Babel Text
The Babel Text is the story of the Tower of Babel, as related in Genesis 11:1-9. Translations of the Babel Text have frequently been used as sample texts to exhibit the basic character of a conlang. Other common sample texts include the Pater Noster and The North Wind and the Sun.
The story of Babel, in which all the languages of the world are said to have been created, has been taken as iconic among conlangers; stylized images of the Tower of Babel appear on emblems such as the conlang flag and the FrathWiki logo.
The use of the Babel Text as a sample text for a new language has sometimes been criticized; being a religious text, the act of translating it into a new conlang may, overtly or covertly, have an effect on its associated conculture.[1]
The Babel Text in English (King James Version)
And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech.
And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt there.
And they said one to another, Go to, let us make brick, and burn them throughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for mortar.
And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.
And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded.
And the LORD said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, 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.
So the LORD scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city.
Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the LORD did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the LORD scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth.
- Other versions may be found in many places; The Unbound Bible, for example, has several translations of the Bible, in English and in other languages.
Babel Texts on FrathWiki
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