Outlaw...Ukrainian????really! Those people are indestructible. My great grandpa smoked non-filtered Lucky Strikes and Camels since he was 8, gassed by the Germans in WWI, and lived until he was 97. Go figure. My gramps told me a story about this guy. As a policeman in the early 30's in CT, he was driving through the neighborhood on his day off with his family. He saw a young "gentleman" beating the crap out of an old man on the side of the road. He slammed on the brakes, told his family to sit tight, chased that dickhead into the bushes, beat the crap out of him, dragged him to the corner, had a neighbor call the police that were on duty, and waited for the cops to take him away. Then he got back into the car, and drove away as if nothing happened. That man was a badass. God bless the Ukraine.
WERE TONAL LANGUAGES ONLY SPOKEN JUST ATER BABEL?
by badboy 19 Replies latest jw friends
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smellsgood
Ok, I'm not arguing that the tower of Babel in the bible was a true story, but these quotes are a little misleading IMHO
Nabopolassar Inscription , KIB iii. 2.5 : "Marduk commanded me to lay its foundations firm in the breast of the underworld, and make its top equal to heaven ".
smellsgood: Well, I do believe that most of the Babylonian history recorded on the inscriptions is about buildings. Building this, building that. Also, the date (in the 600 B.C.) would be MUCH too late for a lifting of it to be put in Genesis!
Enuma Elish VI 60-62 : " Let its [E-sagila's] brickwork be fashioned ...The Annunaki applied the implement; for one whole year they moulded bricks. When the second year arrived, they raised high the head of Esagila toward the heavens [Apsu]."
smellsgood: the Enuma does in some peoples opinion predate Genesis...so there's that at least.... This passage does not have much resemblance at all to the tale in Genesis, and the generic Genesis quote, everyone talked about bricks in the old writings, in so many instances, so it is disingenuous to compare a mention of bricks in two separate tale to a lifting of a myth
NOW, Enuma Elish V1,,, in a complete way that isn't cherrypicked
51-70
"Let us build a shrine whose name shall be called
‘Lo, a chamber for our nightly rest’; let us repose in it!
Let us build a throne, a recess for his abode!
On the day that we arrive we shall repose in it."
When Marduk heard this,
Brightly glowed his features, like the day:
"Construct Babylon, whose building you have requested,
Let its brickwork be fashioned. You shall name it `The Sanctuary.'"
The Anunnaki applied the implement;
what was quoted by Leolaia 60 For one whole year they molded bricks.
When the second year arrived,
They raised high the head of Esagila equaling Apsu.<<<<62
Having built a stage-tower as high as Apsu,
They set up in it an abode for Marduk, Enlil, and Ea
In their presence he was seated in grandeur.
To the base of Esharra its horns look down.
After they had achieved the building of Esagila,
All the Anunnaki erected their shrines.
The three hundred Igigi . . . . . . all of them gathered,
The lord being on the lofty dais which they had built as his abode"
Genesis 11:3-4 : " Let us make bricks and bake them in a fire....Let us build ourselves ... a tower with its top reaching heaven ".
Leolaia: And on the confusion of languages in a story that has nothing at all to do with a tower:
Tale of Enmerkar : "When there was no snake and when there was no scorpion, there was no fear, no terror....In those days the land of Martu, resting in security, the whole universe , the people in unison spoke in unison to Enlil in one tongue . Enki, the Lord of wisdom, ... changed the speech in their mouths, [brought] contention into it . Into the speech of man that [until then] had been one."
smellsgood: Now this is just a complete misrepresentation of that passage in the 'Tale of Enmekar',,, none of it is actually talking about a confounding of languages at all. It's actually the REVERSE. It's talking about the already MANY TONGUED people addressing Enlil together in a single language!! Yeah! I don't see any mention of an [until then] clearly, whoever added that was trying to make this story into something it was not. Where did you get the bracketed inferences from? They are not accurrate! As one can readily see with the unedited version:
"Chant to him the holy song, the incantation sung in its chambers -- the incantation of Nudimmud: "On that day when there is no snake, when there is no scorpion, when there is no hyena, when there is no lion, when there is neither dog nor wolf, when there is thus neither fear nor trembling, man has no rival! At such a time, may the lands of Cubur and Hamazi, the many-tongued, and Sumer, the great mountain of the me of magnificence, and Akkad, the land possessing all that is befitting, and the Martu land, resting in security -- the whole universe, the well-guarded people -- may they all address Enlil together in a single language! For at that time, for the ambitious lords, for the ambitious princes, for the ambitious kings, Enki, for the ambitious lords, for the ambitious princes, for the ambitious kings, for the ambitious lords, for the ambitious princes, for the ambitious kings -- Enki, the lord of abundance and of steadfast decisions, the wise and knowing lord of the Land, the expert of the gods, chosen for wisdom, the lord of Eridug, shall change the speech in their mouths, as many as he had placed there, and so the speech of mankind is truly one." "
Genesis 11:1 , 9 : "Now the whole world had one language and one speech .... Yahweh confused the language of the whole world .
