Babel
Babel
From the Bible. According to legend, once the peoples of the Babylonian kingdom decided to build a high tower (in Church Slavonic - “pillar”, respectively, “pandemonium” - construction, creation of a pillar): “And they said: we will build ourselves a city and a tower, as high as heaven, and we will make name for ourselves, before we are scattered over the face of all the earth” (Genesis, ch. 11, v. 4).
God, outraged by the impudence of people, prevented the construction: he "mixed" the languages and dialects of the builders, and they, not understanding each other, could no longer continue the construction of this pillar.
Hence the popular expression "Babylonian confusion of languages."
Allegorically: noise, confusion, disorder produced by a large mass of people (disapproved).
Encyclopedic Dictionary of winged words and expressions. - M.: "Lokid-Press". Vadim Serov. 2003 .
Babel
The expression arose from the biblical myth of an attempt to build a tower in Babylon that would have to reach the sky. When the builders began their work, the angry god "confounded their language", they ceased to understand each other and could not continue the construction (Genesis, 11, 1-9). It is used in the meaning: confusion, stupidity, noise, turmoil.
Dictionary of winged words. Plutex. 2004
Synonyms:
See what "Babylonian pandemonium" is in other dictionaries:
Cm … Synonym dictionary
Babel- Babylonian pandemonium. Tower of Babel. Painting by P. Brueghel the Elder. 1563. Museum of the History of Art. Vein. BABYLON PANILITATION, in the Bible, a story about an attempt to build the city of Babylon and a tower to heaven after the Flood (Babylonian ... ... Illustrated Encyclopedic Dictionary
Explanatory Dictionary of Ushakov
BABEL. see pandemonium. Explanatory Dictionary of Ushakov. D.N. Ushakov. 1935 1940 ... Explanatory Dictionary of Ushakov
BABYLON PANILITATION, in the Bible there is a story about an attempt to build the city of Babylon and a tower to heaven (Tower of Babel) after the Flood. Enraged by the insolence of people, God confused their languages (they stopped understanding each other), scattered them all over ... ... Modern Encyclopedia
In the Bible, there is a story about an attempt to build the city of Babylon and a tower to heaven after the Flood. Enraged by the insolence of people, God mixed their languages so that people no longer understood each other, and scattered them throughout the earth. In a figurative sense, turmoil, ... ... Big Encyclopedic Dictionary
In the Bible, there is a legend about how God, angered by the audacity of people who intended to build a tower to heaven (the Tower of Babel), mixed their languages (they stopped understanding each other) and scattered humanity throughout the earth ... Historical dictionary
- (inosk.) mess, stupid noisy conversation Cf. I happened to attend some meetings, and what kind of Babylonian pandemonium I met there, it’s hard to believe ... It’s as if everyone speaks different languages, no one wants to listen to anyone, nor ... ... Michelson's Big Explanatory Phraseological Dictionary
Babel- Book. Unapproved Only ed. Complete confusion, extreme disorder, disorganization. There are many miracles in the world, but there are even more of them in our literature. This is a true Babylonian pandemonium, where people ... shout in all kinds of languages and dialects, not ... Educational Phraseological Dictionary
Coordinates: 32°32′11″ s. sh. 44°25′15″ E / 32.536389° N sh. 44.420833° E d ... Wikipedia
Books
- On the sunny side of the street, Dina Rubina. The new novel by Dina Rubina is news in every sense of the word: an unexpected virtuoso somersault "under the dome of literature", an absolute transformation of the writer's style, her usual intonation and circle ...
Not so common, found more often in books than in live speech, it is a little out of fashion, but still quite famous. Where does it come from?
Let's start with the words of which it consists. "Pandemonium" and "Babylonian". Pandemonium is a compound word, meaning, as can be seen from its very structure, the creation of a certain pillar (although in some dictionaries it is considered, on the contrary, as a distorted "pillar of creation"). As for the word “pillar”, it is related to the word “pillar” and is still used in Russian, but their meanings diverged: one became more sublime, included in a number of stable expressions (“pillar of science”, “pillar of society”), but in its usual, everyday meaning it is outdated, and the other, on the contrary, is rigidly tied to one of the meanings, but remains ordinary, so now no one calls a pillar a pillar, just like a tower a pillar ... In this case, a pillar means exactly a tower , a high structure, and pandemonium is, accordingly, the construction of such a tower.
Well, the word "Babylonian" means that this construction took place in Babylon. On the other hand, the very name of Babylon is to some extent connected with this story: the Bible says that the word "babil", which can be translated as "mixed", became the name of this place because God mixed people and languages \u200b\u200bthere - and it was just the result of pandemonium. True, according to modern ideas, the origin of this name is different: “bab-el”, “bab-il” or “bab-ilu” means “gate of god”. And this is a translation of an older name - Kadingir - from Sumerian into Amorite.
The starting point, from where it is most convenient to consider the history of the expression "Babylonian pandemonium" is the already mentioned biblical story. In the book of Genesis - at the very beginning of the eleventh chapter - one of the dramatic events that happened at the dawn of mankind is described. People who multiplied from a small number to a whole nation (more precisely, managed to do this even twice - the second time after the Flood), then still spoke the same language. And then one day people decided to build a brick tower that would reach the very sky (in the Old Slavonic translation of the Bible, it was called “pillar”). It was, as they say now, a very ambitious project - ambitious in every sense, because people really challenged the celestials, many of the builders, as the legends say, were going to reach the sky not at all for peaceful purposes. And the celestials were not slow to respond. When it became clear that the tower was indeed high and the project had every chance of being realized, God stopped the grandiose construction in a very original way - he didn’t destroy the tower, didn’t kill the builders, didn’t burn or flood anything, but made people stop understanding each other. friend. Each of them could still speak and hear, but now they spoke differently, and they could only understand their own speech, and this is clearly not enough for large-scale concerted actions. One can imagine how many unfulfilled orders there were, bloody clashes, confusion and useless running around ... In the end, the construction site was abandoned. And people scattered in different directions, becoming the founders of different nations - because it was from those times, according to this legend, that people speak different languages. Their inability to properly understand someone other than those who are close to them by blood is a punishment for the pride of their ancestors ... and, perhaps, a precautionary measure so that they do not start something else like building a tower to heaven.
Babylon in 11:9 is mentioned in the Bible for the first, but not the last time. And almost always something bad is reported about him. From the Tower of Babel to the Whore of Babylon - Babylon turns out to be a symbol of a powerful, rich, but mired in sins and therefore a doomed empire. It remained such a symbol even after the real city of Babylon lost its political significance.
By the way, in Babylon there really were tall buildings - temples tens of meters high. And they really were built of brick. Some of them were unfinished. So it is possible that some of the Babylonian ziggurats served as the prototype of the tower.
And, if we talk about history, it is impossible not to trace it in the other direction: myths and legends about the tower to the sky, which collapsed or remained unfinished, exist among many peoples. In Africa, the motif of building a tower of logs is widespread, according to which people wanted to climb into the sky in order to kill a god or to get the moon. In all versions, for one reason or another, this structure was destroyed, it could not do without victims ... But it is rarely reported that as a result of this, the builders of the tower also began to speak in different dialects - only in some myths people who fell from a crumbling building , hit the ground (probably with their heads) so hard that they began to mutter in incomprehensible languages. But in India, just as in the biblical story, problems with mutual understanding are not a consequence of a construction failure, but its cause: someone from above asks to pass a hook, and on the lower tiers this is understood as an order to cut down supports. In general, stories very similar to the story of the Tower of Babel are found all over the world - both on the islands of Oceania, and in the Far North, and even among the Indians. In many cases, there is reason to believe that the myth was borrowed by the locals from Christian missionaries - either completely or only as a motif of the dispersion of peoples. But in some places it looks too ancient not to believe in its independent origin.
