The following is NOT presented for the religious aspect. Only stated to show the importance of language.
The Bible is either the Word of God or it is the word of man. In either case the author has given us some insight into the importance of language.
~The Tower of Babel
11:1 Now the whole world had one language and a common speech.
2 As men moved eastward, they found a plain in Shinar and settled there.
3 They said to each other, "Come, let's make bricks and bake them thoroughly." They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar.
4 Then they said, "Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves and not be scattered over the face of the whole earth."
5 But the LORD came down to see the city and the tower that the men were building.
6 The LORD said, "If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them.
7 Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other."
8 So the LORD scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city.
9 That is why it was called Babel - because there the LORD confused the language of the whole world. From there the LORD scattered them over the face of the whole earth.
If God is real and if He has the power to and did in fact create everything, look at the mehod he used to stop people from accomplishing things, from getting things done. He has the power to stop bricks from being made. He could force the people to stop with threats or actual punishment. He could stick them in a cave somewhere and throw away the opening. He could have destroyed the tower each time the people tried to put it up. He chose something that He knew would make it impossible for them to continue. Confuse their language so they could not communicate and therefore could not get anything done.
If the bible is the work of a man or men, and it is all a story, the author or authors wrote about a way that they felt would stop human accomplishment - make it so they could not communicate with one another. If this is just a story, they could have thought of something a little more drastic. Turn everyone into a pillar of salt, bring some walls down with a trumpet or put some supernatural beings around the mud pit where the bricks were made.
Point is - someone real or someone supernatural knows how to stop people from accomplishing anything together. Make them speak different languages so that communication is difficult or impossible. Can you think of anything stronger to stop progress? Can you think of anything that would contribute more to human progress than to allow the people to communicate freely and understandably IN A COMMON LANGUAGE???
So, yes, I agree with Ted, but I would go further and say that there should be a world wide effort for everyone to have a common language - whatever it is. If nothing else consider how much unwarranted distrust would be eliminated.
Doug '97 TJ
Creator of the CBrack
CBrack.com