Who taught Adam to speak?1

Abstract

It is taken for granted that the first man, being half-ape, 'spoke’ by copying them. Research shows that such grunts and cries cannot ‘evolve' into cultured speech because the speech organs and brain structure required for human language are entirety different from those needed for of animal communication. The difference in animal and human thinking processes is not merely one of degree but rather of kind. This difference is seen in the use of signs vs. symbols, of emotional and situational language v.v. conceptual, objective language. No animal communication system can account for the human one. Perhaps, then, speech is instinctive? No, for people, however primitive, have been found without a language. Yet unless spoken to, one does not learn to speak as demonstrated by feral (wild) children and deaf-mutes(like Helen Keller). So the question is - who spoke to the first human being - Adam to teach him? About all that scientific investigation can do is to demonstrate what cannot be the origin of this extraordinary trait of human nature. The only light we have is from revelation. The first two chapters of Genesis not only tell us Who spoke first but also how the process of language was acquired. But the implications of the necessity of this unique faculty in terms of his humanity and the purpose of his very creation are profound.