Chapter 11
Babel

We have seen that as a result of Adam’s sin his soul shattered, and the soul fragments became available to be incarnated into Homo sapiens. With these souls Homo sapiens became behaviorally modern, able to speak, and began migrating to every part of the earth. But what language did they speak? Adam spoke the language with which the world was created—Hebrew.¹ The Biblical sources don’t tell us what these early behaviorally modern Homo sapiens spoke. Because they did not directly relate to or communicate with Adam, and only received minor fragments of his soul, we can surmise that they spoke initially a single language, presumably much more primitive than Hebrew. As they separated and migrated, the original language evolved into many different languages. These Homo sapiens developed cultures and languages in their different locations around the world for tens of thousands of years. Then, something remarkable happened about 4,000 years ago.

Adam and his direct descendants continued to speak Hebrew. So did the survivors of the Flood—Noah and his sons. Then 340 years after the Flood, in Babel, God confused their languages² and scattered them over the surface of the earth. We are told that 70 nations ensued, and as they spread they brought their culture and language to much of the rest of the world. This process began in the Biblical year 1996, or 1766 BCE, and continues to this day (as we discover new tribes in the Amazon, for example). We are most familiar with the episode of the European colonization of the Americas, typically dated to having started in 1942 CE, a period during which over many years Europeans brought their cultures and languages to America, infiltrating the original cultures established 14,000 years ago when the first migrations of Homo sapiens arrived on the American continents. However, according to Genesis, a similar process occurred elsewhere in the globe earlier in time as the 70 nations spread.

In this chapter we will return to the period at the end of the Flood and follow Noah’s descendants to understand their impact on human history. We will then compare and contrast the scientific record with the Biblical record. At the end of the chapter we will be able to add a few more thousand years of early human history from Genesis and scientific studies to the history of Homo sapiens, from 200,000 years ago until 6,000 years ago, as summarized in Chapter 9.

So who were Noah’s descendants? What were they like? Where did they go? What languages did they speak?

Noah’s Descendants

Noah and his three sons (and their wives) emerged from the ark when the Flood had receded and the land was dry. We are told that “God blessed Noah and his sons and He said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the land [earth].’”³ Then we are told “the sons of Noah who came out of the ark were Shem, Ham, Japheth – Ham being the father of Canaan. These three were the sons of Noah, and from these the whole world was spread out.”⁴ Thus, these three sons were not just individuals, but the progenitors of three types of people with different directions in life.⁵ (As with the Flood we interpret “the whole world” to mean locally these people and their descendants and not include the rest of the Homo sapiens).

Noah’s Three Sons

Each of the three sons was very different. The first hint of their differences can be derived from the order in which they entered the ark before the Flood. In Genesis 7:13 we are told that Shem, then Ham, and finally Japheth entered the ark. Shem, the youngest, was first, while Japheth, the oldest, entered last. This episode suggests their level of trust in God. Shem did not hesitate; his belief in God was solid. Ham needed an example to follow. Practical Japheth needed to evaluate all possibilities, and only when convinced the ark was the sole salvation did he enter.⁶ We also know that no intercourse was allowed while on the ark, yet Ham disobeyed this rule.⁷ Finally, we have a detailed account of how the three sons behaved during the incident of Noah’s intoxication after he emerged from the ark.⁸ In this account we learn that Ham observes the wrong in the incident and does nothing; Shem makes a moral judgment and takes action to fix the situation; and, Japheth sees Shem’s view and is proactive in suggesting and carrying out a collaborative solution.

Based on the information provided for each son, the commentaries conclude the following:⁹

1. Shem exemplified someone with intellectual and spiritual goals.

2. Ham was a seeker of physical satisfaction whose animal desires made pleasure paramount.

3. Japheth was a practical-minded builder of nations governed by just man-made laws and rules.

Thus, we have the spiritual-minded son, the pleasure-oriented son, and the practical builder son. It was these three types who went on to found the new world.

The 70 Nations

As can be seen from the extensive list of descendants of Noah appearing in Genesis 10, Noah’s three sons went on to have 70 descendants, each of whom became the ancestor of a nation:¹⁰

1. Japheth had 14 descendants (herein referred to by the numbers 1 to 14): “from these the islands of the nations were separated in their lands – each according to its language, in their nations.”¹¹

2. Ham had 30 descendants (referred to by numbers 15 to 44): “these are the descendants of Ham, by their families, by their languages, in their lands, in their nations.”¹²

3. Shem had 26 (referred to as numbers 45 to 70): “these are the descendants of Shem, by their families, by their languages, in their lands, in their nations.”¹³

The Dispersion of Babel

Three hundred and forty years after the Flood, all the descendants of Noah were together in Babel and speaking Hebrew.¹⁴ From here their languages were confused, and they were dispersed.¹⁵

What languages did they speak after this event?

