Adamic language

The Adamic language, according to Jewish tradition (as recorded in the midrashim) and some Christians, is the language spoken by Adam (and possibly Eve) in the Garden of Eden. It is variously interpreted as either the language used by God to address Adam (the divine language), or the language invented by Adam with which he named all things (including Eve), as in the second Genesis creation narrative (). In the Middle Ages, various Jewish commentators held that Adam spoke Hebrew, a view also addressed in various ways by the late medieval Italian poet Dante Alighieri. In the early modern period, some authors continued to discuss the possibility of an Adamic language, some continuing to hold to the idea that it was Hebrew, while others such as John Locke were more skeptical. More recently, a variety of Mormon authors have expressed various opinions about the nature of the Adamic language. According to Ethiopian and Eritrean traditions, the ancient Semitic language of Ge'ez is the language of Adam. Augustine addresses the issue in The City of God. While not explicit, the implication of there being but one human language prior to the Tower's collapse is that the language, which was preserved by Heber and his son Peleg, and which is recognized as the language passed down to Abraham and his descendants, is the language that would have been used by Adam. Traditional Jewish exegesis such as Midrash says that Adam spoke the Hebrew language because the names he gives Eve – Isha and Chava – only make sense in Hebrew. By contrast, Kabbalism assumed an "eternal Torah" which was not identical to the Torah written in Hebrew. Thus, Abraham Abulafia in the 13th century assumed that the language spoken in Paradise had been different from Hebrew, and rejected the claim then-current also among Christian authors, that a child left unexposed to linguistic stimulus would automatically begin to speak in Hebrew. Umberto Eco (1993) notes that Genesis is ambiguous on whether the language of Adam was preserved by Adam's descendants until the confusion of tongues, or if it began to evolve naturally even before Babel.