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Augusr-September 1970
tongue. W riting about 1887, Joseph
Edkins made this statement:
"... ít remains possessed of a primi–
tive order of words, and a monosyllabic
structure. These peculíarities
give
it a
daím to be
a
direct descendant of the
mother tongue of humanity. . . . Fur–
ther, it may be said that there is no
other language ... which can be more
reasonably assumed to be the speech
first used in the world's grey morning
than can the Chinese.. . . Hence, Chi–
nese is regarded in tbis essay
as
the
equivalent of the primeval language"
(The Evol11tion of the Chinese Lan–
gt~age,
p.
vii).
Unfortunately, Dr. Edkíns wrote too
soon - before the research of Sinolo–
gists had reached its present-day stage.
Ratber thao beiog an undeveloped
primitive language, Chinese was
once
polysyllabk and
more complicated
in
structure.
Chinese has de·veioped sim–
plicity
-
to the complete chagrín of
evolutionists!
"Sinologists apparently believe the
prebistoric structure of Cbinese to bave
been quite complex.
If
this is true, then
its isolating structure is
anything bttt
primitive"
(J.
T . Waterman,
Per–
spectÍ11eJ in Ling11istics,
p.
38).
What more need be said ! The more
advanced a people becomes, the simpler
its language. But sorne of the most
backward and undeveloped cultures
have very complicated and complex
modes of speech. lt's enough to drive
a linguistic evolutionist to distraction!
Can you imagine it? Here- accord–
ing to evolutionary imagination- might
be a "pr.imitive'' people living in jungle
huts containing practically none of the
gadgetry we consider essential; but we
li.nd they have no difficulty in evolving
an intricate grammatical structure com–
plete with optative mood, aortist tense,
pluperfect passive participles, and loca–
tive case-all conforming so beautifully.
Where
Do
We Look Now?
But if linguists admit their studies
haven't provided the answer, who does
have it ? Js there a source somewhere,
perhaps overlooked by linguists and
evolutionists, that purports to give the
real sol11tion?
A key that will unlock
the riddle of languages?
There is a source, which in recent
The
PLAIN TRUTH
31
Molson Pholo
Many scholars consider these ruins of Birs Nimrod lo be the remnant of the
ancient tower of Babel. According to the Biblical record (Genesis
11 ),
all
modern doy languages had their origin here.
times has been laid aside and assumed to
be unscientific. Yet, it has never been
proved unscientific. And it does claim
to hold the key to the origin of lan–
guages.
If
we are conscientiously to
present all the arguments on this sub–
ject, we canoot ignore this basic docn–
ment - the account found in Genesis
11.
Here is recorded the story of the
Tower of Babel and the dividing of
tongues or languages. Read
the
account
for yourself. The narrative is short and
simple, giving only the barest details.
But it brings to mind two important
points:
(1) Speech was divided suddenly
into many different, fully developed
languages. The ability to talk, according
to this account, did not evolve gradually
from a state of speechlessness. This
conforms to wbat research has proved
- that the
originrtl
languages were
advanced, completely developed, and
intricately organized.
( 2)
The various nations arose out of
those scattered abroad from Babel, aod
logically would have sorne account or
legend ( though perhaps garbled) of
this division of language.
Now, notice sorne shocking parallels.
Many languages are related to one
another, making up language farnilies.
Such widespread languages as English,
German, Russian and the other Slavic
languages, the Scandinavian dialects
(except for Finoisb), Hindi, and the
Romance languages all form the
Indo–
E11ropean
family. Arabic, Hebrew, and
certain African Janguages are dassified
in another group. And so on. The num–
ber of estimated language farnilies
varies around 100, depending on who is
doing the cstimating.
According to this Biblical account,
different language groups were suddenly
created at one time - each independent
of the others. Of course, we are to
understand that dialects later diverged
frorn the maj or groups and developed
into di fferent language subgroups. For
example, one ancient Teutonic tongue
gave us such diverse modern-day
languages as Eoglish, German, and
Dutch, while Latín is now represented
by severa! Romance tongues.
And the consensus of modero