Was there one original spoken language which is the main derivative-source of all present day languages?

Question

To simplify the question, what language would Adam and Eve have used to communicate?

Still, if confused by the question above, let me just ask you What is the oldest known spoken language?

Answer 1

Yes, about 200,000 or so years ago in Africa modern human language developed. This language began to diversify over time into the 6000 or so languages spoken today. It is impossible with modern linguistic methods to reconstruct what that language was like, but it was NOT any language spoken today or recorded within the last 5000 years of writing. All modern spoken languages are constantly changing and always have been. No modern language has existed for more than about 500 years in its current form. Examining the continuous written histories of languages shows how much they are constantly changing over time.

EDIT for Odds and Ends: Modern human language and Modern Homo sapiens are one and the same. It is virtually inconceivable that language developed after the development and spread of modern Homo sapiens sapiens. No historical linguists hold to the view of polygenesis anymore. Because of a strong basis in, admittedly, circumstantial evidence, nearly every modern linguist accepts that modern human language is monogenetic, that is, it originated at one place and time. Even though there are many languages that we cannot linguistically relate to any other language in the world, linguistic methodology for demonstrating relationships can only go back about 10,000 years. That's only about 5% of the linguistic history of mankind. No language in the world shows any evidence whatsoever of having a separate and independent origin from all the other languages in the world.

Proto-Indo-European is the ancestor language of only about 200 of the world's 6000 or so languages.

Answer 2

An interesting question. Adam and Eve is just Judaeo-Christian mythology of course. But the first humans lived in East Africa. Some time during the last three million years there were migrations south to South Africa, and north to the rest of Africa and the Middle East. From there they spread northwest to Europe and east to the rest of Asia. Then a group with seafaring ability settled Papua-New Guinea and Australia and a different group of seafarers spread throughout Polynesia. During the last ice age there was a land bridge across the Bering Strait, and people crossed it to North and South America and Greenland. The last place to be colonised by humans was New Zealand. I read a Scientific American article which stated that you can trace similarities between the languages of Asia and the Americas. The first European explorers found natives living as far south as Tierra del Fuego. Some languages can't be shown to be related to any other language; Japanese, Basque and some African languages for instance. But it's hard to believe that any of the world's languages originated independently of the rest of the human race. It's reasonable to assume that before any humans left Africa they already had language. But without written language to slow down the pace of change, language can change beyond recognition very quickly. In some places with dense jungle, tribes living in adjacent valleys have completely different languages. The oldest language? I don't know. A few words in modern English predate either Latin or the teutonic languages to which English is related. Examples are apple and hundred. You can trace both the Chinese and Hindi writing systems back at least 5000 years.

Answer 3

According to what I know of the Bible. The people were building some tower really tall, and that scared God... cuz if they could do that, they could do anything. So he confused them by giving them all different languages. I doubt God would be intimidated by people, but whatever.. that's what I remember.

We can't honestly tell which language was the original spoken, because it would have to be written to be recorded. Therefore, the language would have developed for many years before people began to write it down in stone.
I'm thinking Egyptian or Sumerian as the oldest written langauge. It was obviously also spoken, but there were probably many spoken before the Egyptians.

Answer 4

We probably had one common ancestor. But I don't think we have one common root language for all the languages we see today. I think the human race spread to different areas of the world efore language really developed.
So the answer is NO, there is no one original spoken language.
Adam and eve probably used gestures and short sounds to communicate. :-)

Answer 5

There's something called "Proto-Indo-European language" which linguists believe was the source for most languages spoken today.

Answer 6

Adam might have spoken Hebrew. It's really ancient. But I don't know and neither does anyone else.

Answer 7

It was the language of love!!!

Answer 8

We don't even know how to pronounce Latin from 2000 years ago, much less anything pre-written history.

Let it go. Just let it go.

Answer 9

According to Scripture......the blood of Adam (the father) contained all creeds, all races and all languages. So I would have to say it started with him peace to him and all his children :) amen

Answer 10

Norwegian!