Tower of (Babe)l

Baby J babbles all day long. It's a jumbled assortment of vowel sounds, coos, and burbles and it's completely adorable. But aside from being cute, I find it fascinating that all babies pick up language the way they do. For as long as human beings have been talking to each other, their children have been babbling along beside them in a unique brand of gibberish.

A baby's gibberish of course will resemble whatever language is being spoken nearby, but, generally, I'd wager that babies all babble the same way and have since time immemorial. I believe they speak a single baby language.

I wouldn't go so far as to say they all understand each other in a deep, meaningful way. But, when one baby cries, others can easily comprehend that their friend is sad. When one baby moans in frustration, the others know who in the room is really pissed off.

So perhaps baby babble is universal. Perhaps all babies sort of understand each other. Perhaps when the God of the Old Testament threw a hissy-fit over the Tower of Babel and made everybody speak different languages, He forgot about the babies.

Listening to: Dream Signals in Full Circles by Tristeza