Part 2 -
Now that we’ve established the demographic make-up of the attendees, we need to take a look at that all-important question…..
What the heck languages did all these people speak!??
By far, the most common answer is that most people will refer to the handy-dandy list of nations in verses 9-12 and say, “Here you go – they’re all listed right here. There’s like 15 of them!”.
Here’s the thing, as we’ve already established, our list is not one of languages; it is a list of places. Remember that in the entire narrative, not one language is ever referenced by name.
To determine what languages we’re dealing with, we must examine each group/contingency of attendees separately.
The answer to the above language question will, I suspect, evoke one of three responses: either (1) complete surprise – not what was expected at all; (2) a “sort of” surprise – a kind of that makes sense, just never really thought about it that way; finally, (3) a complete disbelief, rejection and perhaps even dismissal of the facts.
Let’s take a look at each “contingency” –
We’ll begin with the easiest; Judea. Jews from Judea would have spoken Aramaic as their mother ‘tongue’ (sic!). If they came from a large city (such as Jerusalem), it’s quite possible they could have grown up with Greek as their mother tongue. With respect to Jews living in Judea, I don’t think there’s any disagreement or anything surprising here; it’s pretty straightforward.
I’m sure some readers may be thinking, “Hey, wait, what about Hebrew??”
It’s important to note that Hebrew was a dead language by the first century AD, but it was still the sacerdotal language of the Jewish faith – all readings in the temple as well as any teaching, prophesies, prayers, etc. were required to be rendered in Hebrew, not Aramaic (as a quick aside – Greek was slowly gaining acceptance as an alternative to Hebrew in certain areas).
The way this was typically done was that the ‘teacher’ (usually a rabbi) would speak/read in Hebrew and a person standing next to him would translate what was said into Aramaic (or Greek as the case may be).
This translator actually had a specific title (however, it escapes me at the moment). This idea of one person speaking and another translating is one of the reasons why speaking a language and “interpreting” a language was considered two separate things in Jewish culture even though they go hand-in-hand. This is also why Paul differentiates the two in his list of spiritual gifts in his letter to the Corinthians.
This dual usage of Hebrew (considered the ‘high’ language) and Aramaic (the ‘low’ language) in Jewish culture encompasses a concept known as ecclesiastical diglossia.
Diglossia itself is the concept of using a “high” language in certain social (including religious) situations/settings as opposed to a “low” language (typically the vernacular, everyday speech heard on the streets).
Diglossia is alive and well today; both Greece and German-speaking Switzerland have it. In Greece it’s a distinction between Katharevousa (high) and Demotiki (low). In Switzerland, it’s (Hoch) Deutsch (high) and Schwyzerdüütsch (low).
If this concept of diglossia is used in a liturgical setting, it’s referred to as ‘ecclesiastical diglossia’. Roman Catholicism had a sort of ecclesiastical diglossia as well (up until V2, anyway). Latin was the ecclesiastical language of the RC church (the ‘high’ language) – the use of local vernacular (the ‘low’ language) virtually forbidden in many cases (only the homily was allowed to be given in the vernacular).
I’m sort of digressing. The point is, the majority of Jews in attendance for Pentecost were from Judea and spoke Aramaic and to a lesser extent perhaps Greek, but it’s very important to note that in a religious setting such as Shavu’ot, Hebrew was required first, i.e., the expected language to be heard first, then a translation into the vernacular(s).
We can’t of course know what percentage of the total attendees this first contingency consisted of – but since it’s probable they made up the majority, for the sake of this exercise, let’s call it 70%. Again, for simplicity’s sake, let’s split the remainder and just say that the Western Diaspora made up 15% and the Eastern Diaspora 15%.
So, roughly 70% of people in attendance so far spoke Aramaic as their mother tongue.
Now we have to turn to the Diaspora. Let’s take the easier of the two first; the Western Diaspora.
If I was a Jew, and lived somewhere in the Western Diaspora, what language(s) would I speak??
