Chapter 1: On the languages of the nations

1. The diversity of languages arose after the flood, at the building of the tower; for before that proud undertaking divided human society among different languages (_in diversos signorum sonos_) there was one tongue for all peoples, which is called Hebrew. This the patriarchs and prophets used, not only in their conversation, but in the sacred writings as well. At first there were as many languages as peoples, then more peoples than languages, because many peoples sprang from one language.

3. There are three sacred languages, Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, and they are supreme through all the world. For it was in these three languages that the charge against the Lord was written above the cross by Pilate. Wherefore, because of the obscurity of the holy Scriptures, a knowledge of these three languages is necessary, in order that there may be recourse to a second if the expression in one of them leads to doubt of a word or its meaning.

4. But the Greek tongue is considered most famous among the tongues of the nations. For it is more resonant than the Latin and all other tongues, and its variety is discerned in its five divisions: of which the first is called κοινή, that is, debased or common, which all use.

5. The second is Attic, that is, the Athenian speech which all the writers of Greece used. The third is Doric, which the Egyptians have and the Sicilians. The fourth is Ionic. The fifth, Aeolic, which the Aeoles spoke. In observing the Greek tongue there are definite distinctions of this sort; for their language is divided in this way.

6. Certain have asserted that there are four Latin languages, namely, the early, the Latin, the Roman, the corrupted. The early is that which the oldest Italians used in the time of Janus and Saturn, a rude speech, as is shown in the songs of the Salii; the Latin, which they spoke in Latium under Latinus and the kings of Tuscia, in which the twelve tables were written.

7. The Roman, which began to be spoken by the Roman people after the kings were driven out, which was used by the poets Naevius, Plautus, Ennius, Virgilius, the orators Gracchus, Cato, Cicero, and the rest. The corrupted Latin, which, after the empire was extended more widely, burst into the Roman state along with customs and men, corrupting the soundness of speech by solecisms and barbarisms.

10. Every language, Greek, Latin, or of other nations, any man can grasp by hearing it, or can get from a teacher by reading. Though a knowledge of all languages is difficult for anyone, still no one is so sluggish that, situated as he is in his own nation, he should not know his own nation’s language. For what else is he to be thought except lower than the brute animals? For they make the sound that is proper to them, but he is worse who lacks a knowledge of his own language.

11. What sort of language God spoke at the beginning of the world when he said “Let there be light”, it is difficult to discover. For there were no languages yet. Likewise [it is hard to learn] in what tongue he spoke later to man’s external ear, especially when he spoke to the first man or to the prophets, or when God’s voice sounded corporally[322] as when he said, “Thou art my beloved son”, where it is believed by certain authorities that he used that one and single language that existed before there was a diversity of language. However among the different nations it is believed that God speaks to them in that same tongue which they themselves use, so as to be understood by them.

[322] _Corporaliter._

12. God speaks to men, not through the agency of invisible substance, but by an embodied being, in which form he has willed to appear to men when he has spoken. The Apostle says also: “If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels”, where the question arises in what tongue angels speak. Not that angels have languages, but this is said figuratively.

13. Likewise it is asked what tongue men will speak in future. The answer is nowhere found....

14. And we have written first about tongues and later about nations for the reason that nations have arisen from tongues, not tongues from nations.