The Language Tree?

Physorg.com just posted an article on attempts to trace the world's languages back to one language.  One of the interesting things about mythology is the recurrent theme of a "Tower of Babel"-like event in which the common language of the time was separated into various languages.  It's a story that is found in Burma, India, the Congo, North and South America, Greece, Israel, and so on.  It is, in fact, almost as universal as the story of The Flood.

Whether the scientists in the article complete their project or not, it will be very interesting to see what they do find! 

The Tower of Babel

Now the whole world had one language and a common speech.  As people moved eastward, they found a plain in Shinar and settled there.
 
They said to each other, “Come, let’s make bricks and bake them thoroughly.” They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar.  Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves; otherwise we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth.”
 
But the LORD came down to see the city and the tower the people were building.  The LORD said, “If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them.  Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.”

So the LORD scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city.  That is why it was called Babel—because there the LORD confused the language of the whole world. From there the LORD scattered them over the face of the whole earth.

-Genesis 11:1-9, NIV Translation