If however a division occurs within a single speech community, physically isolating some speakers from others, then it is only a matter of time before the separated communities begin speaking differently from each other since the various groups continue to experience linguistic change independently of each other. Under normal circumstances the speakers of a given language continue to understand one another as they make the changes together. It is an axiomatic fact that languages continually change. This booklet, which was designed to help the POWвЂ™s in their adjustment, resulted from the recognition that the American English lexicon, at least among the youth, had changed enough during the isolation of these prisoners to justify this type of project ( cf. In the 1970вЂ™s, at the conclusion of the Vietnam War, the United States Air Force prepared a glossary of recent slang terms for the returning American prisoners of war ( Fromkin and Rodman 1993, 301). Language Change from the Perspective of Historical Linguistics There is likely much about this account that we really donвЂ™t understand. In any event, I hope to show that many scholars have been too hasty in their dismissal of the biblical account. But I do hope to show that when the account is examined for what it actually says, rather than what others have claimed for it, it presents intriguing possibilities for even the most secularly-oriented scholars. As with some of the remarkable events recounted in scripture, many things come down to a matter of faith.

By exploring this possible interpretation, I do not claim to be able to prove that the event at Babel actually happened. This alternative interpretation, which can be shown to be consistent with well-established principles of historical linguistics, will be examined in light of the scriptural text, historical linguistics, and folkloric accounts from widely separated cultures. This paper will examine one possible interpretation of the Tower of Babel account, namely that God used a scattering of the people to cause a confusion of languages rather than the commonly assumed notion among many readers of the account that He used a confusion of languages to scatter the people. And the account doesnвЂ™t even claim that the diversification of languages was an immediate event ( Dresher 2010). As one linguist has noted, for example, while the account does indicate a common original language, it doesnвЂ™t claim that that language was Hebrew or that God necessarily used a supernatural process in confounding the languages.

When we actually look at the account closely, in fact, we may be surprised at what we see. We must be careful to distinguish what some have assumed or attributed to the account from what the account actually says. Ironically enough, much of the hostility among academics toward the Babel account may even derive from mistaken notions about what the account is even claiming. For example, one Hebrew scholar explains: вЂњBut modern scholarship has come more and more to the conclusion that beneath the legendary embellishments there is a solid core of historical memory, that Abraham and Moses really lived, and that the Egyptian bondage and the Exodus are undoubted factsвЂќ ( Bamberger 1981, xxxv). But although many scholars reject the historicity of the account and relegate it to myth or legend status, they should recognize that it is in their own interest to examine carefully such вЂњmythsвЂќ because of the information those accounts could reveal about actual events.

Representative of the view some hold toward the account, at least as the account is usually understood, is the attitude expressed by one linguistic scholar who views it as вЂњan engaging but unacceptable mythвЂќ ( Burchfield 1986, 2). Among language historians and academics, however, this account is seldom taken seriously. The biblical account of the Tower of Babel constitutes one of the most well-known explanations for the diversification of the worldвЂ™s languages.

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