A Historical Representation of the Separation of Germanic Languages

The Tower of Babel

Tale of the Englishmen

What had happened? One moment I was discussing with my workmates as we laid bricks down upon one another to craft our glorious city, and the next they were prattling on in some drunken glossolalia. At first I thought they were playing some sort of practical joke on me, but it wasn't long before I realized that they were just as distressed as I was. It was at that moment that I realized that I, too, had my manner of speech altered. No matter how much I wished and tried to speak as I had done so once before, I was unable to utter even a word of what was previously our world's common tongue.

Eventually, however, I heard something. I wasn't sure how or why, but it sounded vaguely familiar. I looked around me, confused and panicked, before I was in the grasp of my brother. I was able to understand him, and he me. The world's torment was not individual, it was to be shared. Calmed by the mere notion of being able to communicate, I regained a sense of clarity that had been robbed from me. He took me with him, and and as I followed him I looked around and saw that us two were not the only ones able to understand one another. Other people too; once comrades, acquaintances, friends, all of them congregated into their individual small groups. All of them unable to understand the other groups. Seeing my comrades, knowing I would never be able to understand the other anymore, was disheartening. I clung close to my brother, which led me to bump into him nose-first when he suddenly came to a halt.

I moved around him, and before me stood the rest of my family. By some miracle, God had allowed our family to stay intact, and we were able to communicate freely. As we conversed, we realized deep within ourselves that we could not stay here, living with people we could never again speak to. My clan decided to set out to the northwest, in hopes to be able to rebuild the world using our family as a starting point. We packed everything we had, and silently left our former friends behind; now that we were unable to understand each other, there would be no point in farewells. We decided to leave our great city of Babylonia, and the Tower of Babel, behind us, as we started our journey.

Apparently, however, we were not the only ones with this idea. As we set off, we saw more families ahead, and even more following us. Though they appeared to also not be able to understand the other, they appeared to be in a jovial mood nonetheless, laughing amongst themselves. We eventually caught up to some of the families ahead of us, at which point some of them stopped to attempt to converse with me and my brother. The group that approached was clearly comprised of a number of differing families, and yet they appeared to have a semblance of clarity between them. One of them came up to me and babbled on about red gluten flutes, and when I attempted to explain I could not understand them, he and his fellows guffawed, the members of the other families staring at us and sniggering. The poor fool, to have gone mad and then also be mocked by one's own family. For the remainder of the journey, his family pushed him around and laughed at him, looking at me with a fire in their eyes that could only be described as apologetic for what their brother had become. At some point during the journey, all of their members had adopted the same red and white tunic, likely to serve as a warning for others not to approach lest they be driven mad as a bull is driven mad by the same red they adorned.

Though it took us many suns and moons, and we had traversed both valley and mountain, endured both heat and frost, we had finally reached a land we would be comfortable to call home. The weather was idyllic, not too warm, cold, dry, or humid. The sea provides bounty, and the relatively flat ground would be ideal for farming. There was much vegetation here already, and a variety of meats such as pigs and cows already living on the land. Yes, this would be where our clan would stay for generations to come.

Or so I believed. One of the families ahead of us had beaten us to the land, and our family, with our meager supplies, were sent on rafts across the sea. We could see the other side of the sea, and yet we were out on the water for two days. The current made it impossible to return to the lands we wished to populate, and so we were forced to the dark rocks on the horizon. When we finally moored on the beaches of this new land, we were immediately greeted with a torrential rain unlike anything any of us had ever experienced before. The rain lasted for seven days and seven nights, until it finally let up. When the rain cleared, the skies did not turn blue. They remained a somber gray, and the air remained cold and damp as ever, the land below our feet being nothing but wet marshland or rocky wastelands. This was now our land.

The spirits of my clan fell ever further as nothing seemed to get any better on this rock. We patrolled the land, but we came to the conclusion that it was an island. In our frustrations, our clan had been torn asunder. Brawls were common, and eventually we strapped a minority to the same rafts we had all been strapped to, and sent them to a nearby, smaller rock. Our frustrations swiftly gave way to intense loneliness. With nobody to converse to but one's own clan, sheep, and birds, we came to question the purpose of it all. What had happened to God? Why were we sent here? We wished to erect a tower to reach Him, and yet we were banished to a rock forsaken even by Him. These were the thoughts that circulated within all of us.

