Continued from post 1....
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, some “act of God”, if you will.
Such must have been the case here as well. The reasons for the ‘confounding’ of these languages was not understood and thus, attributed to an act of God.
To ancient man, this somewhat strange act of God must have begged the question: “Why would God have done such a thing?”
I would argue that the Tower is a literary device; it 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”.
Here was a story that was easy to understand and relate to: As a result of an adverse action/deed perpetrated by mankind as a united intention, God put an end to it by confounding man’s languages.
To ancient man, this diversity in languages was seen as something instantaneous and probably quite miraculous and mysterious – there was no concept of languages changing and diverging very slowly over long periods of time.
People just knew that at one time, there was one language spoken by everyone, and now there were several.
One can imagine the thought was something like: These various languages are obviously close enough to recognize as coming from a single source, but at the same time, they’re just far enough away from each other that our speech is maddeningly confounded – we can’t quite understand what our neighbors are saying, even though we may recognize a few words here and there.
Let’s examine a few facts which I suspect are typically glossed over by most people.
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).
There is also no indication in the narrative that God necessarily used a supernatural process in ‘confounding’ the languages.
Further, and perhaps most importantly, the account does not claim that this diversification of languages was an immediate event (though most people interpret and assume it as such).
There’s no reason not to think that a very natural process in language development took place.
People felt this was an important part of their tradition and culture and thus should be remembered. But given that only an oral tradition existed, how does one get people to remember an important story and not forget it in a few generations?
In most cultures, the best way is to tell the story in a religious context; it’s much less likely to be forgotten over generations because it becomes part of both the cultural and religious traditions.
Thus, one might imagine, the Babel narrative was woven – a combining of history (as it was understood back then) and religion into a powerful story.
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.
In summary, the Babel narrative is really quite fascinating from the perspective of historical linguistics in that it is one of very few ancient accounts of a people remembering (in a manner of speaking) the history of their language(s) - told of course in a religious context, but remembered nonetheless.
If, however, the religious context is extracted for a moment, 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 from one parent tongue).
When the religious context is added back in, 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.
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, some “act of God”, if you will.
Such must have been the case here as well. The reasons for the ‘confounding’ of these languages was not understood and thus, attributed to an act of God.
To ancient man, this somewhat strange act of God must have begged the question: “Why would God have done such a thing?”
I would argue that the Tower is a literary device; it 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”.
Here was a story that was easy to understand and relate to: As a result of an adverse action/deed perpetrated by mankind as a united intention, God put an end to it by confounding man’s languages.
To ancient man, this diversity in languages was seen as something instantaneous and probably quite miraculous and mysterious – there was no concept of languages changing and diverging very slowly over long periods of time.
People just knew that at one time, there was one language spoken by everyone, and now there were several.
One can imagine the thought was something like: These various languages are obviously close enough to recognize as coming from a single source, but at the same time, they’re just far enough away from each other that our speech is maddeningly confounded – we can’t quite understand what our neighbors are saying, even though we may recognize a few words here and there.
Let’s examine a few facts which I suspect are typically glossed over by most people.
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).
There is also no indication in the narrative that God necessarily used a supernatural process in ‘confounding’ the languages.
Further, and perhaps most importantly, the account does not claim that this diversification of languages was an immediate event (though most people interpret and assume it as such).
There’s no reason not to think that a very natural process in language development took place.
People felt this was an important part of their tradition and culture and thus should be remembered. But given that only an oral tradition existed, how does one get people to remember an important story and not forget it in a few generations?
In most cultures, the best way is to tell the story in a religious context; it’s much less likely to be forgotten over generations because it becomes part of both the cultural and religious traditions.
Thus, one might imagine, the Babel narrative was woven – a combining of history (as it was understood back then) and religion into a powerful story.
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.
In summary, the Babel narrative is really quite fascinating from the perspective of historical linguistics in that it is one of very few ancient accounts of a people remembering (in a manner of speaking) the history of their language(s) - told of course in a religious context, but remembered nonetheless.
If, however, the religious context is extracted for a moment, 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 from one parent tongue).
When the religious context is added back in, 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.