So, rather the opposite of the tale of Enmekar,,,what do you say? -
needproof
Language systems evolved over great time periods, anthropologists will tell you that
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badboy
IT WAS A PERSON CALLED LADD, AT UNIVERSITY OF BIRMINGHAM,METHINKS.
ARTICLE IN NEW SCIENTIST
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dilaceratus
The New Scientist article from a few days ago is here, but of course has nothing whatsoever to do with the Tower of Babel.
Dediu and Ladd do not think the genes' link to tonality could be the answer. "There is absolutely no reason to think that non-tonal languages are in any way more fit for purpose than tonal languages," says Ladd. "Chinese society developed advanced technology, politics and philosophy with a tonal language just as successfully as roughly contemporary eastern Mediterranean societies with non-tonal languages."
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dorayakii
smellsgood: You could try to say my big toe is broken, but end up saying "my shitty little monkey is broken."
Incidentally, in Mandarin, a whole sentence can be made using just the word "ma" in its different tones - (1)High (2)Rising (3)Fall-Rise (4)Falling (5)Neutral..
mama ma ma de ma ma? = Is Mother scolding the horse's hemp?
ma(1)ma(5)ma(4) ma(3) de ma(2) ma(5)
literally: Mother - scolds - horse - (possesive) - hemp - (question)
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Narkissos
Also, the date (in the 600 B.C.) would be MUCH too late for a lifting of it to be put in Genesis!
Depends on how you date Genesis! With the hypothesis of a post-Deuteronomistic "Yahwist" (which seems to have been taken more seriously in Europe than in America so far) this fits perfectly. Otoh, you can also assume that the extant 7th-6th attestations fairly reflect earlier Mesopotamian literature -- however, the influence of Mesopotamia over Jews was the strongest in that (7th-6th century) period, not before.
the Enuma does in some peoples opinion predate Genesis...so there's that at least.... This passage does not have much resemblance at all to the tale in Genesis, and the generic Genesis quote, everyone talked about bricks in the old writings, in so many instances, so it is disingenuous to compare a mention of bricks in two separate tale to a lifting of a myth
Except it is a tower (reflecting the architecture and function of Mesopotamian ziggurats) and brick-construction was a striking Mesopotamian particularity to Jewish observers (in Canaan/Israel altars and sanctuaries are generally made of stone which was more easily available there). The name of Babel (identical in Hebrew to that which is usually translated as "Babylon" in the other texts of the OT) was not picked at random.
smellsgood: Now this is just a complete misrepresentation of that passage in the 'Tale of Enmekar',,, none of it is actually talking about a confounding of languages at all. It's actually the REVERSE. It's talking about the already MANY TONGUED people addressing Enlil together in a single language!! Yeah! I don't see any mention of an [until then] clearly, whoever added that was trying to make this story into something it was not. Where did you get the bracketed inferences from? They are not accurrate! As one can readily see with the unedited version:
"Chant to him the holy song, the incantation sung in its chambers -- the incantation of Nudimmud: "On that day when there is no snake, when there is no scorpion, when there is no hyena, when there is no lion, when there is neither dog nor wolf, when there is thus neither fear nor trembling, man has no rival! At such a time, may the lands of Cubur and Hamazi, the many-tongued, and Sumer, the great mountain of the me of magnificence, and Akkad, the land possessing all that is befitting, and the Martu land, resting in security -- the whole universe, the well-guarded people -- may they all address Enlil together in a single language! For at that time, for the ambitious lords, for the ambitious princes, for the ambitious kings, Enki, for the ambitious lords, for the ambitious princes, for the ambitious kings, for the ambitious lords, for the ambitious princes, for the ambitious kings -- Enki, the lord of abundance and of steadfast decisions, the wise and knowing lord of the Land, the expert of the gods, chosen for wisdom, the lord of Eridug, shall change the speech in their mouths, as many as he had placed there, and so the speech of mankind is truly one." "
Genesis 11:1 , 9 : "Now the whole world had one language and one speech .... Yahweh confused the language of the whole world .
