I was wondering what the Christian Creationist view of Language Development is? Did Adam just arrive on this physical plane with the ability to speak? Did he really need that ability before Eve arrived from his Ribs…? What language if any did God impart upon Adam and Eve?
Since the Bible is written in Olde English, I think it’s pretty obvious.
To give names to all the animals?
Presumably, the language everyone spoke before the Tower of Babel incident.
A lot of effort has been put into figuring out which language most closely resembles the language spoken in the Garden of Eden. And it’s pretty interesting stuff… read “The Search For The Perfect Language” by Umberto Eco for details.
An interesting hijack here. According to Herodotus, the Egyptian ruler Psammetichus attempted to determine the most ancient language by taking two children and isolating them from all human language. After two years, the herdsman in charge of the experiment approached the children quietly, and they ran toward him with outstretched arms saying the word “Bekos”. Upon inquiring, Psammetichus learned this was the Phrygian word for “bread” (Phrygia was an ancient region of central Asia Minor). So there you have it: The first language was Phrygian:-)
I’ve heard this experiment also attributed to a medieval European king. In that case, the kids died.
I think that was Emperor Frederick II (who was a bit of a scientist), but I can’t find the story in his Wikipedia article. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_II%2C_Holy_Roman_Emperor
My parents are Pentecostals, not fundamentalist proper, but they’re heavy into biblical literacy. My mother would say they spoke Hebrew; my father would say it was English.
No, I’m not kidding. This is why I don’t about religion with my dad (though for the most part he’s a much better man than I am).
Old
Middle
Modern
Present-Day
St James Bible = Modern
Qabbalistically I think there is a certain assumption that Hebrew is a sort of “Assembly” language that translates the primordial language of the Sephiroth into something that can be thought and spoken.
[caveat]Of course I do not consider myself a christian as I feel the organization of Christianity is the extension of empire from the Roman empire. (Kind of like the Foundation by Isaac Asimov) with it’s two seperate foundations of Orthodoxy and Catholicism, as such they cannot be seperated from the Imperial propaganda. However, I do believe in Christ as the savior in as much as the heart is the doorway to God and the only way to salvation lies through it. [/caveat]
The terms Adam and Eve I believe are the etymology of the terms “Atom” and “Evening”, in the ideas that they represent, that of matter, and a seperation of matter in order to provide form. So the language that they spoke would be one of pure physics, in the beginning every word they spoke changed the fundamental nature of that which they named. The naming of such is what allowed for the manipulation of the things that were named. This requires Atom and Evening to be more archetypical forms of conciousness which would more accurately reflect the form of God, as they were made in God’s image. This would make it more like Atom and Evening were the first incarnations of the patriarchal and matriarchal God figures. Of course there are the traditions of Satan and Lilith, which at a time where the singularity is much more mutable could very well just be manifestations of the other side of both Atom and Evening presenting the appearance of a dichotomy where there really wasn’t one for all practical intents and purposes. The inhabitance of the hairless monkey came later, and may very well have been a concious engineering of such creatures to allow for maximum versatility. I also believe in a lost antiquity of the human race prior to the 6000+ years that we consider as “History”, where human beings existed in an alternate form from what they exist in now.
I personally have a pet theory that I toy with once in a while where Hebrew is kind of the language of the beginning and English is the language of the end, in otherwords the language of ultimate purity and the language of ultimate bastardization. (Don’t attach the concept of superiority/inferiority to any of these words please I am not making moral judgements of the languages)
Also, I completely believe in evolution. DNA is a form of information, if not language (being that it’s not ‘lingual’) That information is implicit to the formation of the world that we currently inhabit and even if Hebrew has maintained any modicum of purity in all that history, our understanding of it has not, therefore it’s not really possible to state simply what the original language was as supposedly God split the original language into multiple languages when he smote the Tower of Babel for the sin of not creating a strong structural foundation first. God doesn’t have a lot of tolerance for shoddy workmanship that attempts to disobey things like the law of Gravity. 
Perhaps the disunity of language after the Tower of Babel was a schism between the Priests, Nobles and Workers who undertook such a large task and ended up with a certain amount of tunnel vision. So the original language would be any words that Atom made up.
Erek
There is a theory in very conservative C’tian & even Jewish circles that all the world’s languages are rooted in something that could be called paleo-Hebrew.
Such theorists have found some interesting parallels in many language groups to
Semitic roots. I have no idea how valid these are.
Conversely, it’s not too out-there to wonder if pre-Fall humanity had a form of telepathy.
Eh…? Sounds a bit far out to me!
What’s the origin of the belief that Adam and Eve were telepaths… is that part of modern Christian doctrine? 
It was Church Slavonic. 
Nope – “Adam” is Hebrew for “human”, and “Eve” (Hawwah) is “life”. “Atom”, though is Greek “atomos” (“a + tomos”) == “not cut”, and “evening” is from Old English “aefnung”, a verbal form of “aefen” == “evening”, ultimately coming from an old Germanic word “aebando”.
The only problem with this is that there exist languages before Hebrew, and Hebrew itself is manifestly part of the larger Semitic and Afro-Asiatic groupings, and there even exist languages (such as Arabic) that maintain more primitive Semitic features that Hebrew has lost. It’s not some sort of mystical proto-language, but just a relative latecomer to the Afro-Asiatic family of languages.
Here’s are sites promoting a book THE WORD by Isaac Mozeson which expresses the above idea-
http://www.hebrewworld.com/theword.html
Uh, Sevastopol, last I heard, nobody has yet canonized King John, nor anybody else involved in the translation of the Bible which he commissioned. And the language currently spoken in England, the US, etc. is Modern English, just as was that spoken in the time of Shakespeare.
(substitute King James for King John there… I knew something didn’t look right when I posted it)
And FriarTed, there aren’t enough rolleyes in all of creation for that Mozeson fellow’s work.
Oh Lord, no!
It’s just speculation I’ve heard occasionally by Christians over the years that
perhaps Adam & Eve in their unfallen state could have been in such harmony
with each other & the world around them that they had complete & open mental
communication with each other & maybe even animals.
Why?
So that’s where “If you really loved me you’d read my mind” comes from!