What Language Did People Speak before the Tower of Babel?

by Kaitlyn Iocco on May 15, 2024

We love hearing feedback and receiving questions from our readers.

Lucy asked,

“What language did people speak before the tower of Babel?”

That’s a good question, Lucy! The Bible doesn’t tell us exactly what language people spoke before the tower of Babel. But according to Genesis 11:1, we do know that “the whole earth had one language and the same words” at the time of the flood. Whatever that original language was named, everyone spoke it.

After the flood, God told Noah and his family to multiply and fill the earth. But as their numbers grew, the people disobeyed God’s command. Instead of spreading throughout the earth, they stayed put. They began building a great city and a tower that they dreamed could reach the heavens. The Bible says that when God came down to see the city and the tower, he said, “Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language . . . nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them” (Genesis 11:5–6). God confused their language so they would no longer understand each other and stop building the tower. People then began to spread throughout the world.

Fun Fact: Several different cultures from around the world have legends about a time in the past when only one language existed. We don’t need these examples to prove God’s Word, but they do confirm that God’s Word is true!

We know that everybody spoke the same language at the time of the flood because the Bible says so. But maybe you’re thinking, “But what about before the flood?”

Since God’s Word doesn’t say, we can only wonder. In the years before the flood, perhaps some people came up with their own unique languages for other reasons, like to prevent their enemies from understanding them. Sometimes, people even enjoy making up their own languages for fun. Authors like J. R. R. Tolkien and others have constructed their own languages for their fictional stories.

Perhaps different languages existed before the flood, or maybe there was only ever one language from the time when God created people to the time when God scattered the people at Babel.

What we know for certain is that all the languages we have in our world today trace back to the tower of Babel. At least 78 families came from Babel with new languages. Genesis 10 gives us the listing of most of these families. In our world today, there are fewer than 100 language families. This is a good confirmation of what the Bible says about the origin of languages at the tower of Babel!

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