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'...confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech.' Chris Ledgard explores some of the language ideas in the story of Babel.

"...confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech." The Babel story is one of best known in the Bible, the splintering of one global language into thousands of tongues. Chris Ledgard takes a linguistic look at the first nine verses of Genesis chapter 11, exploring the story itself, the idea of original languages and how we are able to reconstruct them, and the Babel theme of language, division and conflict.

Producer: Chris Ledgard.

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28 minutes

Last on

Mon 29 Jul 2013 23:00
BBC Radio 4

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Broadcasts

  • Tue 23 Jul 2013 16:00
    BBC Radio 4
  • Mon 29 Jul 2013 23:00
    BBC Radio 4

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