The Babel fish and the existence of God revisited

If the Babel fish was invented by Man then we’re too smart to need a God, and if it wasn’t invented by Man then God comes over all atheist:

Now it is such a bizarrely improbable coincidence that anything so mindbogglingly useful could evolve purely by chance that some thinkers have chosen to see it as a final and clinching proof of the non-existence of God. The argument goes something like this: “I refuse to prove that I exist,” says God, “for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing”. “But,” says man, “the Babel fish is a dead giveaway, isn’t it? It proves you exist and so therefore you don’t. QED.” “Oh dear,” says God, “I hadn’t thought of that,” and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic. “Oh, that was easy,” says man, and for an encore goes on to prove that black is white, and gets killed on the next zebra crossing. Most leading theologians claim that this argument is a load of dingo’s kidneys. But this did not stop Oolon Colluphid making a small fortune when he used it as the central theme for his best selling book, Well That About Wraps It Up for God. Meanwhile the poor Babel fish, by effectively removing all barriers to communication between different cultures and races, has caused more and bloodier wars than anything else in the history of creation.

But what if it was invented by Man acting on behalf of God? A saint, for example. In La Quatrième partie des chroniques des Frères Mineurs (1609–a translation of Venetian printer Barezzo Barezzi’s 1609 original) we hear how a Basque couple visit Salvador of Horta (1520-1567, canonised 1938) in search of a cure for their daughter, who has been born deaf-mute. He tells them to stay for eight days and pray to the Virgin Mary, at the end of which their daughter will speak. On the fourth day the girl indeed speaks–but in Catalan, which the parents can neither talk nor understand. “Salvador,” they say, presumably in Spanish, “this isn’t much good: why can’t she speak Basque like us?” “Pray for another four days,” replies Salvador, “and your wish will be granted.” On the eighth day she’s still babbling away in Catalan, but Salvador says that if they return home the girl will start speaking Basque (with hopefully the same dialect as her parents) as soon as she reënters Biscay, which duly happens:

Vn homme de Biscaye auec sa femme portèrent de ceste prouince vne fille qu’ils auoient, sourde & muette dés fa naissance, & la présentèrent au seruiteur de Dieu qui luy donna la bénédiction, & apres dit au pere & à la mere: Vous demeurerez icy huict iours priant la tres-faincte Vierge Marie & vostre fille parlera. Le quatriesme iour venu la ieune fille commença à parler le langage de Cathalogne, où pour lors ils estoient, tellement que chacun commença à crier Miracle, Miracle. Et le pere & la mere disoient: nous ne voulons pas que nostre fille parle ce langage, mais bien celuy de Biscaye, & à ceste occasion se tourmentoient beaucoup. Et sur ce s’en allèrent à l’homme de Dieu, le prians de vouloir oster ce langage à leur fille qu’ils ne pouuoient point entendre, & luy vouloir donner celuy de leur pays. Le peuple qui estait là assemblé s’estonnoit de voir cet enfant parler vn langage que son pere ny fa mere n’entendoient pas, ny aussi elle ne les pouuoit aucunement entendre. Le sainct homme leur respondit: Nostre Dame à faict ce miracle afin que chacun voye que vostre fille parle le langage de ce pays. Or vous continuerez de prier iufques au bout des huict iours, & moy aussi prieray Dieu afin que vostre fille parle vostre langage: Ils continuèrent doneques leurs prières, & vn chacun alloit voir ceste fille qui parloir si bien le langage Cathalan. Les huict iours finis le Pere lay donna la bénédiction, & dit à ses parens: Mes amis, nostre Dame veut que vostre fille parle le langage de ce pays iusques à ce qu’elle en soit dehors, & apres entrant en Biscaye elle parlera le langage de Biscaye. Eux ayans entendu ceste ordonnance partirent du lieu, & se mirent au chemin de leur maison auec plusieurs personnes, lesquelles s’acheminoient à dessein iufques aux confins du Royaume pour voir ce nouueau miracle. Il aduint comme leur auoit esté prédit, car ayant passé le fleuue qui fait la séparation la fille parla le langage maternel, & du pays où elle auoit prins sa naissance.

One of the curious things about this is the idea that a river divided Romance from Basque dialects: rivers run roughly north-south from the Pyrenees, while the language boundary in Navarre ran more or less perpendicular to them, approximately east-west. I guess the party travelled via Pamplona, so the river could have been the Arga, which flows just west of the town, split the old Kingdom of Navarre north-south, and was I think used in late medieval Castilian-Aragonese treaties as a frontier. That might explain why the Spanish and Catalan Wikipedia entries for the good Saint make the story an echo of the nationalist-revisionist ding-dong between Catalan and Spanish, with the parents demanding that she speak the latter.

Or it could have been the River Aragón, from which point Basque toponyms begin to dominate.

(
H/t A Nun for the St Salvador of Horta story.
)

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