Bible Linguistics – 2. The Tower of Babel

Bible Linguistics – 2. The Tower of Babel

According to Genesis 11, humanity was originally unified in one language, but since the Tower of Babel, the language has become congested and scattered everywhere. Biblical genealogy, starting with Belek, Noah's eldest son Shem, and Joktan, his younger brother, divided their families and languages ​​(Genesis 10). This is probably the time when the tribe has changed since the Tower of Babel. Subsequently, as they spread all over the world, they developed into groups and languages. The Bible reveals twice that the world has been divided from Belek (meaning'Sharing') and Yoktan.
The Bible specifically lists the genealogy of Jokdan (meaning “He will be small”) twice with 1 Chronicles. Belek and Joktan descended from Shem, the brothers of Ham and Japheth. Apart from Peleg, where the world is divided, the fact that the genealogy of Joktan was mentioned twice appears to suggest that Joktan's genealogy will play an important role in the future. From this time on, the Bible explains that the tribe and language have been divided. It is said that the descendants of Joktan were the mountain east of the road from Mesa to Sval. Archeology thinks this is the Pamir Plateau, the Cheonsan Mountains, and the Altai Mountains, but this is a problem that needs to be studied further etymologically.
In this regard, we should pay attention to the Sumerian culture, and the Sumerian civilization is an ancient civilization that flourished around Mesopotamia. It will be covered later in this chapter to reveal where the Sumerians come from. We see the origin of human culture as Mesopotamia and start the discussion. Looking at the archaeological achievements of the region, from B.C 5,000 to 3,000, the region has a mixture of Stone Age and Bronze Age. Amazing culture was already in bloom at this time. With the development of irrigation agriculture and commerce, the prosperity of urban states, etc., the invention of characters was made, and what we are interested in is the existence of primitive characters at this time.
During the time of Belek and Joktan, the peoples scattered all over the world continued to speak different languages. On the other hand, each language evolved into each character, and the Sumerian (cuneiform, wedge), known as the first character, influenced the Semitic (Phoenician, Hebrew) characters and the Indo-European (Sanskrit, Tamil) characters. It seems to have affected. From this Sanskrit script, it has been developed into Greek/Roman, French/German, and English. This part belongs to etymology, which we will focus on in other parts. A recent study revealed that these languages ​​are roots of Korean and Japanese roots through the analysis of Sanskrit and Tamil. Since Sanskrit also forms the root of the Indo-European family, Sanskrit also serves as a common denominator for East and West languages, as it also serves as the basis for Chinese characters related to Korean. It is expected that the Sanskrit etymology study will prove that the language before the Tower of Babel was originally the same language.

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