So, rather the opposite of the tale of Enmekar,,,what do you say?There is obviously some debate going as to the interpretation (and translation) of the Tale of Enmerkar). If the rather recent proposal (1998?) you are referring to is to be retained, the link between ambition and linguistic unity is all the more striking. This would modify the meaning of the motif (Genesis 11 or an earlier Jewish source referring to the city and language, not the tower, reversing the sense from a hopeful unification of language to an etiological confusion => dispersion motif, making a theologically opposite point). But that doesn't change nothing to the influence per se -- unless you misunderstand "influence" as slavish copy: this is generally not the point Bible scholars (contrary to popular Bible critics) are trying to make when they refer to Ancient Near East parallels. There is a remarkable creativity in the "Biblical" use of earlier sources, especially non-Israelite.
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Leolaia
smellsgood: Well, I do believe that most of the Babylonian history recorded on the inscriptions is about buildings. Building this, building that. Also, the date (in the 600 B.C.) would be MUCH too late for a lifting of it to be put in Genesis!
I think you misunderstood what I wrote. Those are parallels but not necessarily the direct sources of the biblical wording. What the parallels demonstrate is that very similar language of what is found in Genesis 11:4 was applied by the Babylonians themselves to their own ziggurat at Babylon (and the temple thereof). Nabopolassar (625-605 BC) talked about making its top equal to heaven, the Enuma Elish (seventh century BC at the latest but probably as early as the eighteenth to twefth centuries BC) talked about the building of the tower as high as Apsu (heaven) with the head of Esagila (the temple) equaling Apsu, and J (the Jahwist stratum of the Pentateuch) talked about the building of a tower at Babylon with its top touching the heavens. Even the Sumerian name of the ziggurat (Etemenanki, "foundation of heaven and earth") alludes to this idea. So it is clear that what is stated in Genesis 11:4 is what the Babylonians have traditionally said about their tower and they said it many times throughout the history of the building; it was a leitmotif. The tower was rebuilt and remodeled many times over the centuries, and Nabopolassar's dedication inscription likely imitates earlier dedications of the building just as his son Nebuchadnezzar did in his own inscription: "Etemenanki, ziggurat of Babylon I made it, the wonder of the people of the world, I raised its top to heaven, made doors for the gates, and I covered it with bitumen and bricks" (Schøyen MS 2063).
BTW, since Genesis was probably redacted in the post-exilic period and since similar language of Genesis 11:4 existed in texts of the late pre-exilic period, I would not say that the texts are too late to be valid parallels, and the direction of dependence is quite clear since the Babylonians were talking about their own building.
smellsgood: the Enuma does in some peoples opinion predate Genesis...so there's that at least.... This passage does not have much resemblance at all to the tale in Genesis, and the generic Genesis quote, everyone talked about bricks in the old writings, in so many instances, so it is disingenuous to compare a mention of bricks in two separate tale to a lifting of a myth
While the parallels are not very noteworthy in your opinion, they are to many scholars, and I certainly disagree that it is disingenuous to point them out. First of all, it should not be forgotten that what is being described in both texts is the SAME EVENT, the original founding of Babylon and its tower. Second, both texts do not merely talk about the making of bricks (the mention of which is fairly unusual by itself) but more importantly they refer to the decision to make bricks that is phrased in a cooperative command, "Let us make bricks" = "Let its brickwork be fashioned". In both texts, decision to make bricks is actually a decision to build a tower. Third, it has long been noticed that Genesis 11:3-4 has poetic phrasing which corresponds to the verse that is used in the Enuma Elish. In fact, the alliterative phrase nlbnh lbnym "let us make bricks" in the Hebrew has a direct parallel in the ilbinu libittu and libittashu iltabnu of the Akkadian. Fourth, the heavenly height of the tower is emphasized in both texts. All together, the parallels are pretty impressive.
smellsgood: Now this is just a complete misrepresentation of that passage in the 'Tale of Enmekar',,, none of it is actually talking about a confounding of languages at all. It's actually the REVERSE. It's talking about the already MANY TONGUED people addressing Enlil together in a single language!! Yeah! I don't see any mention of an [until then] clearly, whoever added that was trying to make this story into something it was not. Where did you get the bracketed inferences from?