But it is time to finally move from the historical part to the linguistic, that is, to the very expression "Babylonian pandemonium". This is a stable phrase of two words, connected by the magic of agreement: pandemonium (what?) Babylonian. The dependent word takes on the gender of the main one - the middle one - and agrees with it in number and case. The phrase is a phraseological unit. This is evident from the fact that, firstly, it is stable: neither of these two words can be replaced by another, moreover, one of them - "pandemonium" - is not used outside the phrase, and even when it seems to occur where -something alone, in fact, it does not mean some abstract construction, but all the same Babylon. This is not a free use of the word, but something like a truncated phraseological unit. And secondly, the meaning of the phrase is not derived directly from its constituent words, it is not only the construction of a tower in Babylon, it has a figurative meaning, always approximately the same.
So what is the meaning of this expression? Let's try to turn to examples from the literature to feel it.
Sometimes it is used in an almost direct meaning, simply moving from the area of designations of unique objects to the area of common nouns:
“And the collective mind of mankind with its attempts at a new Babylonian pandemonium was not only rejected by Dostoevsky, but also served for him as an object of witty ridicule, and not only in the last time of his life, but even earlier. Let Mr. Leontiev re-read at least Notes from the Underground. Dostoevsky believed in man and humanity only because he believed in the God-man and God-manhood - in Christ and in the Church. (V.S. Solovyov)
Here, the “Babylonian pandemonium” is some kind of large-scale project, the same as a giant tower was perceived in its time, something based on the idea of \u200b\u200bthe limitless possibilities of united people, but, so to speak, not blessed from above.
But more often, the figurative meaning is clearly visible.
“Kutim-sir. Sometimes they will gather to me, and the Babylonian pandemonium will go on, especially when Prince Dudkin is there: cards, champagne, oysters, bets ... you know, how good manners are between young people. (I. A. Goncharov. "Ivan Savich Podzhabrin")
“Of course, one should neither burn nor go for a walk, but one should live and study, but, I repeat, all this is very excusable in youth, everything is explained both by education, more inclined towards empty daydreaming than to a sober outlook on life, and the range of our activities. which are limited only to speculative sciences, so that a person, instead of studying science from the beginning, studies it from the end, and then complains that he cannot understand anything in this Babylonian pandemonium. (M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin. "Contradictions")
“In response, a united roar of forty voices was heard. Babylonian pandemonium arose: each in his own way, as he wanted, hastened to express his joy. They roared like a bear, barked like a dog, crowed like roosters, beat a drum. (N. G. Garin-Mikhailovsky. "Gymnasium students")
“From the unusual early heat, Paris was stunned, distraught ... Temples, exchanges, museums, palaces, steeplechase, jazz bands, music halls, revues, dances, salons, exhibitions, disputes ... Babylonian pandemonium!” (V. A. Kaverin. “In front of the mirror”)
“Overtaking fire engines and auxiliary services, the general's Volga flew into the airfield. I slipped along the concrete road, ripping open the thick of the Babylonian pandemonium of cars and people, and braked near the helicopter with a medical cross on board. (Varvara Sinitsyna. "Muse and General")
Dictionaries define the meaning of a phraseological unit as “mess, stupid noisy conversation”, “hustle, bustle, confusion”, “a large group of people gathered in a certain place, usually engaged in some kind of stormy, noisy activity”. And examples from the literature seem to confirm that it is usually the features associated with noise and hustle that are used from the image of the Babylonian pandemonium. Moreover, it is not always clear what moment is meant: the chaos that occurred after the loss of a common language, or the construction itself in its normal phase - for the participants themselves, of course, it was very orderly, everyone knew their place and their task, but for an outside viewer a large construction site can also seem like a complete mess. In any case, the expression is often used to apply to situations where no one really suffers from noise and hustle - in addition, someone is trying to somehow fit into this alien system and understand it.
