Language in Biblical History

Bible History

Schaff's Bible Dictionary

Definitions in Biblical History
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What is Language?
LAN'GUAGE
Gen 2:20; Dan 11:1. It is generally supposed that Adam was endued with the power of speech and furnished with a language at his creation, and that it was sufficiently perfect and comprehensive for all the purposes of his being. This was the language of the whole earth for nearly 2000 years, or until about a century after the Flood. It was then that the Tower of Babel was erected, and God caused a confusion of languages -- an event which forms the antitype of the speaking in tongues by the apostles at the first Pentecost. Some of the older divines supposed, without any good reason, that the Hebrew was the original language given by God to Adam, and that all the other languages resulting from the division and dispersion of mankind over the face of the earth are derived from that as the root. The modern science of comparative philology distinguishes three distinct families of languages -- the Shemitic (to which the Hebrew belongs), the Indo-Germanic or Aryan (which includes the Greek), and the Turanian, For a brief account of the languages in which the Bible was written, see Bible.

Bibliography Information
Schaff, Philip, Dr. "Biblical Definition for 'language' in Schaffs Bible Dictionary".
bible-history.com - Schaff's

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