![]() ![]() Listen here down through verse 9: (this pronunciation is from Luther’s day by the way). ![]() The German pronunciation is in our laymen sense baw-bul, which is closer to our second pronunciation in American English. This led me to wanting to see how Germans pronounced Babel. Modern English is still sub-classed in the German language family. Old English changed as a result of later Norman (French/Latin) roots changing the language to Middle English (beginning in 1066), and then this gave rise to more modern forms of English and even several variants of Middle English. This is because the Jutes and Angles (where we get the name English/England come from) were well settled in the British Isles (with Germanic languages), and later the Saxons conquered and spread throughout Britain (also Germanic), though much of the timings and details herewith are shrouded in history as this took the Britains back into paganism. In fact, it was in the style of West Germanic, which is where Northern Germanic languages (Norse) also arose. This makes sense since the Bible was also translated into Middle English from the Latin Vulgate by Wycliffe, so the word Babel already existed in English and had a particular pronunciation prior to this.Īs many know, Old English was Germanic in its origin. I did further research on the origin of the English word and its pronunciation and found that it was in use in older English, so the Middle English reference to its origin may not be entirely correct (from Webster’s online). The etymology of how the British English arrived at bay-bel comes allegedly from Middle English and a slightly faulty transliteration of the Hebrew, which we will discuss below. With the exception of stresses, these would both agree with Oxford’s dictionary. The American Heritage had two variations (two slight variations of bay-bel). Specifically the second can be heard at My print version and Thorndike-Barnhart have both as well.ĭ listed both pronunciations under their entry: /browse/babel, while Random House dictionary only listed “bab-uhl (bah-bel)” (similar to the second Webster’s listing). I’m going call these two bay-bel and bah-bel. Online Webster gives both pronunciations. It is hard to believe that an article on this subject is worthy of such a discussion, but, believe it or not, this is common question we get on the subject of Babel. ![]()
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