<P> In the Biblical introduction of the Tower of Babel account, in Genesis 11: 1, it is said that everyone on Earth spoke the same language, but this is inconsistent with the Biblical description of the post-Noahic world described in Genesis 10: 5, where it is said that the descendants of Shem, Ham, and Japheth gave rise to different nations, each with their own language . Some explain this discrepancy by saying that the order of the narrative is not the same as the order of events . </P> <P> There have also been a number of traditions around the world that describe a divine confusion of the one original language into several, albeit without any tower . Aside from the Ancient Greek myth that Hermes confused the languages, causing Zeus to give his throne to Phoroneus, Frazer specifically mentions such accounts among the Wasania of Kenya, the Kacha Naga people of Assam, the inhabitants of Encounter Bay in Australia, the Maidu of California, the Tlingit of Alaska, and the K'iche' Maya of Guatemala . </P> <P> The Estonian myth of "the Cooking of Languages" has also been compared . </P> <P> There are several mediaeval historiographic accounts that attempt to make an enumeration of the languages scattered at the Tower of Babel . Because a count of all the descendants of Noah listed by name in chapter 10 of Genesis (LXX) provides 15 names for Japheth's descendants, 30 for Ham's, and 27 for Shem's, these figures became established as the 72 languages resulting from the confusion at Babel--although the exact listing of these languages changed over time . (The LXX Bible has two additional names, Elisa and Cainan, not found in the Masoretic text of this chapter, so early rabbinic traditions, such as the Mishna, speak instead of "70 languages".) Some of the earliest sources for 72 (sometimes 73) languages are the 2nd - century Christian writers Clement of Alexandria (Stromata I, 21) and Hippolytus of Rome (On the Psalms 9); it is repeated in the Syriac book Cave of Treasures (c. 350 CE), Epiphanius of Salamis' Panarion (c. 375) and St. Augustine's The City of God 16.6 (c. 410). The chronicles attributed to Hippolytus (c. 234) contain one of the first attempts to list each of the 72 peoples who were believed to have spoken these languages . </P>

Who tried to build a ladder to heaven