Thank you for the question on the Tower of Babel’s language, “Could the language spoken at the Tower of Babel have been preserved throughout the thousands of years or is it lost forever when God confused their speech?”
With the recent discovery of Gokekli Tepe in Southern Turkey, this site has been date to 12,000 BCE (Gobekli Tepe: The World’s First Temple?). It is the oldest known structure, believed to be a temple. This site is older than the Great Pyramids and Stonehenge. It is thought that civilization began about 12,000 BCE, but this site poses problem that a people group built this site with its monolithic structure even before civilization began! It is estimate that the monoliths weighs between 40 to 60 tonnes. For a nomad or caveman like people to cut, move, and erect such a site would indicate that civilization began earlier and that they were not caveman. If the people could build this structure in 12,000 BCE, it would at least indicate knowledge and skill in cutting stones, engineering skills in moving those stones, and erecting them. If humans can build this in 12,000 BCE, then is it possible that the Tower of Babel could be built by humans as we have the Great Pyramid dating to about 3000 BCE? This structure was built 9000 years earlier! It may not be as far fetch as one thinks.
The significance is that there are animal carvings on the monoliths without any written words on the structures that I know of. Since there are carved animals, it would seem reasonable the the builders would have names for them. Did the people in during this time period have a written language? Archaeologists haven’t discover one as of yet, but it would be reasonable that they had a spoken language and likely a complex language to build such a structure. Cuneiform is the oldest discovered known written language about 3000 BCE ( The World’s Oldest Writing) which does not preclude any earlier written language. I am not certain if modern linguists can accurately pronounce the cuneiform. Since this the oldest written language, it is possible that the cuneiform may have been part of or one of the languages of the Tower of Babel. This is a conjecture on my part.
The earliest written and spoken language that one has record is the Chinese language with a history about 6000 history. It would seem reasonable that as objects were assigned a symbol or sound, those symbols and sounds began to take on written words and later verbal words. The distinguishing of sounds would lead to language and the depiction would begin the written language as picture of duck and the amount of duck as people barter. What was the language of the people before the Tower of Babel is unknown since archaeologists have not discovered any written language dating back to 12,000 BCE. The discovery of a written language may lead to a rough pronunciation of each symbol. Linguists have to ascertain the origin of language.
Summary: Scripture declares that humans were able to communicate with words as Adam named the animals. What language did Adam and Eve with their descendants spoke is unknown. It may relate to cuneiform or the Chinese language as those are the earliest written and spoken language that our linguists know at this time.
For more perspectives: