[Avodah] Did the Patriarchs Speak Hebrew?

[Gershon Seif]

Leavining Avraham Avinu aside, what is the Ramban's view about the
language spoken by Adam HaRishon? ie. Naming his wife Chava and assigning
names to all the animals?If the Ramban concurs that these names were given
in lashon hakodesh, then he agrees that it was the first language. No?

Unless you say that lashon hakodesh was one of at least 2 languages that
Adam spoke and he reserved it for holy purposes only, such as giving
these names. And I suppose that would be along the lines of the other
Ramban quoted there which says that it's called Lashon Hakodesh because
it's the language that Hashem used to convey the Torah.

 

On Tuesday, December 19, 2017 1:37 AM, Professor L. Levine
<llevine at stevens.edu> wrote:
> From the article at https://goo.gl/Z3QWs2
> Ramban says: 

>> It is possible that he said this to them simply as a means of
>> pacifying them, for there was no proof [that he was Joseph] in the fact
>> that someone in Egypt should speak in the Holy Tongue. In my opinion,
>> Hebrew was a Canaanite language. For Abraham did not bring it from Ur
>> of the Chaldees [in Mesopotamia] and from Haran, for there they spoke
>> Aramaic...