The Old Schoolhouse Magazine - Winter 2011

English
water
dog (hound)
clock

Dutch
water
hond
klok

German
Wasser
Hund
Uhr (related to Latin hora = English “hour”)

Table 1: Just a few examples of the obvious relatedness between German, Dutch and English.

transmitted down a chain, speak of the immense creative power and intelligence of God, the master Programmer and Designer.

Consider this, too: Adam and Eve, created as adults, had to have full language ability from the first, so as to understand God and each other in that perfect world before sin. None of us pops into the world with that ability; even though we have the mechanisms to learn, even to create language with astonishing ease, we have to absorb word meanings and the rules of grammar from the world around us as we grow up. 10 We do this via our designed vocal equipment and brain machinery. But the first couple required more—a “built-in” knowledge of the language rules (grammar) and word meanings (vocabulary). 11 Unless they already knew the meaning of each word God spoke to them soon after their creation, they could not have understood Him. 12

LANGUAGES—ALWAYS
CHANGING

There is another historical instance recorded in Genesis of God directly programming new language—in fact several languages—into people. That happened at the Tower of Babel, Genesis 10–11.

There are thousands of languages in the world today. In one modest-sized country alone, Papua New Guinea (PNG), there are well over six hundred separate languages. Does that mean that each one of those thousands of languages arose at Babel? Definitely not. For one thing, Genesis implies that the extended family group associated with named individuals stayed together; it makes sense for God to ensure that each such group spoke the same language. Being so soon after the Genesis Flood, this was not a huge population, and it seems there were at most several dozen languages created instantly.

ENGLISH—ALWAYS CHANGING TOO Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales were written in the English of six hundred years ago: “. . . The yonge sonne hath in the ram his half cours yronne, and small fowls maken melodye, that slepen all the night with open yë.” Even though today’s King James Bible (the 1769 revision) is not modern-day English, it, too, is dramatically different from its original 1611 edition, 14 with tens of thousands of changes deemed necessary to make it comprehensible to a populace whose own English had changed and continues to do so. The spread of writing slowed down the pace of language change, which can be dramatic in cultures with no writing.

All the other languages arose afterwards, by a simple process for which there is evidence. When groups with the same language then live apart without

Table 2: Comparisons of nine Indo-European languages compared to Hungarian (red bold font). Hungarian is in a different language family, despite being in Europe, and shows no pattern of relatedness to the others in this table, as they obviously do to each other. The ancient Sanskrit of India is also in the Indo-European family.

English One Two Three Four Five Mother Father I You House Dog Cat Lion Monkey Bear

German Eins Zwei Drei Vier Fünf Mutter Vater Ich Du Haus Hund Katze Löwe Affe Bär

Danish En To Tre Fire Fem Mor Far Jeg Du Hus Hund Kat Løve Abe Bjørn

Latin Unus Duo Tres Quattuor Quinque Mater Pater Ego Tu Domus Canis Feles*

Spanish Uno Dos Tres Cuatro Cinco Madre Padre Yo Tu Casa Perro Gato León Mono Oso

Italian Uno Due Tre Quattro Cinque Madre Padre Io Tu Casa Cane Gatto Leone Scimmia Orso

French Un Deux Trois Quatre Cinq Mère Père Je Tu Maison Chien Chat Lion Singe Ours

Greek (mod.)

Ena Dhyo Tria Tessera Pente Metera Pateras Ego Esy Spiti Skylos Gata Leontari Maimouda Arkoudha

Fidhi Alogo Vodi

Russian Odyin Dva Tri Chyetirye Pyat’ Mat’ Otyetz Ya Ti Dom Sobaka Koshka Lyev Obiez’yana Myedvyed’

Hungarian Eggy Kettö Három Négy Öt Anya Apa Én Ón Ház Kutya Macska Oroszlán Majom Medve

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