7 C's of history - Answers in Genesis

ONFUSION‘Come, let us go down and there confusetheir language, so that they cannot understand oneanother’s speech. So the Lord scattered them abroadfrom that place upon the face of all the earth. Andthey quit building the city’(Genesis 11:7–8).The disobedient descendants of Noah decided tostay in one place, building a tall tower that theyhoped would help keep them all together.When the Lord saw their disobedience, He wasdispleased—as He is with all disobedience—andHe confused the language of the people so theycouldn’t understand each other (until this time,they all spoke one language). In this way, the Creatorscattered them over all the earth.The several different languages created suddenlyat Babel (Genesis 10–11) could each subsequentlygive rise to many more. Language graduallychanges, so when a group of people breaks intoseveral groups that no longer interact, after a fewcenturies, they may each speak a different (butrelated) language. Today, we have thousands oflanguages but fewer than 20 language ‘families.’16