The story of the Tower of Babel from the Hebrew Bible’s _Genesis_ is a famous myth that explains the origin of the world’s multiplicity of languages. Surprise surprise, there are a whole lot of interpretations about the meanings of this story. But the human fascination about why there are so many languages cuts across many civilizations, with the Tower of Babel only one such example.
As we know, in the tale God becomes aware of humans building a tower that goes up to the heavens, and he notes that “now nothing will be restrained from them (i.e, humans), which they have imagined to do. Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.” (11:6-7). So God does that, naming the place Babel. The humans can’t understand each other, and leave off their building project. And to this day, “babel” means noisy confusion, and the legend has inspired many works of art since, such as this masterpiece by Pieter Brueghel from c.1563.
In the Bible, the Tower of Babel comes up right after the stories of Adam and Eve disobeying God and getting kicked out of Eden, Cain sinning with the killing of his brother and then moving off, and the flood with Noah’s lineage the sole survivors after God desyroys the rest of humanity because they are wicked. Throughout _Genesis_, there are repeated themes of human defiance and pride checked and punished by God.
Tales that allude to a primordial language that all humans spoke appear in many cultures, some perhaps influenced by the Judeo-Christian myth. But the pre-Biblical Sumerian _Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta_, just tells of a massive stone structure being built and a desire for all “ambitious lords . . .and princes,” to change their speech of many tongues and speak in only one language to the God Enlil.
Today, linguists no longer ascribe to the idea of a primordial universal human language.
Source(s): “The Tower of Babel and the Origin of the World’s Cultures,” Theodore Hiebert, _Journal Of Biblical Literature_ Vol 126, spring 2007, pp. 29-58 (although I do agree with his interpretation.) Wikipedia. Samuel Noah Kramer, The ‘Babel of Tongues’: a Summerian Version,” _Journal if the American Oriental Society_ 88 (1): 108-111, 1968.
