Editing Tower of Babel (section)

===Multiplication of languages===
[[File:Endre Rozsda - La tour de Babel (1958).jpg|thumb|Tower of Babel by [[Endre Rozsda]] (1958)]]

The literal belief that the world's linguistic variety originated with the tower of Babel is [[pseudoscience|pseudolinguistics]] and is contrary to the known facts about the origin and [[History of linguistics|history]] of [[language]]s.<ref>{{cite book |first=Robert T. |last=Pennock |title=Tower of Babel: The Evidence against the New Creationism |publisher=Bradford Books |year=2000 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=aC1OccYnX0sC&q=Tower+of+Babel:+The+Evidence+Against+the+New+Creationism|isbn=9780262661652 }}</ref>{{Page needed|date=May 2024}}

In the biblical introduction of the Tower of Babel account, in Genesis 11:1,<ref>{{Bibleverse||Genesis|11:1|HE}}</ref> it is said that everyone on Earth spoke the same language, but this is inconsistent with the biblical description of the post-Noahic world described in Genesis 10:5,<ref>{{Bibleverse||Genesis|10:5|HE}}</ref> where it is said that the descendants of Shem, Ham, and Japheth gave rise to different nations, each with their own language.<ref name="Levenson" />{{rp|26}}

There have also been a number of traditions around the world that describe a divine confusion of the one original language into several, albeit without any tower. Aside from the Ancient Greek myth that [[Hermes]] confused the languages, causing [[Zeus]] to give his throne to [[Phoroneus]], Frazer specifically mentions such accounts among the Wasania of [[Kenya]], the Kacha [[Naga people]] of Assam, the inhabitants of [[Encounter Bay]] in Australia, the [[Maidu]] of California, the [[Tlingit people|Tlingit]] of Alaska, and the [[K'iche' people|K'iche' Maya]] of Guatemala.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Frazer|first1=James George|author-link1=James George Frazer|title=Folk-lore in the Old Testament: Studies in Comparative Religion, Legend and Law|date=1919|publisher=Macmillan|location=London|page=384|url=https://archive.org/stream/folkloreinoldte00frazgoog#page/n402/mode/2up}}</ref>

The [[Estonia]]n myth of "the Cooking of Languages"<ref>Kohl, ''Reisen in die 'Ostseeprovinzen'', ii. 251–255</ref> has also been compared.

During the Middle Ages, the [[Biblical Hebrew|Hebrew language]] was widely considered the language used by God to address [[Adam]] in [[Paradise]], and by Adam as lawgiver (the [[Adamic language]]) by various Jewish, Christian, and Muslim scholastics.

[[Dante Alighieri]] addresses the topic in his ''[[De vulgari eloquentia]]'' (1302–1305). He argues that the Adamic language is of divine origin and therefore unchangeable.<ref name="Mazzocco2">{{cite book |last1=Mazzocco |first1=Angelo |title=Linguistic Theories in Dante and the Humanists |publisher=Brill |year=1993 |isbn=978-90-04-09702-5 |pages=159–181}}</ref>

In his ''[[Divine Comedy]]'' (c. 1308–1320), however, Dante changes his view to another that treats the Adamic language as the product of Adam.<ref name="Mazzocco2" /> This had the consequence that it could no longer be regarded as immutable, and hence Hebrew could not be regarded as identical with the language of Paradise. Dante concludes (''Paradiso'' XXVI) that Hebrew is a derivative of the language of Adam. In particular, the chief Hebrew name for God in scholastic tradition, ''[[El (god)|El]]'', must be derived of a different Adamic name for God, which Dante gives as ''[[Close front unrounded vowel|I]]''.<ref name="Mazzocco2" />

Before the acceptance of the [[Indo-European languages|Indo-European]] [[language family]], these languages were considered to be "[[Japhetic|Japhetite]]" by some authors (e.g., [[Rasmus Rask]] in 1815; see [[Indo-European studies]]). Beginning in Renaissance Europe, priority over Hebrew was claimed for the alleged Japhetic languages, which were supposedly never corrupted because their speakers had not participated in the construction of the Tower of Babel. Among the candidates for a living descendant of the Adamic language were: [[Goidelic languages|Gaelic]] (see ''[[Auraicept na n-Éces]]''); [[Tuscan language|Tuscan]] ([[Giovanni Battista Gelli]], 1542, [[Pier Francesco Giambullari]], 1564); [[Dutch language|Dutch]] ([[Goropius Becanus]], 1569, [[Abraham Mylius]], 1612); [[Swedish language|Swedish]] ([[Olaus Rudbeck]], 1675); [[German language|German]] ([[Georg Philipp Harsdorffer|Georg Philipp Harsdörffer]], 1641, [[Justus Georg Schottel|Schottel]], 1641). The Swedish physician [[Andreas Kempe]] wrote a satirical tract in 1688, where he made fun of the contest between the European nationalists to claim their native tongue as the Adamic language. Caricaturing the attempts by the Swede Olaus Rudbeck to pronounce Swedish the original language of mankind, Kempe wrote a scathing [[parody]] where Adam spoke [[Danish language|Danish]], God spoke Swedish, and the serpent [[French language|French]].<ref>[[Maurice Olender|Olender, Maurice]] (1992). ''The Languages of Paradise: Race, Religion, and Philology in the Nineteenth Century''. Trans. [[Arthur Goldhammer]]. Cambridge, Massachusetts and London: Harvard University Press. {{ISBN|0-674-51052-6}}.</ref>

The primacy of Hebrew was still defended by some authors until the emergence of modern linguistics in the second half of the 18th century, e.g. by {{Interlanguage link|Pierre Besnier|fr}} (1648–1705) in ''A philosophicall essay for the reunion of the languages, or, the art of knowing all by the mastery of one'' (1675) and by Gottfried Hensel (1687–1767) in his ''[[Synopsis Universae Philologiae]]'' (1741).