Babel, After All

It does make you think, actually. I was talking to a relation recently, and she mentioned that when she was in Russia they used to get beer from the male steam baths. The “banya” she called it. Of course, it must be spelt completely differently, being Russian. But then you think of Spanish “bañarse” and French “se baigner”. There is English “bathe” and German “baden”.
We all think of language coming either from Latin or Sanskrit. But then where did Latin come from? Snaskit, so I’m told. There are some crossovers anyway. Spanish is a Latin language and German a Sanskrit one. But what about cheese – “queso” and “Käse” with very similar pronunciation? Then you have surprises in the Celtic languages such “Eglwys”, church in Welsh, so very similar to French and Spanish.
With globalisation you would think would get closer. We are, in fact, but it’s more coming back together than coming together in the first case. Our languages seem to have grown out of an original common one, as if we all started in one spot and then moved away.
Basque remains a puzzle and shows no similarity to anything else on earth.
So, perhaps the Tower of Babel was just a symbol of man being up himself. We do pride ourselves in being superior to than animals because we have language and we think in language. But it is also one of our greatest stumbling blocks. Our lack of understanding of each other does hinder our progress – whatever that might actually be.