Adamic language: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 07:16, 3 March 2024

Revision as of 21:53, 18 March 2024

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{{further|Confusion of tongues|Lingua ignota}}

Traditional Jewish exegesis such as [[Midrash]]<ref>[[Genesis Rabbah]] 38</ref> says that Adam spoke the [[Hebrew language]] because the names he gives Eve – ''Isha''<ref>[[Book of Genesis]] 2:23</ref> and ''Chava''<ref>Genesis 3:20</ref> – only make sense in Hebrew. By contrast, [[Kabbalism]] assumed an "[[eternal Torah]]" which was not identical to the [[Torah]] written in Hebrew. Thus, [[Abraham Abulafia]] in the 13th century assumed that the language spoken in [[Paradise]] had been different from Hebrew, and rejected the claim then-current also among Christian authors, that [[language development|a child left unexposed to linguistic stimulus]] would automatically begin to speak in Hebrew.<ref>Umberto Eco, ''The Search for the Perfect Language'' (1993), p. 32 f.</ref> Both Muslim and Christian Arabs, such as [[Sulayman al-Ghazzi]], considered [[Syriac language|Syriac]] the language spoken by Adam and Eve.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Noble |first1=Samuel |last2=Treiger |first2=Alexander |title=The Orthodox Church in the Arab World, 700–1700: An Anthology of Sources |date=15 March 2014 |publisher=Cornell University Press |isbn=978-1-5017-5130-1 |page=164 |url=https://www.google.es/books/edition/The_Orthodox_Church_in_the_Arab_World_70/q6rMDwAAQBAJ |access-date=17 March 2024 |language=en}}</ref>

[[Umberto Eco]] (1993) notes that [[Book of Genesis|Genesis]] is ambiguous on whether the language of Adam was preserved by Adam's descendants until the [[confusion of tongues]],<ref>Genesis 11:1–9</ref> or if it began to evolve naturally even before Babel.<ref>Genesis 10:5</ref><ref>Umberto Eco, ''The Search for the Perfect Language'' (1993), 7–10.</ref>