Post 8 / Hannah Pulley

After the flood, and after beginning again from a single point, the entire Earth shared the same language. A group of people journeyed from the east and eventually found a level place to settle. In this spot, they proposed and began building a tower tall enough to reach the heavens. God, while impressed with their building skills, knew that if the people were able to finish the tower, no feat would be out of their reach. Instead, he began to scatter the people of Babel and their minds; they were strewn across the land and could no longer understand each other. As each person wandered farther and farther from the city of Babel, they shared their own tongue with their descendants, and thus, we have an explanation for the language diversity in the world. The question remains: what amazing things could we have done if all the people of earth could communicate and understand each other effortlessly?

I’d love to learn another language, but if progressing from conversational to fluent in French could open the door to working or living in another country, I’ll take it. Even in such an interconnected world, our parents learned foreign languages in school just as we do, but ask them, and they’ll likely answer that they remember little. Not everyone finds ways to use what they learned, and I don’t want to forget what I have right now. If it came to learning a language just for the fun of it, I would choose either Mandarin (because Japanese grammar is somewhat convoluted) or Japanese (because Chinese is a tonal language, and I’ve been told it takes a lifetime to grow accustomed to deciphering the pitches.) Right now, I’m saving these reasons for the day I decide my brain needs another challenge. It might be a while. 

Cited:

"Genesis 11 NKJV." Bible Gateway.com. Bible Gateway. Web. 29 Oct. 2014.