What Language Did Adam And Eve Speak? (Answered!)

Jewish tradition holds that Adam spoke what is called the Adamic language, and Eve most likely did, too. This could either be the language with which God spoke to Adam, or it could be the language which Adam used to name all things. This was the one language of humanity until it was confounded.

In modern Jewish and Christian scholarship, Adam and Eve are held to have spoken a language which is now lost to us.

However, for many centuries, Jewish scholars argued the language they spoke was simply Hebrew.

Let’s find out more.

In This Article

What was the language of Adam and Eve?

This is, of course, a question which is up for debate.

Adam and Eve were not historical figures, but mythological and allegorical figures.

It is never stated, absolutely, that they spoke this language or that language.

That said, language is a very important part of the Book of Genesis.

Genesis makes plain that God himself spoke to Adam and Eve at great length, and so he must have done so using a language.

This is what’s known in Biblical scholarship as the divine language.

This is a concept in many religions, and denotes the idea of a form of proto-language which was spoken by the Gods, predating all human language.

However, one of Adam’s first tasks after his creation is to name all things, which it is made clear is an invention of Adam’s.

He uses a different language to name things than that which he used to speak with God.

So, it’s possible that this is the language Adam and Eve spoke to each other, outside of God’s company.

In all this, the story of the Tower of Babel is also key.

This story tells how at one time, all human language was unified and everyone on Earth could understand each other.

However, one group attempted to build a tower that would reach up into Heaven.

God, angered by this display of hubris, smashed the tower, separated humanity and confounded their languages, so that they were mutually unintelligible.

According to one interpretation of the Biblical tradition, then, there was at one time a single, unified human language which presumably descended from the Adamic language.

Let’s consider what this language could have been in more detail.

What is the original language of God?

There are a number of different scholarly positions on this question.

One is that God’s language, as I mentioned, was the original, divine, proto-language which preceded all human language.

Of this language, we have no surviving record, no way of knowing how it sounded or any of the words which might have made up its vocabulary.

Adam would certainly have understood and spoken this language, since he and Eve talk with God at such lengths.

But the question is whether this language is lost to us, or whether it is a surviving language.

For centuries, scholarly tradition beginning in the Medieval period held that God had always spoken Hebrew to Adam, and that this was the divine language.

Indeed, many scholars even held that any child not exposed to language would eventually start speaking Hebrew automatically.

Some Christians, on the other hand, view the languages of the INRI cross as the divine languages—that is Greek, Latin, and Syriac.

What about the language Adam used to name things, then?

What language did Adam use to name things?

Again, according to Genesis, Adam uses the Adamic language to name animals.

Many scholars hold that this is made very plain to be a different language than the one God speaks to them in.

So, again, on the one hand, it may be the language Adam used to name things was Hebrew.

This would, however, categorically reject the notion that the divine language was Hebrew.

One piece of evidence supporting the idea that the Adamic language was Hebrew is that Adam names Eve Isha and Chava, which, linguistically, would only make sense in Hebrew.

Others hold that there was once an “eternal Torah”, which was ultimately translated into Hebrew from some other language.

In later periods, scholars tried to make connections to other languages in geographical regions where Eden was believed to be.

Antwerpian Brabantic, simply on the basis that Early Modern scholars believed early languages would be the simplest, was thought to be the language of Adam.

In short, we don’t know, and given that we are dealing with mythology and not history, every piece of information is up for interpretation.

What language did the name Adam come from?

What about the name Adam itself, then?

Unsurprisingly, there are theories that it is Hebrew in origin.

The Hebrew noun adamah supposedly meant “ground” or “earth”, and since Adam was made from the ground, this is where the name is supposed to have come from.

This is most likely folk etymology, though. It’s shared by virtually all modern languages in some form, so tracing its proper origin is nigh on impossible.

It is found in Ancient Greek, Latin, even Chinese. It’s another mystery lost to time, unfortunately.

So, it’s a significant theological question, but we can never know for sure.

It’s up for interpretation in a lot of ways, as many would argue the simple position that Hebrew was always the language that they spoke.

However, this is by no means the prevailing view of modern or even historical scholarship.

The Adamic language, whatever it once was, is now lost to us.

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Founder - @PollyWebster

Polly Webster is the founder of Foreign Lingo and a seasoned traveler with a decade of exploration under her belt.

Over the past 10 years, she has journeyed to numerous countries around the globe, immersing herself in diverse cultures, traditions, and languages.

Drawing from her rich experiences, Polly now writes insightful articles about travel, languages, traditions, and cultures, sharing her unique perspectives and invaluable tips with her readers.

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