ta haoluma — the Babel text

For decades, the conlang community's handshake has been the same: show us your Babel text. Genesis 11:1-9 is the story of how one speech became many, and nearly every constructed language has carried it, a convention Jeffrey Henning proposed as a standard in 1996. Phi's ground truth is the King James Version, the community's usual reference text, stored verbatim and cited verse by verse. Two of Phi's words were coined here: haoluma (language) and thiwera (scatter). It is a transmutation, not a translation, and it departs from Genesis deliberately: canon refuses the vocabulary of domination, so where the King James has the LORD descend, see, judge, and scatter, Phi's teller is muila, the earth itself, and the scattering is sowing. Every verse is cited below, the departures included, so the distance between the tellings can be measured exactly.

Each block below carries four lines: the Phi sentence, its word-by-word gloss, a back-translation into English, and the King James verse it stands against, so a reader can see exactly what the transmutation kept and what it changed.

ta haolu — One speech

theula muila ta haoluma nela ta haolu to phelu.
UNIV earth one language COORD one speak PST hold.
(The whole earth held one language, and one speech.)
kjv: "And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech."

lo miona lue sorae thorui to laniru.
PL person ABL sun beginning PST journey.
(The people journeyed from the east.)
kjv: "And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east,"

lo shia wemo to hekawi. lo shia mua wemo to soki.
PL 3SG plain PST find. PL 3SG LOC plain PST settle.
(They found a plain, and they settled there.)
kjv: "that they found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt there."

Notes: the opening keeps both of the verse's terms: ta haoluma nela ta haolu, one language and one speech, the coined word beside the plain event noun of speaking, as the King James keeps both. The journey is laniru, purposeful travel across distance, and "the east" is the compound the registry has always held, sorae thorui, the sun's beginning. Shinar is the one thing the verse loses: the name carries no meaning Phi can translate, and this text's custom, like the Babel name itself below, is to keep only the names that mean.

whalo silawo — The great village

lo shia wei wiso to haolu.
PL 3SG DAT RECP PST speak.
(They said to one another:)
kjv: "And they said one to another,"

shola su lo mia lo mueri kerou pilewa. su lo mia lo ha ru thape sholo.
QUOT.COMP OPT PL 1SG PL clay stone make. OPT PL 1SG PL PROX INTS burn QUOT.COMP.CLOSE.
("Let us make clay-stones. Let us burn them thoroughly.")
kjv: "Go to, let us make brick, and burn them thoroughly."

lo mueri kerou wei lo shia kerou to nai. muphia wei lo shia nolami to nai.
PL clay stone DAT PL 3SG stone PST be. mud DAT PL 3SG bond PST be.
(Clay-stone was their stone, and mud was their binding.)
kjv: "And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for morter."

lo shia shola su lo mia whalo silawo nela rena mua waero kamo raelu moru lorima sholo to haolu.
PL 3SG QUOT.COMP OPT PL 1SG large village COORD REL LOC sky arrive tall wall build QUOT.COMP.CLOSE PST speak.
(They said: "Let us build a great village, and a tall wall that arrives at the sky.")
kjv: "And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven;"

shola su lo mia nomei whalo kelu sholo.
QUOT.COMP OPT PL 1SG name large become QUOT.COMP.CLOSE.
("May our name become great.")
kjv: "and let us make us a name,"

shola lo mia mena lo mia nia theula muila menoa se thiwera meno ma pula sholo.
QUOT.COMP PL 1SG DECL.COMP PL 1SG ON UNIV earth face PASS scatter DECL.COMP.CLOSE NEG wish QUOT.COMP.CLOSE.
("We do not wish to be scattered upon the face of the whole earth.")
kjv: "lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth."

Notes: the builders speak in the optative throughout, su lo mia, let us, may we: the King James's "Go to, let us" is a chain of wishes, and Phi's wish-mood carries every link. Brick is mueri kerou, clay-stone, composition doing what a coin would, and the verse of materials stands whole: clay-stone for stone, muphia for mortar, mud as their nolami, their binding, the bond-word lending masonry its own metaphor. The city is whalo silawo, a village grown large: Phi's settlement vocabulary is deliberately human-scale, and the story is about what happens when the scale is exceeded. There is still no tower-word: the tower is a relative clause, rena mua waero kamo raelu moru, a tall wall that arrives at the sky, the grammar reaching upward one modifier at a time, which is how towers are built. And the builders' motive keeps its whole shape at last: the great name wished for, and the scattering feared, mena ... se thiwera meno ma pula, we do not wish to be scattered on the earth's face, muila menoa, the verse's own image held literally. They build against the very thing the story will rename as planting.

muila nila — The earth sees

muila rena lo miona lorima whalo silawo nela raelu moru to nila.
earth REL PL person build large village COORD tall wall PST see.
(The earth saw the great village and the tall wall that the people built.)
kjv: "And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded."

muila mena theula miona ta punoa nai. lo shia ta haoluma phelu meno to sano.
earth DECL.COMP UNIV person one society be. PL 3SG one language hold DECL.COMP.CLOSE PST know.
(The earth knew that all the people were one society, and that they held one language.)
kjv: "And the LORD said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language;"

theula rena lo shia weni thena wei lo shia po kelu.
UNIV REL PL 3SG imagine thing DAT PL 3SG POT become.
(Everything they imagined could become, for them.)
kjv: "and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do."