The answer is surprisingly simple – Greek. These are all countries and lands that had been Hellenized for centuries (since the time of Alexander) – Greek had long displaced whatever the local languages once were. Think of Britten before, and then after, the Anglo-Saxons got there. Several Celtic languages pre Anglo-Saxon arrival….not so much after. Think of it as sort of modern-day “Americanization” carrying amongst its baggage something called English and you kind of get the picture, only here it was ‘Hellenization’ and part of the baggage was Greek.
If you were a Jew and lived somewhere in the Western Diaspora in the first century A.D., your mother tongue was Greek.
This is one of the reasons Greek was gaining acceptance as an alternative ‘high language’ to Hebrew. Indeed, in the Western Diaspora, most Jewish writings were in Greek, not Hebrew, and it was seen by most as being completely acceptable.
Well, we now have roughly 85% of our attendees accounted for with respect to mother tongues – a lot of people, many lands (including Judea) but thus far, we only have two languages spoken: Greek and Aramaic.
Let’s now turn to the last, and more complicated area – the Eastern Diaspora.
These were lands that were never Hellenized and did indeed have local languages. So, if I were a Jew and lived in one of these countries, what was my mother tongue??
Allow me to digress again a bit here –
We might do well to consider the following - How does an immigrant group maintain its identity in a country where the customs and culture are very different from its own?
The answer is that immigrant groups tend to live in larger communities as a way of preserving their cultural identity. We see this today – where I live, we have many such communities. For example, we have a somewhat large Somalian community. People in this community preserve their way of dress (which, by the way, is pretty impressive in a cold New England winter!), their customs, their food, etc., but perhaps most importantly with respect to this discussion, they preserve their language.
Many Somalians in this particular community do speak English in varying degrees of fluency; but amongst themselves, it’s only Somalian. No one in this community is born with English as their mother tongue!
It was no different for Jews of the first century. Archaeology as well as contemporary writers of the time, report that Jews tended to live in close communities in the larger cities of the Diasporan lands, often establishing a synagogue as the center of community life.
One of the ways they preserved their cultural and religious identity, their ‘Jewishness’, so to speak, was to preserve their language – just as with today’s immigrant/refugee communities, it is one of the most outward and noticeable ‘signs’, ‘markers’, that they are ‘X’ and not “locals”. Simply put, language is one of the best ways to preserve one’s traditions and culture; language loss is typically one of the last ways in which a foreign community is integrated/assimilated into local culture.
That’s not to suggest local languages were not learned; one has to imagine the situation was just as it is today – people learned the vernaculars with varying degrees of fluency; but, the language of the community, the ‘hearth and home’ was Aramaic, not whatever local language was spoken.
In short, one of the best ways these Jews could preserve their identity was to retain Aramaic as one of the most obvious signs of their “Jewishness”, their cultural and religious identity.
This situation wasn’t the same in the Western Diaspora since the Greek language (and many aspects of culture as well) was perfectly acceptable in the Jewish world.
So, to summarize, if I were a Jew and lived in the Eastern Diaspora, I might speak the local language relatively fluently, but it was never my first language or mother tongue. My first language and mother tongue was Aramaic; it’s one of the main things that makes me and sets me apart as being Jewish.
So now we’ve accounted for (at least linguistically) all the attendees at Shavu’ot/Pentecost.
A large number of people from many different and widely-spread lands, but really only two languages: Aramaic and Greek with Aramaic being by far the most widely spoken of the two.
Linguistic diversity at Pentecost just wasn’t part of the picture.
Perhaps now we can get a better idea of why, in the entire Pentecost narrative, not one language is ever mentioned by name – it didn’t need to be; it was common knowledge what they were and, there were only two of them to boot.
We also now know why communication issues were never even remotely suggested in the narrative – there weren’t any.
The language Peter most likely gave his speech in was the one language spoken by the majority of people in attendance: Aramaic.
Bottom line is that the “other languages” of Pentecost referenced in the narrative were nothing more than Aramaic and Greek; the ‘low’ languages, and the apostles would have spoken both – no language miracle needed; no xenoglosy akolalia, glossolalia or anything else.
