[Mesorah] At/Atah

[kennethgmiller at juno.com]

R' Michael Hamm wrote:
> That's nice from a linguist's point of view, but I thought
> we hold that Hebrew was spoken before any other language?
> See Rashi, B'reshis 2:23. 

R' Raphael Davidovich responded:
> Just because Chazal midrashically identify the language of
> the Torah as the language of Adam Harishon does not mean it
> is the historical origin language of all other languages.

Chazal do far more than merely "identify the language of the Torah as the language of Adam Harishon". The Rashi which RMH said to look at says, "Mikan shenivra haolam bilshon hakodesh", which I would translate as, "From here we know that Lashon Hakodesh was used to create the world."

In other words, Rashi is saying that Hebrew existed before the world. This does not necessarily preclude the concurrent (whatever that means in this context) existence of other languages, but it *would* preclude the possibility of Hebrew developing from them.

OTOH, I suppose there could be those who disagree with this Rashi.

Akiva Miller

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