What you have there is a different translation of the same chant and one that interprets it in a very different way. My text is the one given by Samuel Noah Kramer, published in 1968 in the Journal of the American Oriental Society. Here is the text with Kramer's translation of lines 136-155 of the Incantation of Nudimmud (I've omitted lines 147-149 for brevity), as quoted in the tale of Enkerkar and the Lord of Aratta:
ud-ba mush-nu-gál-la-àm gír nu-gál-la-àm[ka nu-gál-la-àm]
ur-mah nu-gál-la-àm ur-zir(?) ur-bar-ra nu-gál-la-am
ní-te-gá su-zi-zi-i nu-gál-la-àm
lú-lu 6 gaba-shu-gar nu-um-tuku-àm
ud-ba kur-shubur ki-hé-me-zi
eme-ha-mun ki-en-gi kur-gal-me-nam-nun-na-kam
ki-uri kur-me-te-gál-la
kur-mar-tu-ú-sal-la-ná-a
an-ki-nigin-na uku-sag-sì-ga
d en-líl-ra eme-ash-àm, he-en-na-da-[si(?)-el(?)]...d en-ki en-hé-gál-la-[du]g 4 -ga-zi
en-geshtug-ga ig-[i-g]ál-kalam-ma-ke 4
mas-su-dingir-re-e-ne-ke 4
geshtug-ge-pà-da e[n]-eridu ki -ga-ke 4
ka-ba eme ì-kúr en-na mi-ni-in-ga-ra
eme-nam-lú-lu 6 ash i-me-[a]"In those days there was no snake, there was no scorpion, there was no hyena,
There was no lion, there was no wild dog, no wolf,
There was no fear, no terror,
Man had no rival.
In those days the land Shubur (East), the place of plenty, of righteous decrees,
Harmony-tongued Sumer (South), the great land of the "decrees of princeship,"
Uri (North), the land having all that is needful,
The land Martu (West), resting in security,
The whole universe, the people in unison,
To Enlil in one tongue gave praise...(Then) Enki, the lord of abundance (whose) commands are trustworthy,
The lord of wisdom, who understands the land,
The leader of the gods,
Endowed with wisdom, the lord of Eridu
Changed the speech in their mouths, [brought] contention into it,
Into the speech of man that (until then) had been one.One could also note Sol Cohen's translation of the final verse: "At that time ... the lord of Eridu, clever one of the land, changed the speech in their mouth, having there placed contention, when the speech amongst men had been one" (Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta, 1973, p. 119). There is also Thorkild Jacobsen's translation: "In those days ... did the sagacious omen-revealed lord of Eridu estrange the tongues in their mouths as many as were put there, the tongues of men which were one" (Sumerian Poetry in Translation, 1987, p. 290). I wasn't previously aware of the rendering you gave, so I just did some research to find out what it is based on. It seems to derive from the suggestion of Bendt Alster to regard the Incantation of Nudimmud (cited here in the poem) as referring to a future state of affairs rather than one in the distant past. The problem here is that Sumerian does not distinguish tense; it rather expresses verbal aspect, such as perfective and imperfective. When the perfective is used, it more often than not pertains to the past, but it can be used to refer to the future. The perfective occurs in this passage (cf. the marking of ergative case on the agent "lord of Eridu" in lines 153-154, which accords to the use of the perfective in the split-ergative system of Sumerian), so for it to pertain to the future, Alster suggests the rendering: "The lord of Eridu will have changed in their mouth all languages that existed", rather than the more typical "The lord of Eridu changed (or "had changed") in their mouth all languages..." Alster prefers the former because he reads the incantation as a means of inducing the lord of Aratta to accept Sumerian rule, and thus eventually have its speech changed to Sumerian like all the other nations. The time of "those days" would thus not be the past but a future when this state of affairs has already been achieved (hence the perfective).
