The Tower of Babel[1]
The Tower of Babel narrative in Genesis 11:1–9 is an origin myth meant to explain why the world's peoples speak different languages. [2] Nevertheless, God confused no language; people have made so many!
↑ According to the story, a united human race in the generations following the Great Flood, speaking a single language and migrating eastward, comes to the land of Shinar. There they agree to build a city and a tower tall enough to reach heaven. God, observing their city and tower, confounds their speech so that they can no longer understand each other, and scatters them around the world.
↑ ... Old English māl (“speech, contract, agreement, lawsuit, terms, bargaining”), from Old Norse mál (“agreement, speech, lawsuit”); related to Old English mæðel (“meeting, council”), mæl (“speech”) ...