tower of Babel
- noun
- /ˈtaʊər əv ˈbeɪbəl/
:
torre de Babel
- During the negotiations, the conversation devolved into a tower of Babel, with everyone speaking different languages and no one understanding each other.
Examples
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When the tourists from various countries gathered in the busy market, it felt like a tower of Babel, with different languages and voices creating a chaotic backdrop.
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At the international conference, the tower of Babel atmosphere made it difficult to share ideas, as delegates struggled to communicate across language barriers.
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I think part of what Tower of Babel effect is, it's so loud, it's so uproarious, and it's so surrounding us if we're in line and just everywhere.
Synonyms
45
7.2
Speech or writing that does not make sense
20
4.6
A confused mixture of things or ideas
1
9.8
Language that is hard to understand because it uses many difficult words or nonsense
1
8.7
A confused mixture of voices and sounds that makes it hard to hear anything clearly
1
9.9
A confusing, chaotic situation with many mixed-up parts
How Chaotic
Surface Forms
Morphology
The idiomatic sense of confusion arising from mixed languages depends on knowledge of the biblical story of the Tower of Babel and is not predictable from the literal parts 'tower' (a tall structure) and the proper name 'Babel' alone. A B1 learner who only knows the constituent word meanings would need cultural/world-knowledge or prior exposure to the allusion to derive the MWE's meaning, so it is not transparently compositional.
Etymology
Tower of Babel comes from a Bible story where people tried to build a huge tower to reach the sky, and God mixed their languages at the city called Babel. So today tower of Babel is used to describe 'confusion' or a place with 'many languages' or voices that make understanding hard.