Where did they go?

We are not told what languages they spoke. However, the text “by their families, by their languages, in their lands, in their nations” makes it clear that each son’s lineage was what we today describe as a language family or a group of related languages descended from a single ancestral language.¹⁶ Nowadays we call the common ancestor language a “proto-language.”

We do, however, have information as to where these nations of people went. By culling together written and oral Torah sources, rabbis have determined certain locations of the nations. Some locations remain under dispute, and others are simply not known. Figure 11.1 is a map of a portion of the world with current-day political boundaries showing the number of each nation plotted on its assumed location.¹⁷ Missing numbers represent nations for which the location is not known or disputed; numbers with question marks beside them represent fairly certain locations; nonetheless, some uncertainty exists.

The pattern in Figure 11.1 is clear; the solid lines represent boundaries between the descendants of Noah’s three sons. Based on the Biblical account, we expect to see language families along these boundaries emerge some 4,000 year ago, long after the original languages of the Homo sapiens.

Figure 11.1 The 70 Nations

The Scientific Record on the History of Language

The study of language is a vast and complex field, perhaps one of the most challenging areas of scientific study today. This section provides only a glimpse of the subject and its findings. As was explained in Chapter 3, Homo sapiens began to speak most likely as they became behaviorally modern. Scientists today believe there was a first language, unlike any of today’s languages, from which many thousands of languages evolved over time. Surprisingly, most of these are now extinct.¹⁸ Although the origins of human language and the first language remain obscure, the source of individual languages has been the subject of very precise study over the past two centuries. Both genetic studies and linguistic studies are employed in the study of language.

Linguistically, the correlation of ancient languages is performed by seeking correspondences in grammar, syntax, vocabulary, and vocalization among known languages in order to reconstruct their immediate forebears, and ultimately, the original tongue. Living languages can be compared directly with one another; dead languages that have survived in written form can usually be vocalized by inference from internal linguistic evidence. Dead languages that have never been written, however, can be reconstructed only by comparing their descendants and by working backward according to the laws that govern the study of how word sounds change.¹⁹ Nonetheless, even with the aid of genetic analysis, this is a difficult field, and many results remain inconclusive.²⁰

There are perhaps 7,000²¹ languages spoken in the world today; although 78% of the population speak the 85 largest languages.²² Scholars group the languages into probably less than 20 families. Languages are linked to one other by shared words, sounds, or grammatical constructions. The theory is that the members of each linguistic group have descended from one language, a common ancestor. In many cases that original language is judged by experts to have been spoken in surprisingly recent times—in some cases as little as several thousand years ago.

The most widespread group of languages today is Indo-European,²³ spoken by just under half the world’s population. This entire group, comprising languages ranging from Hindi and Persian to Norwegian and English, is believed to descend from the language of a tribe of nomads roaming the plains of eastern Europe and western Asia (centering on modern-day Ukraine). From about 2000 BCE, people speaking Indo-European languages began to spread throughout Europe, eventually reaching the Atlantic coast and the northern shores of the Mediterranean. They also penetrated far into Asia, occupying the Iranian plateau and much of India. A map²⁴ of the extent of this group around the time of Babel (1800 BCE) matches reasonably well with the extent of Japheth’s family illustrated in Figure 11.1.

Another of the world’s largest language families, with hundreds of living languages, is the Afro-asiatic language group, also known as Hamito-Semitic languages.²⁵ They are spoken by 200 to 300 million people primarily spread throughout the Arabian Peninsula, North Africa, and the Horn of Africa. These languages are believed to derive from the language of just one tribal group, possibly nomads in southern Arabia. By about 3000 BC, Semitic languages were spoken throughout a large tract of desert territory, from southern Arabia to the north of Syria. It is believed that these languages originated well before this date. The geographic extent of the language family matches remarkably well with Ham and Shem descendants in Figure 11.1. However, linguists believe these languages started much earlier than the Biblical Babel narrative suggests.

There are several other language families. The next largest is the Sino-Tibetan languages group,²⁶ a linguistic family comprising the Chinese and Tibeto-Burman languages, including some 250 languages of East Asia, Southeast Asia, and parts of South Asia. As languages are grouped into families, there are still some unclassified languages, although most of these are extinct.

Summary of the History of Language: Bible and Science

Certainly not all details are available to us regarding the history of language from either Biblical or scientific sources. However, there are no significant contradictions between the two bodies of knowledge.

Human language starts with behavioral modernity and evolves all over the world. About 4,000 years ago, the largest language family emerged near present-day Turkey/Ukraine and spread throughout Europe and parts of Asia where Japheth’s descendants migrated. Another large language family exists where Ham and Shem roamed, although linguists believe these languages predate Babel. Many other language families exist that predate Babel and do not geographically coincide with the 70 nations’ locations. These are clearly separate from the Babel migration (and the 70 nations) and originate from the much earlier Out of Africa migration.

