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Author Topic:   Languages and the Creationist account.
Son Goku
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Message 1 of 2 (633038)
09-12-2011 7:07 AM


Something that has occurred to me recently is the inconsistency between the biblical account and the work of historical linguists.
Most of the languages of Europe, Iran and Northern India trace back to one ancestor group of dialects called Proto-Indo-European. Then Proto-Indo-European and the ancient Anatolian languages such as Hittite trace back to an earlier language commonly known as Archaic-Proto-Indo-European, Indo-Anatolian or similar such names. The most commonly accepted theory is that collection of languages and dialects labelled Proto-Indo-European was spoken in the Pontic Caspian steppes in the Southern Ukraine, from about 4,000 B.C. until around 2,500 B.C.
It is commonly believed that the reason for the spread of this language is related to the domestication of the horse by its speakers and their expansion following a farming crisis in Neolithic Europe.
In any case the date of 4,000 B.C. is quite close to the creation of the world according to some creationist accounts and certainly prior to the Tower of Babel from which all languages are meant to originate.
I propose that the literal Biblical account cannot be reconciled with the historical picture uncovered by linguists.
In addition to the points mentioned above, we also have the problem that the Indo-European languages alone reach a date of 4,000 B.C. If try to imagine that there was a single language from which Proto-Afro-Asiatic and Proto-Indo-European, for example the Nostratic hypothesis, then we need dates of the order of 9,000 B.C.
Also there is no strong evidence for proposals such as the Nostratic hypothesis, all our information is still consistent with the supposition that language was invented independently in different areas, which would contradict the story of the Tower of Babel.
So Indo-European alone is too old and either of the options concerning the connection between it and other languages present problems for the biblical account.

AdminPD
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Message 2 of 2 (633063)
09-12-2011 9:39 AM


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