Language in the New World

Language is a dynamic, living thing, constantly in a state of flux. Just compare British English and American English, and you'll quickly notice how many differences there are in pronunciation, spelling, grammar, and slang. And those are just two dialects of the same language, with the American counterpart only having developed for about three centuries!
And if you go back further than that? Check out this passage from Luke 8:1-3 from the Wycliffe's Bible, published in 1384:

¹And it was don aftirward, and Jhesu made iorney by citees and castelis, prechinge and euangelysinge þe rewme of God, ²and twelue wiþ him; and summe wymmen þat weren heelid of wickide spiritis and syknessis, Marie, þat is clepid Mawdeleyn, of whom seuene deuelis wenten ³out, and Jone, þe wyf of Chuse, procuratour of Eroude, and Susanne, and manye oþere, whiche mynystriden to him of her riches.

I know what you're thinking: Huh? Sounds like a foreign language, right? Although I'm no expert on languages, I'd guess that non-English languages are the same, constantly evolving with the flow of time.

Of course, this poses a lot of interesting questions when it comes to life in paradise. There are currently about 6,000 spoken on this planet, and many of these language groups can't communicate with each other without learning at least a little of each others' language. Clearly, in the new world the language barrier will be a thing of the past. But how? There seem at present to be two possible scenarios: 1) Jehovah will miraculously unify the languages sometime after Armageddon, or 2) We will be required to study and learn a new language.

When I started mapping out All Things New, I quickly realized that I would need to choose one of these premises and stick with it throughout the course of the novel. It was an important element to decide early on, since it would affect a lot of the minuter details in Mitch's story. If you've read that book or The Unrighteous, then you'll already know which option I went with. (Hint: language classes were not part of the reconstruction work.) This blog post will explain why I leaned this way.

Please keep in mind: I am in no way dogmatic about this stance! And truthfully, it doesn't really matter; it'll all work out in the end. But since, from time to time, I do get emails asking why I chose this particular scenario, I thought it'd be worth writing about.

So, why is it that in the novels, everyone miraculously speaks a unified tongue right after Armageddon, you ask?

Well, thinking back to the days directly after the Noachian flood, we know that man spoke one language (or perhaps some dialects varying slightly from the original language Jehovah created Adam with). This, of course, enabled Nimrod to organize the people at that time to build a tower. The purpose behind the tower (to make a god-like name for themselves, and perhaps, as the Insight book points out, to survive a future flood), was in direct opposition to Jehovah's purpose, so he did something no one could have fathomed: he created a host of new languages. The results were immediate: chaos erupted, construction halted, and the people scattered.

Based on this account, it seems that Jehovah used the new languages to, in a sense, 'curse' the unrighteous people of that time. The results have plagued us down to this day. (If you've ever tried to learn a new language, you'll know that sometimes it truly feels like climbing an insurmountable barrier). The question is, Would it make sense for Jehovah to leave this barrier in place after the destruction of this wicked system of things? Or would He reverse the 'curse' from Nimrod's day, miraculously restoring our ability to communicate? To me, the latter seems more likely.

Another reason that I went with this scenario is that He's done it before. In Pentecost 33 C.E., when the Christian congregation was established, an outpouring of holy spirit resulted in the miraculous speaking of foreign tongues. Those first century Christians didn't need to study grammar or write flash cards–they could suddenly speak those tongues fluently, and this was done to facilitate the preaching to foreign-language Gentiles in Jerusalem at the time.

Under the subheading Language in the Insight book:

So, it appears that, when Jehovah God confused the speech of those at Babel, he first blotted out all memory of their previous common language and then introduced into their minds not only new vocabularies but also changed thought patterns, producing new grammars.

Indeed, language and thinking go hand in hand. Mastering a new language thus takes decades, since it requires the learner to reshape their thinking process. (New learners in a foreign language congregation will often lament that they can only give comments 'like a baby'. In fact, from a neurological stance, that is exactly what they're doing: learning the thought process and word formation from scratch, starting at the most rudimentary level and working their way up, as a child does.) And in the end, no matter how fluent the learner becomes, it rarely connects to the heart like their mother tongue.

So, for these reasons, it's my guess that scenario #1 is most likely. However, I am fully willing to be wrong on this point and many others!

Did I miss something? Is there another scenario I'm leaving out? Think we'll study the new tongue instead? Leave your feedback in the comments!