Gray, in his book, New World Babel , discusses the transformation of Euro-Americas’ views about Native American languages. He traces the journey of their notion of these languages from as early as the pre-Enlightenment period to the modern period. From the onset, Gray is keen enough to notice the differences in the opinions between different groups during different historical periods. He observes that the Jesuits, Catholics, and Puritan Protestants had varied opinions about Native American languages (Gray 25). Gray correctly argues that the Catholics gave up teaching the natives Latin after realizing that their languages were devoid of abstract words and phrases necessary for bringing out truths in speech (Picker 363). However, they went ahead to teach them the Gospel using pictures and performances. In many countries, the performances are in Latin. The decision to resort to the use of pictures and performances must have been driven by the notion that people can notice divine words without necessarily understanding their meanings (Picker 362). On the other hand, the Puritans believed that everybody must be able to read the bible. Therefore, they used most of their time teaching the Indians how to read and translating the bible. Gray insinuates that the Puritans believed that the natives had to understand the meaning of every word before discovering the divineness in it. Gray also argues that the advent of the Enlightenment period transformed Europeans’ thoughts about native languages (Gray 34). He correctly presents the then overriding opinion that Euro-Americans held about the existence of varied languages in the world. Most of them believed in the biblical theory that argues that people speak different languages due to the Babel tragedy. Since everything was explained using the bible during the pre-Enlightenment period, Gray’s description must be a true reflection of the linguistic ideologies that existed during those periods. He cites Locke’s act of discarding Babel as the origin of the differences that exist among different language speakers as an example of the new Enlightenment ideologies about language (Picker 365). Locke argued that human beings’ different experiences at different times were responsible for their differences in culture and behavior (Picker 364). This argument is also a true reflection of the ideologies during the Enlightenment period since that period was dominated by arguments supported by scientifically tested facts. The way Gray presents the information demonstrates that sometimes there was progressing and regressing in terms of what the scholars at different times thought about the Native Americans. He argues that the New Americans had initially thought that Native American languages marked boundaries between their speakers (Mandell 201). However, they discarded this notion when they realized that many groups of Native Americans spoke different languages but had similar cultures (Picker 362). As a result, they began viewing the native languages as ways of understanding the primary and universal nature of human beings (Mandell 201). They used native lexicons as insights for their own European languages. This move was driven by the belief that the native languages rep