However, over time, we realized things were not as bad as we once feared. Over time, the sun had graced us with its presence more and more, and we grew proficient with shepherding. Eventually, I came to realize that this was God's ideal for us. We faced tremendous hardship, and yet we did not give in. Even when we felt God had betrayed us, He did not abandon us; we needed only continue until the gloom within ourselves would pass.

Verhaal van de Nederlanders

De toren van Babel. Het monument dat ons naar God zou brengen. Het teken van onze droom om net als God te zijn. En nu zal de toren nooit volmaakt zijn. Ik en mijn broeders waren bezig aan het werk, toen wij opeens merkten dat de stemmen uit onze monden waren veranderd. De woorden die we zegden, de grammatika, de uitspraak, was allemaal vervangen door deze nieuwe taal.

Wij waren natuurlijk enthousiast dat God ons een nieuwe, betere taal gaf. Mijn broeders en ik stopten gelijk met ons werk, en waren op weg naar een paar van onze verwante families. Maar toen we hun zagen, en probeerde deze nieuwe taal te vieren, merkten wij op dat we andermans moeilijk konden verstaan. Vele woorden en meningen konden wij van elkaar nog volgen, maar voor het meeste was het lastig de ander te begrijpen. Het was op dit punt dat wij realiseerden dat iedereen een andere taal had ontvangen. Iedere familie had variaties van deze nieuwe taal, en ieder kon de ander lastig, of helemaal niet, verstaan.

Mijn familie, en onze naaste families konden desondanks de problemen kwa communicatie toch het over één ding met elkaar eens zijn; wij moesten weg hier. God had tegen ons allen gesproken, en Hij zei tegen ons dat onze families naar het noord westen moesten gaan. Hij zei dat daar ons nieuwe huis lag.

En zo gingen onze families op onze tocht. Mijn familie bleef vooral bij twee andere families die wij, met redige moeite, nog konden verstaan. Ondanks dat onze drie families samen reisden, was het lastig te weten waar wij precies naartoe moesten gaan, en wij stopten vaak om uit te zoeken welke kant wij op moesten en om uit te rusten.

Tijdens één van onze rust pauzes kwam God weer bij ons. Hij gaf de familie naast ons een stuk rood kleed met een wit kruis in het midden; Hij zei dat dit kleed ons zou laten weten waar wij naar toe moesten gaan, en hun het kleed zou afnemen wanneer wij onze bestemming hadden bereikt. Tijdens deze zelfde pauze had een andere familie ons ingehaald. Het was een zielige familie vol treur en verdriet. Tijdens onze reis samen, hadden wij gemerkt dat vele gedeelten van onze nieuwe taal lastig te zeggen waren. Om te proberen die armoedige familie wat pit te geven, gingen ik en een paar andere van onze naaste families naar een man toe die er vooral hopeloos uit zag. Mijn naaste vroeg hem of hij rode gloed met vloed of zoiets kon zeggen in zijn taal, maar blijkbaar was dit teveel gevraagd. Wij lachten samen, maar blijkbaar was dit teveel gevraagd, want de man zag er nog voller met verdriet als toen we probeerden hem op te vrolijken. Vreemde kwast.

Uiteindelijk bereikten wij ons land. Het kleed werd afgenomen van onze naasten, en God kwam en vertelde ons waar wij moesten zijn. Mijn familie kreeg een vlak, nat land naar ons toebehoord. Veel van het land lag onder de zeespiegel, maar daar konden wij wel mee te werk gaan. Wij waren volledig in ons element met al dit water. Maar blijkbaar waren wij niet de enigen met dit idee, want de familie van de zielige man kwam en probeerde zich te koloniseren op ons land. Als ze eerder ons niet accepteerden, dan zullen wij hen nu ook niet accepteren, en dus stuurden wij hen allen op naar het eiland aan de andere kant van de zee met behulp van de andere families waar wij mee reisden.

Uiteindelijk vertrokken ook de families waar wij mee reisden. Ze gingen allen verder naar het noorden, en ik was weer alleen met mijn familie in het land waar wij tot aan het einde der tijden ons thuis zouden maken.