Babelian

Part of speech: adjective, noun

Definitions

1. Relating to the biblical Tower of Babel, or to a place where many languages are spoken in noisy confusion
2. Describing something connected with the story of Babel, where human speech was scattered into many tongues
3. Of or concerning the legendary tower of Babel and the chaotic mixing of languages it represents

Etymology: Babelian is a plain formation: the proper name Babel, the biblical city and tower in Genesis where human speech was confused, with the suffix "-ian" attached to make an adjective meaning relating to Babel. Because it is built directly on the English name, it sits alongside a closely related word, "Babylonian," which comes from the same ancient place name but reached English by a different route, through Latin and Greek versions of the name for the city of Babylon. That pairing makes "Babelian" a piecewise doublet of "Babylonian": two words that share a single source, one entering as a borrowing of the classical form and the other built afresh from the biblical English name. The shared origin is the city itself, whose Hebrew name "Babel" was rendered in the Greek and Latin traditions as "Babylon," so the two words are simply two English faces of one place.