Now that we’ve established the demographic make-up of the attendees, we need to take a look at that all-important question…..
What the heck languages did all these people speak!??
By far, the most common answer is that most people will refer to the handy-dandy list of nations in verses 9-12 and say, “Here you go – they’re all listed right here. There’s like 15 of them!”.
Here’s the thing, as we’ve already established, our list is not one of languages; it is a list of places. Remember that in the entire narrative, not one language is ever referenced by name.
To determine what languages we’re dealing with, we must examine each group/contingency of attendees separately.
The answer to the above language question will, I suspect, evoke one of three responses: either (1) complete surprise – not what was expected at all; (2) a “sort of” surprise – a kind of that makes sense, just never really thought about it that way; finally, (3) a complete disbelief, rejection and perhaps even dismissal of the facts.
Let’s take a look at each “contingency” –
We’ll begin with the easiest; Judea. Jews from Judea would have spoken Aramaic as their mother ‘tongue’ (sic!). If they came from a large city (such as Jerusalem), it’s quite possible they could have grown up with Greek as their mother tongue. With respect to Jews living in Judea, I don’t think there’s any disagreement or anything surprising here; it’s pretty straightforward.
I’m sure some readers may be thinking, “Hey, wait, what about Hebrew??”
It’s important to note that Hebrew was a dead language by the first century AD, but it was still the sacerdotal language of the Jewish faith – all readings in the temple as well as any teaching, prophesies, prayers, etc. were required to be rendered in Hebrew, not Aramaic (as a quick aside – Greek was slowly gaining acceptance as an alternative to Hebrew in certain areas).
The way this was typically done was that the ‘teacher’ (usually a rabbi) would speak/read in Hebrew and a person standing next to him would translate what was said into Aramaic (or Greek as the case may be).
This translator actually had a specific title (however, it escapes me at the moment). This idea of one person speaking and another translating is one of the reasons why speaking a language and “interpreting” a language was considered two separate things in Jewish culture even though they go hand-in-hand. This is also why Paul differentiates the two in his list of spiritual gifts in his letter to the Corinthians.
This dual usage of Hebrew (considered the ‘high’ language) and Aramaic (the ‘low’ language) in Jewish culture encompasses a concept known as ecclesiastical diglossia.
Diglossia itself is the concept of using a “high” language in certain social (including religious) situations/settings as opposed to a “low” language (typically the vernacular, everyday speech heard on the streets).
Diglossia is alive and well today; both Greece and German-speaking Switzerland have it. In Greece it’s a distinction between Katharevousa (high) and Demotiki (low). In Switzerland, it’s (Hoch) Deutsch (high) and Schwyzerdüütsch (low).
If this concept of diglossia is used in a liturgical setting, it’s referred to as ‘ecclesiastical diglossia’. Roman Catholicism had a sort of ecclesiastical diglossia as well (up until V2, anyway). Latin was the ecclesiastical language of the RC church (the ‘high’ language) – the use of local vernacular (the ‘low’ language) virtually forbidden in many cases (only the homily was allowed to be given in the vernacular).
I’m sort of digressing. The point is, the majority of Jews in attendance for Pentecost were from Judea and spoke Aramaic and to a lesser extent perhaps Greek, but it’s very important to note that in a religious setting such as Shavu’ot, Hebrew was required first, i.e., the expected language to be heard first, then a translation into the vernacular(s).
We can’t of course know what percentage of the total attendees this first contingency consisted of – but since it’s probable they made up the majority, for the sake of this exercise, let’s call it 70%. Again, for simplicity’s sake, let’s split the remainder and just say that the Western Diaspora made up 15% and the Eastern Diaspora 15%.
So, roughly 70% of people in attendance so far spoke Aramaic as their mother tongue.
Now we have to turn to the Diaspora. Let’s take the easier of the two first; the Western Diaspora.
If I was a Jew, and lived somewhere in the Western Diaspora, what language(s) would I speak??
