In the Beginning was Information

soní ájiilaa, índa dahólonígíí t’áálá’í ndi t’áá hádingo t’áadoo la’ályaada. 4 Iiná hwii’ hóló, áko éí iinánígíí nihokáá’dine’é bá bee adindíín.Conclusion: All languages are unique and all perform their functionswell. They comprise morphological, grammatical, and semantic complexitiesand structures which were not devised by any person. The members ofaboriginal tribes do not even realise that they use finely shaded categories.They also do not know the structure of their grammar, so that their languagecould not have been devised by their forebears.Johann Peter Süßmilch established in 1756 that man could not haveinvented language without having the necessary intelligence, and also thatintelligent thought in its turn depends on the previous existence of speech.The only solution to this paradox is that God must have given humanbeings language as a gift.V. Fromkin and R. Rodman [F8] concluded that there was no proof for oragainst the divine origin of language, just as nobody can scientificallyprove the existence or the non-existence of God.In actual fact: One cannot prove the existence of God, but He hasrevealed Himself in creation in such a way that we can deduce his greatnessand his wisdom (Psalm 19, Romans 1:19-20). The same holds for theorigin of languages. An evolutionary development can be precludedimmediately, and it is clear from the complexity of all languages thatbehind and above the brilliant concepts figuring in all of them, there mustbe an Originator of the ideas. We thus accept the biblical report that Godgifted man with this special ability when he was created. The gift ofspeech is apparent from the following particulars:– Creation of the necessary special speech apparatus for articulation,– the ability to create words (Genesis 2:19),– the ability to learn a language,– creative use of the language phenomenon.Originally there was only one language (Genesis 11:1), but at the Babeljudgment (Genesis 11:7) God caused many languages to arise, preservingthe ability to express all thoughts in words. Using several examples, wehave illustrated the complexity, and the special strengths and weaknessesof some languages.At the moment some 5,100 languages and dialects are spoken on earth.Many have become extinct, up to 3,000 during the past thousand years,and only about 100 languages are spoken by more than one million peopleeach. Two-thirds of the entire world population employ only five languages:Mandarin Chinese, Hindustani, English, Russian, and Spanish.213