What language did Adam and Eve speak?

Answer

The Bible does not specify the language spoken by Adam and Eve. A clue is when Adam referred to his wife as “woman” because she was taken “out of man” «And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man. », (Genesis 2:23). The Hebrew word for “man” is ish and for “woman” is ishah. However, before assuming they spoke Hebrew due to this wordplay, it’s worth noting that English also has similar wordplay with man and woman. It’s possible that Moses in Genesis provided a Hebrew equivalent of their language, just as English versions offer an English equivalent.

Another hint is in Genesis 3:20: “The man named his wife Eve, because she was the mother of all the living.” In Hebrew, the word for “Eve” and “living” sound alike. There is no English equivalent. The English word Eve conveys more of an ending than a beginning. Yet, our word Eve comes from the Latin Eva, somewhat resembling the Hebrew word havvah, which is akin to the Hebrew word for “live.”

The language spoken by Adam and Eve remains unknown. The clues in Genesis could simply be a Hebrew translation of their original language. It’s important to consider that languages were confounded at Babel, possibly leading to the loss of the “original language” (Genesis 11). Even if the original language was a form of Hebrew or another Semitic language, languages evolve over time. Modern English speakers often struggle with Shakespeare’s Elizabethan English, just 400 years old, not to mention Chaucer’s Middle English, only 150 years older. Additionally, the Old English of Beowulf.

, written about 350 years before Chaucer, is barely recognizable as English and requires translation for modern readers to understand it. It is probable that the language spoken by Adam and Eve is now entirely unknown to us, even if it later evolved into what was known as Hebrew during Moses’ time.