But the phrase translated "those days" (ud-ba, inflected form of ud-bi), especially when used in epic literature, more often pertains to the past, such as to a state of affairs that has been changed, or to a distant past, as an equivalent to our "once upon a time". A very similar example can be found in the same poem, referring to the invention of writing: "In those days (ud-bi-ta), writing words on tablets had not existed, but now with the sun's rising, so it was!" (lines 504-505). Similarly, "in those days (ud-ba) there was no snake, there was no scorpion, there was no hyena". Both describe situations that once did not exist (note also the similar connection to language). The Akkadian Enuma Elish also has a similar beginning: "When there was no heaven, no earth, no height, no depth, no name, when Apsu was alone" (lines 1-2). Compare also the introduction to the tale Enmerkar and Ensuhkeshdanna: "At that time (ud-ba) the day was lord, the night was sovereign, Utu was king" (line 14). According to Adele Berlin, this phrasing "takes the audience far back to an unspecified (unhistorical) time in the past" (JAOS, 1983, p. 23), and Sol Cohen notes that when used in the beginning of a literary unit "ud-ba introduces a new section whose events took place prior to the narrative" (p. 198). Also it could simply refer to any specific time in the past: "At that time (ud-ba), from the Lower Sea to the Upper Sea, [King] Lugalzaggesi put the course of the Tigris and Euphrates in order" (Inscription of Lugalzaggesi, BE 1, no. 87, col. ii, lines 13-14). While ud-ba and ud-bi were not restricted to past situations (as they could be used in prophecy to refer to the future, for instance), they did occur more often with the past than the future and when they occurred with the perfective, a past interpretation would especially be salient. Kramer notes that the phrase is similar to Hebrew b-ymym hhm "in those days", especially with the negative to indicate a former situation, cf. "In those days (b-ymym hhm) there was no king in Israel" (Judges 17:6, 18:1), "In those days (b-ymym hhm) the word of Yahweh was scarce, there were no visions breaching forth" (1 Samuel 3:1), etc. So it is quite understandable why Kramer and others have read the incantation as referring to a situation in the past.
The translation also turns on the rendering of en-na, which Kramer translated as "contention". The discord latent in this phrase would support an understanding of Enki's changing of languages as one that creates discord -- rather than making all tongues speak the same language. The situation here is that en-na is a homonym for two very different words. The more common one of these is en-na "as long as, until" which usually is a temporal durative. Here is a typical example: en-na ti-la ku-li-ni-im ud ug-ga-a gal-la-ni-im "as long as he is alive it is his friend but when he is dead it is his demon" (Sumerian Proverb Collection, III 16). Your translation (as well as the one provided by Jacobsen) seems to take this non-temporally, as "as many as". That is, "The lord of Eridu changed/will have changed the languages in their mouths, en-na he put" is taken to mean "The lord of Eridu changed/will have changed the languages in their mouths, as many as he put" as opposed to "contention he put" or "as long as he put". Note that this would still make Enki responsible for the languages of the world. I don't know the details of the pattern of usage of en-na to know whether "as many as" is a stretch for a word that usually means "as long as", since a form of ana "what" is usually used in this sense (e.g. a-na me-a-bi "as many as they are, what there is of it"). But it is worth pointing out that the other word written as en-na fits well here and Kramer himself noted that "the crucial en-na has nothing to do with the en-na that is usually rendered 'as long as' " (p. 111). This en-na means "being in revolt, insubordinate, obstinate", i.e. contention. It commonly occurred in a phrase en-na nu-se-ga "the insubordinate and unsubmissive". Example: "Like a ferocious beast you pacify with your gall your insubordinate (en-na) and unsubmissive ones" (Inanna and Ebih, line 9). This would contrast with lines 145-146; at that time, the whole world speaks to Enlil in one language but Enki brings revolt and contention into the world by changing their languages. This also would fit with the broader context -- the Incantation is part of a larger request for Aratta to submit to the king of Uruk and the lord of Aratta refuses this request (lines 224-226), being obstinate and insubmissive. It also fits with the ideal situation in line 140 that man has no rival (gaba-shu-gar).
