The Tower of Babel
The tale of the Tower of Babel, from Genesis 11: 1-9, is an "explanation"
of why there are so many different languages. You can find the story in some
of those languages by following the links below. Having a single text in a
variety of languages is a good way to see similarities and differences
between those languages.
The Tower of Babel did in fact exist: it was a seven-stage ziggurat
(stepped pyramid) with a temple to the god Marduk at the top. It was
called Etemenanki, or 'the temple of the platform between
heaven and earth', and was built in the city of Babylon sometime
during the 6th or 7th century BC.
Afroasiatic languages
- Amharic,
Arabic,
Aramaic,
Coptic,
Hausa,
Hebrew,
Maltese,
Somali,
Syriac,
Tamasheq,
Tigrinya
Algonqian languages
- Cheyenne,
Massachusett,
Ojibwe
Altaic languages
- Azeri,
Crimean Tatar,
Karakalpak,
Kazakh,
Kumyk,
Kyrgyz,
Mongolian,
Turkish,
Turkmen,
Uyghur,
Uzbek
Austroasiatic languages
- Khmer,
Vietnamese
Austronesian languages
- Cebuano,
Dawan,
Hawaiian,
Ilocano,
Indonesian,
Malagasy,
Malay,
Maori,
Sakao,
Samoan,
Tagalog,
Tuvaluan
Caucasian languages
- Georgian
Dravidian languages
- Kannada,
Malayalam,
Tamil,
Telugu
Eskimo-Aleut
- Aleut,
Greenlandic,
Inuktitut
Hmong-Mien languages
- White Hmong
Indo-European languages
- Baltic
- Latvian,
Lithuanian
- Celtic
- Breton,
Cornish,
Irish,
Manx,
Scottish Gaelic,
Welsh
- Germanic
- Afrikaans,
Alsatian,
Anglo-Saxon,
Danish,
Dutch,
English,
Faroese,
Frisian,
German,
Icelandic,
Low Saxon,
Norwegian,
Swedish,
Yiddish
- Indo-Iranian
- Bengali,
Dari,
Gujarati,
Hindi,
Oriya,
Persian (Farsi),
Punjabi,
Urdu
- Romance
- Aragonese,
Aromanian,
Asturian,
Catalan,
French,
Galician,
Italian,
Ladino,
Latin,
Portuguese,
Romanian,
Sicilian,
Spanish
- Slavic
- Belarusian,
Bosnian,
Bulgarian,
Church Slavonic,
Croatian,
Czech,
Macedonian,
Polish,
Russian,
Serbian,
Slovak,
Slovenian,
Sorbian,
Ukrainian
- Other
- Albanian,
Armenian,
Greek (Ancient),
Greek (Modern)
Iroquoian languages
- Cherokee,
Mohawk
Japonic languages
- Japanese
Mayan languages
- Kekchi
Na-Dene languages
- Gwich’in,
Navajo
Niger-Congo languages
- Bemba,
Ewe,
Fulani,
Igbo,
Lingala,
Ndebele,
Shona,
Southern Sotho,
Swahili,
Tsonga,
Tswana,
Wolof,
Xhosa,
Yoruba,
Zulu
Nilo-Saharan languages
- Nuer,
Zarma
Sino-Tibetan languages
- Burmese,
Cantonese,
Chin Falam,
Chin Haka,
Chin Tedim,
Hakka,
Mandarin,
Paite,
Southern Min,
Taiwanese
Siouan languages
- Dakota
Tai-Kadai languages
- Kam,
Lao,
Thai
Uralic languages
- Estonian,
Finnish,
Hungarian,
Sami
Isolates
- Basque,
Korean
Pidgins and Creoles
- Bislama,
Haitian Creole,
Hawaiian Pidgin,
Papiamentu
Alternative writing systems
- Gregg Shorthand
Constructed languages/alphabets
- Bel'Arian,
Cujoltha,
Cecarakan,
Esperanto,
Fishscales,
Folkspraak,
Gyorsrovás,
Ido,
Interglossa,
Interlingua,
Interlingue/Occidental,
Klingon,
Lingua Franca Nova,
Lojban,
Oxidilogi,
Quenya,
Quikscript,
Sabethir,
Toki Pona,
Üqoi,
Viozian
Sources of the Tower of Babel translations
77Diamonds
Details of the background to the tale of the Tower of Babel
http://www.ldolphin.org/babel.html
More translations of Tower of Babel story (mainly constructed languages)
http://www.langmaker.com/db/bbl_a2z_index.htm
Other multilingual pages:
Language names |
Country names |
UDHR |
Babel |
Numerals |
Numbers |
Omniglot |
Phrases
