Rabbinic literature famously refrains from sustained and systematic presentations of rabbinic thought, instead expressing its values and thought in an almost organic development of arguments and ever fluid received traditions. Sustained patterns and principles are nonetheless discernible but require a careful approach, for rabbinic literature spans more than one generation, more than one location, and more than one voice, anonymous or not. The multiple provenances orchestrated in the works of classical rabbinism obscure, perhaps on purpose, the historical developments which I have attempted to portray in the present study; perhaps on purpose, since by its very design the literature itself does not convey a heightened sense of and interest in history. Wherever it allows for context when addressing certain matters that context is primarily local but not historical.

This character of rabbinic thought also explains why studies of rabbinic views on languages and translations tend to provide a mosaic of ideas and statements, which must be harmonized or mitigated according to the rabbinic moulds provided wherever they appear to be in conflict. Symptomatic is the common neglect of the way the Mishna licenses scriptural translation as Holy Writ in modern accounts of the rabbinic views of translation. One of the necessary corrections this study sought to provide is the emphasis on the plurality of voices and development of thought within the rabbinic movement as far as it found expression in its literatures.

The Hebrew Bible takes language and the faculty of speech for granted, without ever dwelling on the origin of either. As perceived in rabbinic literature, however, there are arguably three key moments in the Hebrew Bible for the origin, character and development of language: the language of creation and primordial language; the dispersion of the nations by language divisions in the story of the Tower of Babel; and, finally, God's revelation in language, in speech and in the shape of the Tora. These three key motifs are interrelated in rabbinic reflection and ultimately bound together in the notion that languages are a family with Hebrew as its head, despite the fact that this notion is never articulated in classical rabbinic literature of the period under consideration.

Adamic language and etymology

The Hebrew Bible only thematizes language in its narrative of the Tower of Babel, but, evocative as Gen. 11 is, its speculation about the origin and variation of language leaves many questions unanswered about the origin of language, the faculty of speech, the identity of the primordial language, its development, and the language(s) spoken by the earliest generations. Even so, rabbinic exegetes found convenient handles in the Tora to explain the origin and distribution of the faculty of speech and the existence of many languages. Adam's very first recorded action was to use his faculty of speech to name and thereby classify the animals (Gen. 2.19), which extended the process of creation by imposing order on the world.