Do languages tear us apart or connect us together? English, Spanish, French, African Bantu languages, Hebrew, sign language . . . what a world! Communicating with others is important to me, and hence it is necessary to learn many languages. If you can't understand each other, how can you become friends?
We humans do seem talented at becoming enemies. I might have to blame the biblical god, Yahweh, for this. In Genesis, 11:1-11:9, it reads
"The whole world spoke the same language with the same vocabulary. Now, as people moved eastwards they found a valley in the land of Shinar where they settled. They said to one another, 'Come, let us make bricks and bake them in the fire.' For stone they used bricks, and for mortar they used bitumen. 'Come,' they said, 'let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top reaching heaven. Let us make a name for ourselves, so that we do not get scattered all over the world.'
"Now Yahweh came down to see the city and the tower that the people had built. 'So they are a single people with a single language!' said Yahweh. 'This is only the start of their undertakings! Now nothing they plan to do will be beyond them. Come, let us go down and confuse their language there, so that they cannot understand one another.' Yahweh scattered them thence all over the world, and they stopped building the city. That is why it was called Babel, since there Yahweh confused the language of the whole world, and from there Yahweh scattered them all over the world."
Ah, so much distance between us. Let us use this text and our imagination to recreate a part of the situation of the tower. Here's to hoping that we enemies may someday become friends again.
| The whole world |
______________
noun |
the same |
______________
a sense |
with the same |
_______________.
noun |
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| ‘Come,’ they said, ‘let us |
______________
verb |
ourselves a |
______________
noun
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and a tower with its top reaching |
________________.
paradise |
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| Let us make a name for ourselves, so that we do not get |
_____________
disability |
all over the world. |
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| Now Yahweh came down to see the |
_____________
place |
and the tower that the people had |
______________.
verb |
‘So they are a single |
________________
type of being |
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| with a single |
______________!’ |
said Yahweh |
‘This is only the start of their |
_________________! |
Now nothing they plan to do will be beyond them. |
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| Come, let us go |
__________ and
direction |
_________ their
verb |
_________there,
noun |
so that they cannot |
___________________
violent action |
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| one another.’ |
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