ADAMIC LANGUAGE

The 'Adamic language' is a term for the hypothetical proto-language believed spoken by Adam and Eve in paradise, either identical with the language used by God to address Adam, or invented by Adam (Genesis 2:19).

Contents

Medieval and Early modern discussions

In modern linguistics

In Mormonism

See also

Notes

References

External links

Medieval and Early modern discussions

Traditional Jewish exegesis such as Midrash (Genesis Rabbah 38) assumes that Adam spoke Hebrew because the names he gives Eve - "Isha" (Genesis 2:23) and "Chava" (Genesis 3:20) - only make sense in Hebrew ("Isha" is from "Ish", man, and "Chava" is from "Chai", life).
It is, however, unclear how much from the Biblical perspective this language was preserved by Adam's descendants until the confusion of tongues (Genesis 11:1-9), or that it began to evolve naturally (Genesis 10:5). There is no ancient claim that the Adamic language was identical to Biblical Hebrew, for "the Torah was written in the vernacular" of the Israelites (Talmud Sanhedrin 21b).
Dante in the ''Divina commedia'' implies that the language of Paradise was different from later Hebrew by saying that Adam addressed God as ''I'' rather than El''.
Some Early Modern scholars based on Genesis 10:5 have assumed that the Japhetite languages are rather the direct descendants of the Adamic language, having separated before the confusion of tongues, by which also Hebrew was affected. The same is claimed by Anne Catherine Emmerich, that stated in her private revelations that most direct descendants of the Adamic language were Bactrian, Zend and Indian languages. In this way Emmerich identifies Adamic language as Proto-Indo-European language.

In modern linguistics

According to Ernst Cassirer, ''The sixteenth- and seventeenth-century philosophers of language still supposed that phenomena of onomatopoeia offered the key to the basic and original language of mankind, the lingua adamica.''^[1] The modern concept corresponding to that of the Adamic language is that of the Proto-World language, but rather than positing divine inspiration, linguists also assume that it arose from proto-linguistic forms of communication.
Recent treatments of a "language of Eden", such as the
''Edenics'' of Isaac E. Mozeson, suggested in his ''The Origin of Speeches: Intelligent Design in Language: From the Language of Eden to Our Babble After Babel'', are in the realm of pseudoscience.

In Mormonism

In Mormonism, the Adamic language has been thought by some Latter Day Saints to be the language of God. Though different from Hebrew, the Hebrew language was thought to contain remnants of this ancient language, including the words Elohim and Jehovah. According to Joseph Smith, Jr.'s translation of the Bible, this language was "pure and undefiled".^[2]
Some other early leaders of the Latter Day Saint movement, including Brigham Young,^[3] Orson Pratt^[4] and Elizabeth Ann Whitney^[5] claimed to have received several words in the Adamic language in revelations. Some Latter Day Saints believe that the Adamic language will be restored as the universal language of humankind at the end of the world.
The name of the Mormon settlement "Adam-ondi-Ahman" in Daviess County, Missouri is said to derive from the Adamic language.
Mormon temple ceremonies, such as the prayer circle, once used the words "Pay Lay Ale"^[6] which the church believed were Adamic words meaning "Oh God, hear the words of my mouth," but is a very good Hebrew for "mouth to God," and relates to the Hebrew verb ''palal'', "to pray." The untranslated words are no longer used in temple ceremonies, and have been replaced by the English version.^[7]
Other words thought by some Mormons to derive from the Adamic language include ''deseret'' ("honey bee", see Ether 2:3, but is a valid Egyptian word ''dsrt,'' which in fact refers to the honey bee), and ''Ahman'' ("God"). Some have also taken the word ''shelem'' to mean "height" (see Ether 3:1) though the passage states, "''...which they called the mount Shelem, because of its exceeding height...''" not necessarily implying that the word actually means "height," but more practically that the word has at least something to do with "exceeding height."
Joseph Smith's translation of the Bible refers to "The Book of Remembrance", written in Adamic,^[8] but no copies of that book have been found.

See also

★ History of linguistics

★ Proto-World language

★ confusion of tongues

★ Hebrew

★ Lingua ignota

★ Endowment (Latter Day Saints)

Notes

1. ''The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms'' I, p.191 (English translation, 1953).
2. Book of Moses 6:6.
3. ''History of the Church'' '1':297 (Young prays in the Adamic tongue).
4. ''Journal of Discourses'' '2':368 (God="Ahman"; Son of God="Son Ahman"; Men="Sons Ahman"; Angel="Anglo-man").
5. 7 Woman's Exponent 83 (1 November 1878).
6. Steven Naifeh & Gregory White Smith, ''The Mormon Murders'', St. Martins's Press, New York, 1988, ISBN 0-312-93410-6, p. 69.
7. Tamra Jean Braithwaite, ''A Mormon Odyssey'', Xlibris Co., 2003, ISBN 1413418783, p. 212.
8. Moses 6:5, 46.

References

★ Anne Catherine Emmerich, ''Life of Jesus Christ And Biblical Revelations'' (1790).

★ John S. Robertson, 1 ''Encyclopedia of Mormonism'', "Adamic Language".

External links

★ In Search of the Adamic Language, Meridian Magazine