davidstarlingm

You may, actually, be mistaken; there is a Sumerian myth that mentions languages and a construction project, but I don't think it's similar enough to definitely be a derivative or a predecessor of the Hebrew account.

Here's a translation of the myth (see it in context here; this section is taken from lines 134-155):
As far as I can tell, they are building some kind of temple and pray that Enki, one of the gods, might make their speech all the same so they can all worship together. That's not quite similar enough to be a derivative of the Hebrew account or vice versa. I don't know of any other Mesopotamian valley "language myths" that predate the Hebrews'.

There are, however, many other myths concerning the origin of language. Some are probably quite accurate; the Salishan account (southwestern Canada) states that one tribe's language divided into two over many years after an unresolved dispute split the tribe up.

Oddly enough, many of those geographically distant from Mesopotamia are too similar to the Hebrew account to be unrelated. Myths in India, Polynesia, Indonesia, Mexico, and South America all describe humanity existing in one place before the gods curse them with a confusion of languages that causes them to disperse. I don't see how this specific mytheme could have arisen independently in so many different places without some derivation.

premjan

Humans that migrated from Africa may all have settled in a relatively small geographical area initially and only after some considerable amount of time started to spread out to other locations. This is a reasonable candidate for the Garden of Eden - most likely Middle East/India. However this is considerably before biblical times.

davidstarlingm

Considerably, yes. The earliest remains of migration into the Americas is dated back to 14,000 BC; this causes a bit of a dilemma.

If the specifics of a particular mytheme are spread around the globe in commonly derived myths, it's reasonable to assume that whatever account combines the most common elements is the likely original (or, at least, as close to the original as we can know). The problem is that our "original" dates to 3500 BC at the earliest.

Jimmy Higgins

They are called archetypes.

The anthropomorphizing really stopped at Abram though. God goes down to see the man and woman, ~'What have you done?' As if he didn't already know. He talks with Cain after the accidental slaying of Abel. Makes with the really great idea of screwing man up at Babel. He also makes with the Flood with Noah. After that, in general, god stays out of it and angels do most of the groundwork from there on then, in what could be considered the historical, less supernatural part of the Old Testament... ie almost all of it.

davidstarlingm

The archetype here would be "myth to explain different languages". It's not, however, archetypical of human thought to propose that humanity was building a tower and was dispersed after being cursed by the gods with confused languages. Those details are too complex to be the consistent, independent result of the "myth to explain different languages" archetype.

Mageth

Gods are up there in the heavens. How do we get to them? We build a tower or something like that.

Different groups speak different languages. How do we explain that? Gods scattered them. Why did Gods scatter them? They were pissed at something the humans did.

Why were they pissed? Fill in the reason: _________. One of which is that those pesky humans tried to reach us by building a tower.

Not that complex, and not that surprising that more than one group may have come up with similar myths.

Jimmy Higgins

The archetype would be the symbols.
What, a tall pointy thing isn't archetypal?
Cultures would know other cultures speak differently. Why? Well, the answer of why to just about any question back then was "god". So, that isn't really that special.

God's reason? Different cultures usually war'd among one another. There was friction, so clearly, it couldn't be because god was happy. And why? To confuse? Well it certainly was confusing prior to written language and no translators.

So "angry" "god" gave different groups, different languages to "confuse" them.

The story really writes itself.

Mageth

Indeed. Add to that, the gods are quite often "up there," in the sky or on the moon or sun, and to reach them from the ground you have to what? Fly or build a tower, of course.

Toto

So what is your preferred explanation of these common themes?

Mageth

As far as similar "complex" myths appearing in different cultures, there's more than one way that could happen. The "combined archetypes" way is but one way. Another is through cross-cultural contamination. Take the Central American myths as an example. A priest goes in amongst the indigenous people and tells them the story of the Tower of Babel. This story may even get passed amongs tribes. It's a nice myth and fits right in with the way the tribes see the world; it makes sense to them. Some time later, a researcher goes in to collect myths from the indigenous people. They discover that, amazingly enough, they have a myth that is quite similar to the Biblical Babel myth.

Not saying that's the way it did happen, just that it's a way it could happen.