Finally, the third point on which the translations diverge is the rendering of eme-ha-mun. According to Kramer, is composed of eme "tongue" and hamun "harmonious," cf. sìr-ha-mun as a term for a harmony song. But as this latter example shows, "harmony" could consist of different things that are brought into a harmony so this phrase may implicitly assume the existence of different tongues, hence the rendering in the translation you quoted. Or, if it refers to the tongues in the people's mouths (see line 154), it would mean that all are speaking in harmony to Enlil, i.e. "in one tongue (eme-ash-àm)". There is a close parallel to the expression here in another text referring to Shamash: "You set aright the eme-ha-mun as if it were of one kind (mu-ash-gin)" (Bit Rimki III, line 40). This is a parallel to calling a people eme-ha-mun and describing them as "one" (ash). But is eme-ha-mun the condition of mankind after it is set right, or does it refer to differences and oppositions that need to be set right? There is a bilingual Akkadian version of the same text, and there lishan mithurti occurs as the equivalent of eme-ha-mun. Now while mithurti has a derived meaning "matching one another, corresponding to one another" (i.e. harmonious) and such meanings typify related forms mitharu and mitharish, the etymological root actually means "opposing" and there is evidence that hamun in Sumerian also originally meant "opposing" (cf. ri-ha-mun "whirlwind", i.e. opposing winds, im-dal-ha-mun "to rub, said of jugs"). So hamun seems to have originally meant "opposing one another" and later developed the sense of "harmonious", and scholars have disagreed on which sense is used in the Incantation. The sense of opposition fits the Bit Rimki text better: "You set aright those with opposing tongues as if it were of one kind". Cohen however regards the phrase as a general epithet for multilingual mankind, and renders the Incantation as follows: "Once, there was no snake, there was no scorpion, there was no hyena, there was no lion, there was neither dog nor wolf. There was neither fright nor goose flesh, man had no rival. At that time, the mountain lands of Shubar-Hamazi, and the different-tongued Sumer, the great mountain of the me of magificence, Uri, mountain possessing all that is befitting, mountain-land of Mardu, resting in security, the whole universe, the people who are taken care of (by the god), addressed Enlil in one tongue. At that time, there was a contending-lord, a contending-prince, a contending-king, Enki, the contending-lord, the contending-prince, the contending-king, Enki, the lord of abundance, the lord who makes steadfast his utterances, the lord of wisdom, clever one of the land, the sage of the gods, the lord of Eridu, displaying wisdom, changed the speech in their mouth, having there placed contention, when the speech amongst men had been one".
So I think we both had something to learn from this .... I was unaware that the text could be read another way and thus there should be caution on how it should be interpreted, and I think you would similarly understand that Kramer's translation is not necessarily ignoring the text or making it say the opposite of what it really says, but has its own reasons for rendering it the way it did. Coming back to the subject of biblical parallels, what is interesting here is that either way the text is interpreted, it constitutes an interesting parallel to a passage in the OT. If we accept the translation of Kramer, Cohen, and others, the Incantation resembles Genesis 11 in a number of interesting ways: (1) A description of an initial situation in which "the whole earth had one language and one kind of speech" (Genesis 11:1), "the whole universe ... gave praise to Enlil in one tongue". Both refer to the totality of humanity and the use of a single language. (2) The geographic center is assumed to be Shinar (= Mesopotamia) in Genesis 11:2 and Sumer in the Incantation, surrounded as it is by the other nations that are named, (3) a deity changes the speech of people, bringing in divisions between people such that a people that formerly had been one no longer continues as one people. If we instead endorse Alster's suggestion, then we have an excellent OT parallel from the book of Zephaniah. I'll quote the translation you gave for sake of comparison:
Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta (alternative translation): "On that day when there is no snake, when there is no scorpion, when there is no hyena, when there is no lion, when there is neither dog nor wolf, when there is thus neither fear nor trembling, man has no rival! At such a time, ... the whole universe, the well-guarded people -- may they all address Enlil together in a single language! For at that time, .... Enki, the lord of abundance and of steadfast decisions, the wise and knowing lord of the Land, the expert of the gods, chosen for wisdom, the lord of Eridug, shall change the speech in their mouths, as many as he had placed there, and so the speech of mankind is truly one".
Zephaniah 3:8-13: "Therefore wait for me, for the day I will stand up to testify. I have decided to assemble the nations, to gather the kingdoms, and to pour out my wrath on them, all in my fierce anger. The whole world will be consumed by the fire of my jealous anger. Then I will turn all peoples to a pure speech, that all of them may call on the name of Yahweh and serve him as with one shoulder. From beyond the rivers of Cush, my worshippers, my scattered people will bring me offerings. On that day you will not be put to shame for all the wrongs you have done to me ... the remnant of Israel will do no wrong, they will speak no lies, nor will deceit be found in their mouths. They will eat and lie down and no one will make them afraid."
