Every Language Has a Chance at Immortality

Every language is learnt by the young from the old, so that every living language is the embodiment of a tradition. That tradition is in principle immortal. Languages change, as they pass from the lips of one generation to the next, but there is nothing about this process of transmission which makes for decay or extinction. Like life itself, each new generation can receive the gift of its language afresh. And so it is that languages, unlike any of the people who speak them, need never grow infirm, or die.

Every language has a chance at immortality, but this is not to say that it will survive for ever. Genes too, and the species they encode, are immortal; but extinctions are a commonplace of palaeontology. Likewise, the actual lifespans of language communities vary enormously. The annals of language history are full of languages that have died out, traditions that have come to an end, leaving no speakers at all.

Ostler, Empires of the Word, pp. 7-8

Even more than the linguist, the Christian knows that every language has a chance at immortality. The presence of the world’s diverse languages in the Son of Man vision of Daniel 7 and the heavenly throne room vision of Revelation 7 imply that many languages will indeed be immortal, living forever on the lips of their redeemed speakers. This makes practical sense since no one human language is sufficient on its own to describe God in all his wonder. In fact, we may need to invent some new ones to account for the new experiences of finally seeing God face to face, having friends who are angels, possessing spiritual bodies, etc.

What do we make of the languages that have gone extinct in world history? If we take the promises of “all languages” literally, then we would need to insist that there were believers somehow present in all of those language groups in time past. More likely, the “all” of these passages is symbolic, meaning that the vast majority of the world’s languages will indeed be represented in heaven. A third intriguing possibility would be that of language resurrection, where there is a return in the new heavens and the new earth of languages long dead, just as my kids and I hope for a return of dinosaurs, wooly mammoths, and giant sloths.

After all, if we’ve got billions and billions of years to enjoy, I would certainly sign up for a class on old Sumerian were the library of New Jerusalem to offer such a course.

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