Support for my assertion that they spoke Sumerian comes from
an old thread here:
The Torah is the section of the Tanakh that is supposed to be a history of the Jews.
The creation story from the Torah closely parallels and is likely based on the Sumerian Creation story.
The Sumerian civilization was one of the first in the world (as far as we know) - certainly one of the first in the Middle East.
As far as anyone can tell, the first "man" came out of Ethiopia, migrated through Djibouti crossed the Mandab Strait into Yemen.
Early man, like all primates, likely thrived along Riparian habitats.
Until he developed the necessary agrarian skills required to sustain large numbers of people in an environment, he would have been nomadic.
Shell middens 125,000 years old have been found in Eritrea indicating the diet of early humans was sea food obtained by beachcombing as he followed the shore of the Red Sea south to Djibouti, where he could see land (Yemen) across the Mandab Strait.
From there, following the water, they ended up settling in Sumer (modern day Iraq between the Tigris and Euphrates - two of the rivers in Genesis).
NIV Genesis 2:10 A river watering the garden flowed from Eden; from there it was separated into four headwaters. 11 The name of the first is the Pishon; it winds through the entire land of Havilah, where there is gold. 12 (The gold of that land is good; aromatic resin and onyx are also there.) 13 The name of the second river is the Gihon; it winds through the entire land of Cush. 14 The name of the third river is the Tigris; it runs along the east side of Asshur. And the fourth river is the Euphrates.
Sumer had people farming the lands at least as far back as 6600 BCE.
The earliest records we have of Sumerian religion date back to about 4000 BCE.
They were a polytheistic people.
When did man become man?
When he could tell stories.
The earliest humans recognized their many vulnerabilities and were keenly aware of their own mortality.
They did not have fur to protect them from the elements.
They did not have razor sharp claws and fangs to fight off predators.
They were not terribly fast runners.
They could not see very well in the dark.
They could not swim long distances.
Humans had two saving graces on which to depend for survival: intellect and community; aside from that, they were weak and knew it.
Everywhere humans looked, there was something more powerful than they were.
These more powerful things held sway over their lives, and as a result, over their collective psyche.
People fear what is more powerful than them.
They also respect what is more powerful than them.
People began to anthropomorphise the forces of nature and animals and tell stories about them.
They began to pray to what was more powerful than them.
They began to develop Gods - God to fear - Gods to worship - Gods to respect - Gods to beg for food and rain - Gods to blame for drought and pestilence.
Man was at the mercy of the Gods for everything, including whether or not there would be food for him to eat.
Man learning to plant and harvest crops, farm animals and use the river to irrigate fields gave him the ability to stop migrating to follow food and settle Sumer.
Settling Sumer gave man the ability to have control over his own destiny.
He built houses.
He planted crops.
He irrigated fields.
He raised animals.
There was still draught, disease and other problems to face, but man was becoming more powerful, and learned how to deal with these problems as a community.
He was no longer at complete mercy of the whims of the Gods.
Adam and Eve was the Sumerian story of how man grasped the gauntlet of self-determination and took power from the Gods to control his own life.
Abraham was Sumerian.
