible was written in 3 different languages to begin with.

Kinda makes you go .... Hmmm?

It was just a story, not to be taken too literally. Things would be a lot easier if everyone would simply speak Norwegian, ikke sant?

The Bible doesn't say any such thing. That is simply someone's unauthorized interpretation of what the Bible actually does say, which is that the workers were unable to work together because they could not understand one another.

There is record of this, it is in the Bible.