As related in both the Biblical and scientific accounts, the spread of language is complex, encompassing tens of thousands of years. Today we know that many languages spoken in remote places are going extinct as they are no longer protected by natural boundaries or national borders from larger languages that dominate world commerce and communication. In a smaller scale this process has been going on for thousands of years.²⁷ It is not unreasonable that we can’t completely reconstruct the language puzzle scientifically if the Biblical account described herein is accurate.

In summary, about 60,000 years ago, when Homo sapiens became behaviorally modern and began speaking, they developed thousands of languages as they migrated over the entire world. Then, only 4,000 years ago, a new worldwide migration ensued from Babel bringing with it 70 new languages. Languages interacted in perhaps three ways—as new migration met previously established peoples:

1. The more recent languages of the 70 nations overtook the preexisting languages of Homo sapiens and became permanently established, as seems the case with Japheth’s descendants and the Indo-European languages.

2. These newer languages mixed to some extent with preexisting languages, as may be the case with Ham and Shem descendants and their Afro-asiatic language families.

3. The newer languages had no significant effect on earlier languages, and these earlier languages were able to continue evolving, as seems to be the case with language families like the Sino-Tibetan, and certainly with the indigenous languages of America (however, today these are threatened as processes 1 and 2 above continue).

It is fitting that the most unique human characteristic, language, which completes the early history of humans, remains elusive to our understanding.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

¹ Rabbi Meir Zlotowitz, Bereishis, Genesis / A New Translation with a Commentary Anthologized from Talmudic Midrashic and Rabbinic Sources (New York: Mesorah Publications Ltd., 1977), Rashi on Genesis 11:1, p. 333.

² Genesis 11:7.

³ Genesis 9:1.

⁴ Genesis 9:18–19.

⁵ Mendel Weinbach, Reuven Subar, The Essential Malbim (New York: Mesorah Publications Ltd., 2009), p. 111.

⁶ H. Moose, In the Beginning: The Bible Unauthorized (California: Thirty Seven Books, 2001), Genesis 7:13, p. 323.

⁷ Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 108b.

⁸ Rabbi Meir Zlotowitz, Bereishis, Genesis / A New Translation with a Commentary Anthologized from Talmudic Midrashic and Rabbinic Sources (New York: Mesorah Publications Ltd., 1977), Genesis 9:20–28 and commentaries.

⁹ Mendel Weinbach, Reuven Subar, The Essential Malbim (New York: Mesorah Publications Ltd., 2009), p. 111.

¹⁰ Genesis 10.

¹¹ Genesis 10:5.

¹² Genesis 10:20.

¹³ Genesis 10:31.

¹⁴ Rabbi Meir Zlotowitz, Bereishis, Genesis / A New Translation with a Commentary Anthologized from Talmudic Midrashic and Rabbinic Sources (New York: Mesorah Publications Ltd., 1977), Rashi on Genesis 11:1, p. 333.

¹⁵ Genesis 11.

¹⁶ Merriam Webster Dictionary.

¹⁷ Rabbi Meir Zlotowitz, Bereishis, Genesis / A New Translation with a Commentary Anthologized from Talmudic Midrashic and Rabbinic Sources (New York: Mesorah Publications Ltd., 1977), Genesis 10, pp. 309–332.

¹⁸ John McWhorter, The Power of Babel, (New York: Harper Collins, 2001).

¹⁹ Ivanov, Vyacheslav V.; Gamkrelidze, Thomas, “The Early History of Indo-European Languages,” Scientific American 262 (March 1990) pp. 110-116.

²⁰ Russell D. Gray and Quentin D. Atkinson, “Language-tree divergence times support the Anatolian theory of Indo-European origin,” Nature 426 (27 Nov 2003) pp. 435–439.

²¹ (i) Russ Rymer, “Vanishing Voices”, National Geographic, V. 222, No 1 (July 2012), pp. 62.

(ii) John McWhorter, The Power of Babel, (New York: Harper Collins, 2001).

²² Russ Rymer, “Vanishing Voices”, National Geographic, V. 222, No 1 (July 2012), p 60–93.

²³ Ivanov, Vyacheslav V.; Gamkrelidze, Thomas, “The Early History of Indo-European Languages,” Scientific American 262 (March 1990) pp. 110–116.

²⁴ “Map of Indo-European Migrations”, indo-european-migrations.scienceontheweb.net/map_of_indo_european_migrations.html.

²⁵ Kenneth Katzner, The Languages of the World, Third Edition (London and New York: Routeledge, 2002) p. 27.

²⁶ Kenneth Katzner, The Languages of the World, Third Edition (London and New York: Routeledge, 2002) p. 22.

²⁷ Russ Rymer, “Vanishing Voices”, National Geographic, V. 222, No 1 (July 2012), pp. 62.