Genesis 11:1

1. Whole earth… one language… one speech Hebrew, as margin, one lip and one words . The whole population of the earth was one lip, and one kind of words . They were one in the manner (lip) and the matter (words) of language, that is, they had the same words for things, and the same modes of expression. There is no tautology, as in the common translation, but there are here two distinct ideas, 1) the same stock of words, and 2) the same inflexions and pronunciation. The Noachian language was probably the immediate parent of the Hebrew, Arabic, and Syriac. This primitive language has long ago vanished, but its ruins or debris are scattered everywhere, and can, with more or less certainty, be traced toward a parent formation. There are known at present, according to Kaulen, 860 languages, divided into three great families: 1) isolating, 2) agglutinative, and 3) inflective, each of the last two being regarded as derived from the next preceding; and the science of philology, by studying their manifold analogies and differences, is steadily reducing them to species and genera, all leading up to ultimate unity. The lines of variation all converge toward a distant centre, which, though it may never be scientifically reached, yet is seen by scientific faith. While languages are structurally divided, as above, they are also genealogically divided into Shemitic, Hamitic, and Aryan. This last is a provisional division, having a great number as yet unclassified. We give on pp. 156, 157, Schleicher’s genealogical tree of the Shemitic and Aryan families, the dotted lines representing the dead languages. Of course this represents the present phase of philological knowledge and opinion, and is subject to revision by the advance of science. The Hamitic family has not yet been satisfactorily analysed.

It may be mentioned that the Egyptian is considered by Max Muller as an offshoot of the original Asiatic tongue, before it was broken up into Turanian, Semitic, and Aryan.

One or two illustrations of the unity in this vast variety may suffice. The consonant t, interchanged with its cognates d and th, is the essential element of the second personal pronoun (English thou) in the principal languages of the Shemitic and Aryan families, both as a separate pronoun and as a personal termination. The Hebrew for thou is attah (masc.) and at, (fem.,) thou killest is Katal ta (masc.) and Katal t, (fem.) This consonant conveys the idea of the second person through all the conjugations, or species. The same law is seen in Arabic, Syriac, Ethiopic, and Coptic of the Shemitic family. Look now into the Aryan or Indo-European family, and we find in Sanscrit, tua; in Beng., tui; Russ., tu; Greek, συ ; Latin and its descendants, tu; German, Dutch, and Danish, du; Gothic and Saxon, thu; English, thou . As a personal ending it is replaced by or used in connexion with its cognate s; thus, for thou art, we have Sanscrit, asi; Russ . , gesi; Greek, εις ; Latin, es; German, bist, etc . All languages, as far as analyzed, may, according to Max Muller, be reduced to four or five hundred roots, or phonetic types, which form their constituent elements. These sounds are not interjections, nor imitations, but are produced by a power inherent in human nature when the appropriate occasions arise. Man instinctively uses these sounds to express certain conceptions, and they become modified by composition, inflexion, etc., so as to finally produce the infinite varieties of language. Thus the two consonants B (with its cognates P and F) and R, taken together, are instinctively used to express the idea of bearing, or sustaining; take as examples, פרה , φερω , fero, bhri, bairan, baren, Βαρος , bairn, bear, burden, pario, fructus, fruit, etc .