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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