The search for "the language of paradise" was on among all the linguists of Europe. Those who wrote in Latin called it the "lingua prima", the "lingua primaeva" or the "lingua primigenia." In English it was the Adamic language; in German, the "Ursprache" or the "hebräische Ursprache" if one believed it was Hebrew. This mysterious language had the aura of purity and incorruption about it, and those qualities were the standards used to select candidates. This concept of "Ursprache" came into in use well before the neo-grammarians adopted it for their proto-languages. The gap between the widely divergent families of languages remained unclosed.