The Tower of Babel Narrative from a Linguistic standpoint -
The Tower of Babel story is quite interesting from a linguistic viewpoint; however, a few things must be defined in order to begin any type of linguistic analysis.
First, one must put into context the concept of what would have been considered “the whole world” to the original redactor(s) of the Babel narrative. The answer to this is rather simple and straightforward: to a person or people living in what we know call the Middle East several thousand years ago, the "whole world" would have been just that; a small part of what we now call the Middle East. There would not have been the concept of the world existing beyond the lands these people were already familiar with and inhabited. It’s quite possible they had no idea, for example, that lands beyond the Mediterranean Sea even existed.
In taking the narrative in historical context therefore, the “whole world” was not as we understand it today, but must be understood to mean a very small part of the modern Middle East.
What about what language or languages would have been spoken in that area? Was there, or could there have indeed been a common language spoken by “all mankind” (again, with the understanding that “all mankind” in this context refers to that small portion of the current Middle East discussed above)?
The answer is, well, yes – and no.
Linguists recognize that almost all languages of what are today the Middle East and parts of North Africa derive from one parent tongue: Proto Afro-Asiatic. This proto-language, due to several factors including the migration and isolation of people from each other, split off into several dialects, one of which was what is called Proto-Semitic; the parent tongue of all Semitic languages. The general consensus seems to be that Proto-Semitic had its ultimate origins in Arabia, Mesopotamia or perhaps even Africa and spread westward.
Proto-Semitic subsequently splintered off and developed into the various Semitic languages found in the ancient Middle East. This again was due to several factors including the migration of peoples to other areas and the general isolation of these peoples from one another over time. It should be noted that in ancient times, there were many Semitic languages. Only a few of these have survived into modern times.
In turning back to the Babel narrative, and taking into context the concept of “the whole world” as discussed above; it is safe to conclude that the common language referred to as “spoken by all mankind” was indeed in all likelihood what we today call Proto-Semitic.
What is fascinating is the fact that even back in those times it was recognized that there must have been at one time some parent language, some “common tongue” for the various languages people encountered in their “world”. The (somewhat) mutual intelligibility between these languages, or at the very least the similarity in vocabulary, surely must have been recognized.
As just one example, the word for 'god' is essentially the same word in Hebrew "el" as it is in Arabic "allah" as it is in Assyrian and Babylonian (a/k/a Akkadian) "ilu", Phoenician 'l, and Ugaritic 'il. Surely people even back then would have recognized the similarity and further realized they all must have come from the same source language, some ‘parent tongue’ (in this case, the Proto Semitic *'il).
This concept seems to have been preserved in the oral tradition of the Habiru/Hebrew people in their oral tradition via the Babel narrative.
To these people however, the reasons for the various related languages they encountered would not have been known. They would have no concept of the ‘hows and whys’ of the splintering off of Proto-Semitic; they just knew there was obviously one parent language at one time, and now there were several distinct (but related) languages.
How did they account for this “confounding” of languages?
As with many things not clearly understood by ancient man, the reasons were usually attributed to a deity, an “act of God”, if you will.
Such must have been the case here as well. The confounding of languages was simply attributed to an act of God.
This does however beg the question of why would God have done such a thing?
I would argue that the narrative of the Tower is pure allegory/metaphor – the intentional creation of a “back story”, if you will, to explain the reason for the current situation and to have a vehicle by which to attribute the event as an “act of God”. Simply put, it was a story that was easy to understand. To ancient man, this split in languages was an instantaneous thing and possibly viewed as something quite miraculous and mysterious (and as a result of ‘something bad’ that mankind did – his wickedness) – there was no concept of languages changing and diverging very slowly over long periods of time.
In fact, it is important to note that, while the Babel account does indicate a common original language, it does not claim that said language was Hebrew (as many people think) or that God necessarily used a supernatural process in confounding the languages. Further, what many people don’t realize is that the account doesn’t even claim that this diversification of languages was an immediate event (though most people interpret it as such).
The Babel narrative is also interesting in that it relates that these original speakers came from the East. This is generally regarded as the “migration route” of Proto-Semitic, i.e. the original Sprachgebiet (language area) was to the east of what is now Israel and the surrounding countries and moved westward.
The Babel narrative as we have it today is also really quite fascinating in that it is one of very few ancient accounts of a people remembering the history of their language(s) - told of course in a religious context.
If, however, the religious context is extracted, the result is a fairly accurate historical account of what happened - speakers of Proto Semitic migrated towards the west and as they migrated and became isolated nations, groups, etc., their languages eventually splintered off into what would have been at first just dialects of P-Semitic, but over time, separate but a very closely related group of languages (a “confounding” of languages).
If one wishes to include the religious context, the notion commonly assumed is that God used the confounding of languages to scatter the people, however, it may be argued, as Dallin Oaks states in his article “The Tower of Babel: A Linguistic Consideration”, that “God scattered the people to cause a confusion of languages”. An interesting take on the narrative as it fits more closely with what actually happened historically.