ONE LANGUAGE: WHY WE CANNOT DECODE MODERN LANGUAGES BACK TO THE TIME AFTER THE TOWER OF BABEL
At the time of the Tower of Babel, the people spoke the same words: safa ehat oudevarim ahadim. (Gn. 11:1) In v. 7, God said to his host, “let us mix” (navelah: mix or confound) their languages so as they could not understand (hear: yish me ou) one another.
Whatever the case, after the confounding, the people could no longer entertain the ease of the same words of one language. How the languages began to differ from that point until today can be understood by all the different languages people speak today from different parts of the world. Did God have a phonetic neuron algorithm unknown to us to make the peoples speak so differently today? Could we decipher the secondary languages if we had a computer and knowledge how to trace back each language to the point of the mixing of languages after the original one language? I don't think we have that ability, but we can see that many languages are similar even though they are very different today.
The language of Adam and Eve evolved until the time of Babel (about 1,500 years). We only have to trace history back to 4,500 years ago or so to get an idea of how different peoples from different lands spoke of the same person or event. We can only recognize some early expressions of the different languages, not the early syntax of languages since the secondary stage of language.
Nevertheless, we can recognize relatively early languages.
As to reversing the confounding of languages, God has also given instant ability for men to speak a different language that others can understand. This happened at Pentecost, mentioned in the NT Scriptures (Acts 2:11). Seemingly, God can even reset a phonetic neuron path. The Lord also gives another gift of languages that He understands, and perhaps his host (I Corinthians 13:1), not men (I Corinthians 14:2). Verse 27 gives orderly instruction as to how the gift of interpretation of a tongue/language is to be applied by those speakers within the assembly.
Logically, all of these events and changes of speaking and hearing were determined within the six days of creation.
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