languages

[spanner7853]

I hope this isnt a stupid question but why do people speak different languages? Why if we all started off with Adam and Eve and they originate from the East do we not all speak the language. How did people make there own languages when we spread all over the world???

[kujawski]

wat u die ongeveer babbelen?
che cosa voi che chiacchierate circa?
empez� todo con la torre del babbel,
聖書をそして読めば見つける。

[jno]

languages change all the time. You probably speak pretty much the same as your parents did - but not exactly the same. You've picked up new words from friends, from your travels, from reading or watching television. Adam and Eve had no word for computers; their descendants have just had to make them up. From time to time, for reasons nobody quite knows, languages undergo wholesale changes in pronunciation too, just to make things trickier. All these possibilities add up - or rather, multiply up - to vast changes over the millennia during which humans have been speaking.

[kujawski]

nah! what ever, from a religious (Catholic/Christian) point of view, all due to the tower of babel

http://unmuseum.mus.pa.us/babel.htm

[dawkins]

yes, languages evolve due to regional isolation. languages also frequently disappear or are assimilated into other languages as trade or migration dilute regional bias. Eventually as economics and culture become more global it would not be too surprising to find everyone speaking a common language.

[shomer42]

Basically as we all got further and further apart we lost communication with each other. We didnt have phones and so as we learnt more we each developed new words for things, we coudnt communicate them toe ach other.

[pugwashjw]

The Bible gives the answer.

(Genesis 11:5-8) And Jehovah proceeded to go down to see the city and the tower that the sons of men had built. 6�After that Jehovah said: �Look! They are one people and there is one language for them all, and this is what they start to do. Why, now there is nothing that they may have in mind to do that will be unattainable for them. 7�Come now! Let us go down and there confuse their language that they may not listen to one another�s language.� 8�Accordingly Jehovah scattered them from there over all the surface of the earth, and they gradually left off building the city.

They were building a tower to reach heaven, without giving God any credit for their abilities. God was teaching them a hard lesson in being humble. They were seeking worship for themselves.