The answer is surprisingly simple – Greek. These are all countries and lands that had been Hellenized for centuries (since the time of Alexander) – Greek had long displaced whatever the local languages once were. Think of Britten before, and then after, the Anglo-Saxons got there. Several Celtic languages pre Anglo-Saxon arrival….not so much after. Think of it as sort of modern-day “Americanization” carrying amongst its baggage something called English and you kind of get the picture, only here it was ‘Hellenization’ and part of the baggage was Greek.
If you were a Jew and lived somewhere in the Western Diaspora in the first century A.D., your mother tongue was Greek.
This is one of the reasons Greek was gaining acceptance as an alternative ‘high language’ to Hebrew. Indeed, in the Western Diaspora, most Jewish writings were in Greek, not Hebrew, and it was seen by most as being completely acceptable.
Well, we now have roughly 85% of our attendees accounted for with respect to mother tongues – a lot of people, many lands (including Judea) but thus far, we only have two languages spoken: Greek and Aramaic.
Let’s now turn to the last, and more complicated area – the Eastern Diaspora.
These were lands that were never Hellenized and did indeed have local languages. So, if I were a Jew and lived in one of these countries, what was my mother tongue??
Allow me to digress again a bit here –
We might do well to consider the following - How does an immigrant group maintain its identity in a country where the customs and culture are very different from its own?
The answer is that immigrant groups tend to live in larger communities as a way of preserving their cultural identity. We see this today – where I live, we have many such communities. For example, we have a somewhat large Somalian community. People in this community preserve their way of dress (which, by the way, is pretty impressive in a cold New England winter!), their customs, their food, etc., but perhaps most importantly with respect to this discussion, they preserve their language.
Many Somalians in this particular community do speak English in varying degrees of fluency; but amongst themselves, it’s only Somalian. No one in this community is born with English as their mother tongue!
It was no different for Jews of the first century. Archaeology as well as contemporary writers of the time, report that Jews tended to live in close communities in the larger cities of the Diasporan lands, often establishing a synagogue as the center of community life.
One of the ways they preserved their cultural and religious identity, their ‘Jewishness’, so to speak, was to preserve their language – just as with today’s immigrant/refugee communities, it is one of the most outward and noticeable ‘signs’, ‘markers’, that they are ‘X’ and not “locals”. Simply put, language is one of the best ways to preserve one’s traditions and culture; language loss is typically one of the last ways in which a foreign community is integrated/assimilated into local culture.
That’s not to suggest local languages were not learned; one has to imagine the situation was just as it is today – people learned the vernaculars with varying degrees of fluency; but, the language of the community, the ‘hearth and home’ was Aramaic, not whatever local language was spoken.
In short, one of the best ways these Jews could preserve their identity was to retain Aramaic as one of the most obvious signs of their “Jewishness”, their cultural and religious identity.
This situation wasn’t the same in the Western Diaspora since the Greek language (and many aspects of culture as well) was perfectly acceptable in the Jewish world.
So, to summarize, if I were a Jew and lived in the Eastern Diaspora, I might speak the local language relatively fluently, but it was never my first language or mother tongue. My first language and mother tongue was Aramaic; it’s one of the main things that makes me and sets me apart as being Jewish.
So now we’ve accounted for (at least linguistically) all the attendees at Shavu’ot/Pentecost.
A large number of people from many different and widely-spread lands, but really only two languages: Aramaic and Greek with Aramaic being by far the most widely spoken of the two.
Linguistic diversity at Pentecost just wasn’t part of the picture.
Perhaps now we can get a better idea of why, in the entire Pentecost narrative, not one language is ever mentioned by name – it didn’t need to be; it was common knowledge what they were and, there were only two of them to boot.
We also now know why communication issues were never even remotely suggested in the narrative – there weren’t any.
The language Peter most likely gave his speech in was the one language spoken by the majority of people in attendance: Aramaic.
Bottom line is that the “other languages” of Pentecost referenced in the narrative were nothing more than Aramaic and Greek; the ‘low’ languages, and the apostles would have spoken both – no language miracle needed; no xenoglosy akolalia, glossolalia or anything else.