Another instance, mom was right.
you know....a while back...and it was admittedly a long time ago, I read an article in The Atlantic which said that linguists were closing in on the theory that there once was a single human language, and then very rapidly, perhaps due to some sort of cataclysm, that language spread from the Middle East to all parts of the earth and became, again, quickly, distinct languages.
I was shocked that they were closing in on the Babel account, and what was even more depressing, was that they didn’t make an offhanded cultural remark to the Biblical “myth” even just as a cultural reference. I found that surprising and sort of assumed that the author was not even aware of the Biblical account.
Now having said all that....I do not know if that is the current thinking among linguists, and I do not know if that particular theory advanced very far. I don’t follow this stuff closely.
But it was interesting.