Last Sunday in church I joined in the singing of a hymn of praise to God from words set out on the video-screen. It suddenly struck me afresh what we are able to do with just those 26 letters of the English alphabet and the seven basic notes of the musical scale. What a huge variety of “psalms, hymns and spiritual songs” are sung in churches across the nation on any given Sunday using just those very basic resources.

Let me leave aside for the moment the seven notes of the major scale and focus just on those twenty-six letters of the alphabet. Using those twenty-six letters we sing ancient Psalms – often still set to the old King-James-Version English – complete with “Thees” and “Thous” and “comeths” and “goeths”. Using those same twenty-six letters we sing contemporary Christian songs that have caught the attention of a modern generation of Christian worshippers. I marvel at that. The same twenty-six letters of the English alphabet... but a world of difference in the way they express our faith and our devotion to God.

That contrast becomes even more stark when we move out of the setting of a Christian Church worship service. In the days before, I had tuned in to some of the unedifying discussion and debate around the US presidential race. Those same twenty-six letters of the alphabet that I used for singing God’s praise on Sunday were being used the week before by the respective presidential candidates to accuse and belittle one another. Worse! Those same letters of the English language were demonstrated to have been used, by one of the candidates many years earlier, in the audio track of a video clip, to portray women as sex objects. Amazing, really, when you think about it! Those same letters of the alphabet that can be used to praise God and bless other people, can also be used to curse God and tear people down.

What I’m talking about, of course, is the miracle of language. It’s one of the things that set us apart from the animal world. I can teach my pet parrot to mimic a few English words. I can teach my dog to respond to some words. However, animals have no ability whatsoever to use those twenty-six letters of the alphabet for meaningful communication.

This is a huge puzzle for evolutionary scientists. Some say that it’s the greatest puzzle that evolutionary science faces. Where did language come from? If human beings evolved from the lower primates, how and when did language evolve? I’m not a linguist. What I know about linguistics could be written on the back of a postage stamp. However, I do know how to “Google”... and Wikipedia (that fount of all cyberspace knowledge) mentions several prominent theories. Some theories hold that language did not appear from nothing but must have evolved from our pre-linguistic primate ancestors. Other theories argue that language is so unique that it must have appeared fairly suddenly in the course of human evolution. Still others hold to the view that it is an innate faculty encoded in our genes. And then there are those who hold that language is a cultural system learned through social interaction.

I’m with those who argue that it is an innate faculty encoded in our genes. The alternative is not an attractive option. Consider, for example, the possibility that language evolved from stone-age grunts and grumbles. Starve the lizards...! Do you really think that stone-age man slowly woke up to the fact that this was not very effective communication and then did some thinking about the way in which he might improve? I find it telling that even my thinking is in English. Even in my thought processes I use the same twenty-six letters of the English alphabet. If so-called stone-age man only spoke in grunts and grumbles what was the language of his thinking?

We as Christians know better. We were made in the image of God. God is a God who speaks – He spoke the world into being. And He made us as creatures who could communicate from the very beginning. Adam’s first recoded words are not, “Ooh”, and “Ugh”. His first recorded speech is, “This is now bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh.” Well, of course Adam wasn’t using the twenty-six letters of the English alphabet. Somewhere along the line we also have to take into account the story of Babel and the fact that language does change with the passing of time.

Language is a wonderful gift of God. But we were given the gift of language not just for social interaction – above all we were given language as a gift to worship and praise the God who made us in His image and likeness.

John Westendorp