Among the parallels we find (1) a future outlook to "that day", (2) when "there is no fear" nor cause for fear, (3) the "whole world" would be united in worshipping the same god, and (4) a deity changes the speech of the people, bringing even people from distant nations (e.g. beyond the rivers of Cush) to worship Yahweh in a "pure speech". So either way, this passage from an ancient Sumerian poem poses an interesting set of parallels to the OT. And as Narkissos pointed out, neither of these are mutually exclusive considering the pliable nature of such traditional material. In both Babel and in the eschatological future of Zephaniah, Yahweh changes the speech of people on the earth. Even if Alster's eschatological reading of the Sumerian text is correct, it still constitutes a parallel in terms of God, or a god, intervening and changing the speech of mankind. It would also imply that the same god (Enki) that changes the speech towards unity was also the one responsible for the different languages in the first place, i.e. "The lord of Eridu changed/will have changed the languages in their mouths, as many as he put". This would correspond to Yahweh first creating the diversity of language in humanity (= Genesis 11) and then changing the speech of all the nations to one pure speech (= Zephaniah 3). Either way it is a noteworthy text.
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Leolaia
Although there is no direct parallel on the changing of speech, the situation in Isaiah 2 = Micah 4 is also parallel to the situation in Zephaniah and Alster's interpretation of the Incantation of Nudimmud:
"In the days to come the mountain of the House of Yahweh will be put on top of the mountains and be lifted higher than the hills. The peoples will stream to it, nations without number will come to it, and they will say, 'Come, let us go up to the mountain of Yahweh, to the House of the God of Jacob, so that he may teach us his ways and we may walk in his paths; since from Zion the Law will go out, and the oracle of Yahweh from Jerusalem.' He will wield authority over many peoples and arbitrate for mighty nations; they will hammer their swords into ploughshares, their spears into sickles, nation will not lift sword against nation, there will be no more training for war. Each man will sit under his vine and his fig tree, with no one to trouble him" (Micah 4:1-4).
Also, like the kingdom of Uruk, Jerusalem here is viewed as having supremacy over all nations with conflict and war dissolved in the unity of humanity under the worship of the same god. Since the prophecy in Zephaniah 3 seems to connected with the Babel narrative of Genesis 11 (with both involving God changing the speech of the nations, and a reversal of the scattering of mankind), it is interesting to note a similar connection here. The tower built in Babel involved the "whole world" at the time and the tower was designed to reach the heavens. Here, the whole world will stream to Jerusalem (rather than scattering away from Babel), and they ascend to the temple that is "on top the mountains and higher than the hills". Moreover, the people cooperatively decide to go up the mountain in a manner similar to the decision to build the tower in Genesis 11 and Yahweh's decision to descend from heaven:
Micah 4:2: "They will say (w-'mrw), 'Come (lkw), let us go up (w-n`lh) to the mountain of Yahweh, to the House of the God of Jacob".
Genesis 11:3-4: "And they said (w-y'mrw), "Come (hbh), let us make bricks (nlbnh lbnym) .... Come (hbh), let us build (lbnh) a city and a tower, with its top reaching the heavens".
Genesis 11:7: "Come (hbh), let us go down (nrdh), and confuse their language so that they would not understand each other's speech".
As for the text in Zephaniah, it uses shph "lip" to refer to language as does Genesis 11:6-7, 9, and shph is followed by 'chd "one" (in 'chd shkm "one shoulder") in Zephaniah 3:9 just as we find shph + 'chd in Genesis 11:6, `m 'chd w-shph 'cht "one people and one lip". Moreover, the people in Genesis 11:3 decide to "make a name" (n`shh shm) for themselves, whereas the people in Zephaniah 3:9 will "call on the name" (lqr' b-shm) of Yahweh. And whereas in Zephaniah 3:9, 10 all the nations (gwym) and "all the earth" (kl h-'rts) are gathered together (l-'sp) and assembled (qbts), even the "scattered ones" (pwts), we find in Genesis 11:1, 4, 9 that "all the earth" (kl h-'rts) dwelt together in Shinar so they wouldn't be "scattered" (npwts) over the face of the earth but Yahweh intervened and scattered (hpytsm) them over the earth. The two scenarios thus appear to related to each other and the situation in Zephaniah quite relevant to Genesis.
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Leolaia
To go back to the original topic of this thread, it is commonly thought that Sumerian was a tonal language, as its high degree of homonyms suggests. Sumerian, BTW, is the oldest attested language in writing ... spoken in Uruk (biblical Erech), Kish, Ur, etc. long before Babylon came on the scene as a political center of any sort.