Notes: here the departure begins, and the citations mark it verse by verse. The King James has the LORD come down to see; canon refuses the title along with every vocabulary of rule, and this text's teller has always been muila, the earth itself. The earth needs no descent: it is already everywhere the builders are, so "came down to see" becomes plain seeing, and the LORD's spoken "Behold" becomes the earth's knowing, mena ... meno sano, since the ground under a city knows what stands on it. The verse's double negative, nothing restrained of all they imagined, turns over into Phi's plain affirmative: everything they imagined could become, weni carrying "imagined" exactly. Nothing in these three units softens the builders' power; what changes hands is only who watches it.

thiwera — The sowing

ta haoluma wei theula muila henoi to ma nai.
one language DAT UNIV earth ENOUGH PST NEG be.
(One language was not enough for the whole earth.)
kjv: "Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech."

muila phea lo thinoe lo miona nia theula muila menoa to thiwera.
earth AS PL seed PL person ON UNIV earth face PST scatter.
(The earth scattered the peoples like seeds upon the face of all the earth.)
kjv: "So the LORD scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth:"

lo miona whalo silawo to te lorima.
PL person large village PST CESS build.
(And they ceased building the great village.)
kjv: "and they left off to build the city."

ta haoluma lo haoluma to kelu.
one language PL language PST become.
(The one language became many languages.)
kjv: "because the LORD did there confound the language of all the earth:"

Notes: here the transmutation shows its whole hand, and the verses it stands against are quoted so the distance is measurable. In Genesis, the confusion of tongues is a penalty and the scattering a punishment; Phi cannot tell it that way honestly, since the language has no vocabulary of domination and its planting idiom already says give seeds to the earth. So where verse seven decrees confusion, Phi states the ground of the change: one language was not enough, henoi to ma nai, for so much earth. Where verse eight scatters, the earth sows: phea lo thinoe, like seeds, on muila menoa, the face of the earth the builders feared, the fear and the sowing sharing one phrase so the story can answer itself. The confounding itself is stated as what observably happened, one language became many, kelu and no agent of harm anywhere in the sentence. And the abandonment keeps its own half-verse: to te lorima, they left off building, the cessative closing the city the optatives opened.

nomei — The name

thelao silawo nomei lo haoluma nai.
CONS village name PL language be.
(Therefore the village's name is Many-Languages.)
kjv: "Therefore is the name of it called Babel;"

lue ha lokue muila lo miona to thiwera.
ABL PROX place earth PL person PST scatter.
(From this place the earth scattered the peoples.)
kjv: "and from thence did the LORD scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth."

Notes: Hebrew hears Babel against balal, to confuse: the name is a pun on what happened there. Phi keeps the custom and drops the judgment: the place is named lo haoluma, the Many Languages, which is simply what it became, and thelao carries the verse's own "Therefore." Genesis says the scattering twice, once as act and once as epitaph, and the text keeps both, the second time as the place's own story: from here, the earth scattered the peoples.

The gardens

theula haoluma thepalu nai.
UNIV language garden be.
(Every language is a garden.)

we ha haoluma thepalu nai.
ALSO PROX language garden be.
(This language, too, is a garden.)

Notes: the coda is Phi's own, with no verse behind it and no citation claimed: the sowing frame carried to its conclusion. If the peoples were scattered as seeds, then every language since is one of the gardens that grew. The last line is Phi referring to itself: ha haoluma, this language.

What the transmutation changed

Gap log: language → haoluma (coined: speak, made whole; deliberately not the tongue, lathoe stays anatomy, refusing English's metaphor); scatter → thiwera (coined: broadcast wide, the seed-syllable inside it); one speech → ta haolu, the event noun beside the coined word, both of the verse's terms kept; journeyed → laniru; Shinar → dropped, the one name with no meaning to carry; "Go to, let us" → the optative su throughout the builders' speech; brick → mueri kerou (composed); slime for morter → muphia as their nolami, mud as their binding; city → whalo silawo (composed: Phi's settlements stay human-scale, and the excess is the story); tower → a relative clause, not a noun; lest we be scattered → the fear said plainly, se thiwera ... ma pula, on muila menoa, the face of the earth; the LORD → no title, by refusal: the teller is muila, the earth, which needs no descent, sees what stands on it, and knows what one people with one language can do; nothing will be restrained → the double negative turned over, everything they imagined could become; confound → stated as the observable change, one language became many; punishment → husbandry, the scattering as sowing on the very face the builders feared; they left off to build → to te lorima, the cessative; Babel → lo haoluma, the pun kept, the judgment dropped; and the gardens coda stands outside the verses, cited to nothing, Phi's own conclusion. The traditional reading is one verse away in any Bible; this is what the story says in a language that cannot call diversity a curse.