The Lord said, “If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves otherwise we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth.” But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower the people were building. They said to each other, “Come, let’s make bricks and bake them thoroughly.” They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar. As people moved eastward, they found a plain in Shinarb and settled there. Now the whole world had one language and a common speech.But the holy tongue remained to those who had neither joined in the project nor praised it, but instead, thoroughly disdaining it, had made fun of the builders' stupidity. As many as were the types of work involved in the enterprise, so many were the languages by which the human race was fragmented and the more skill required for the type of work, the more rudimentary and barbaric the language they now spoke.Dante Alighieri, De vulgari eloquentia, Chapter VII.
By this means human beings hoped to climb up to heaven, intending in their foolishness not to equal but to excel their creator. Incorrigible humanity, therefore, led astray by the giant Nimrod, presumed in its heart to outdo in skill not only nature but the source of its own nature, who is God and began to build a tower in Sennaar, which afterwards was called Babel (that is, 'confusion').As many as were the types of work involved in the enterprise, so many were the languages by which the human race was fragmented and the more skill required for the type of work, the more rudimentary and barbaric the language they now spoke.
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