Sometimes it is used in other meanings, connected precisely with people's misunderstanding of each other, speaking in different languages in a literal or figurative sense - for example, in Zagoskin: “About a hundred years ago, when the unfortunate Russian language resembled Babylonian pandemonium, the word tendency was unknown , but the word propence (propention), which means almost the same thing, was often used instead.
Or a modern example: "It's time to stop the Babylonian pandemonium: bankers should speak with entrepreneurs in the same language - Russian" (about the use of a large number of new borrowed words in the financial sector and the lack of unified terminology).
In other languages, similar expressions - that is, literally meaning "Tower of Babel", "Babylon", - are much more often associated precisely with the problem of multilingualism. This suggests that the Russian meaning of phraseology was strongly influenced by folk etymology: the word "pandemonium" could be associated with unrelated, but similar words "crowd", "crowd".
In my opinion, the Russian word "pandemonium", meaning "gathering", came from a not quite accurately understood phraseological unit, that is, at first, situations when many people crowd, shout, make noise, and what happens and how to find order in all this is not clear. And then it began to seem that pandemonium is such a noisy crowd, especially since these words are similar in sound and may seem related, and the initial "s" can be counted by the prefix. And from here it’s only a step to just any gathering - and if it somehow makes noise and disturbs the peace, and if it’s heterogeneous (here you can already recall the original meaning of the phraseological unit - there people were, it turns out, from different nations, although just recently formed).
However, meanings very similar to Russian - “noise of voices”, “confusion” - exist in other languages, so the association of the word “pandemonium” with the crowd is unlikely to have led to the emergence of additional meaning, rather, it has shifted the spectrum of emerging meanings of phraseological unit in one direction, not allowing the others to develop.
But there is another difference between the Russian "Babylonian pandemonium" and the versions of this biblicalism that have become entrenched in most other languages - most often it simply appears there "tower of Babel", "Babylon", sometimes - "Babylonian confusion". And the fixation on creation, on activity, initially important and conscious, characteristic of Russian phraseology, could also lead to the fact that it launches a slightly different chain of associations, which returns us to the roots. By the very moment when the Babylonians conceived an amazing thing - the creation of a tower to Heaven.
If you look for synonyms among phraseological units (that is, some kind of "mess" - one word - does not count), and among those playing the same role in the sentence ("everything upside down" or "smoke rocker" will not work - they cannot, for example, be an addition, but "Babylonian pandemonium" can), then there are only approximate synonyms, less neutral in meaning or narrower ... "Sodom and Gomorrah", "lunatic asylum", "passage yard" (however, they are also not so free in speech are used in the sense of cases and parts of a sentence - when a phrase has two meanings, direct and figurative, there is always a danger of misunderstanding it, which limits its use).
And the antonym, it turns out, should have the meaning "silence", "order" or even "desertion" - that is, something like "peace and quiet."
The meaning of the word "Babylon", when it is used in a figurative sense, nevertheless usually refers a little not to this phraseological unit, but simply to the image of a big city with all its shortcomings - where people may not understand each other, but not because something interferes with them, but because they themselves strive for this - that is, it is deeper and less clear ... Although it is possible that the meanings of "city" - "crowd" - "noise", which are still on the same semantic field, sometimes they cling to one another and that their smooth flow from one to another occurs, including through phraseological units.
And also "Babylons" is a high, "fancy" hairstyle.
This phraseological unit is more bookish than colloquial, perhaps for the reason that it is simply difficult to pronounce. And modern people try to speak quickly (and write long) ...
Heather Alien, 1st year student at Argemona School, House of Artsis
From the Bible. According to legend, once the peoples of the Babylonian kingdom decided to build a high tower (in Church Slavonic “pillar”, respectively, “pandemonium” construction, the creation of a pillar): “And they said: we will build ourselves a city and a tower, up to ... ... Dictionary of winged words and expressions
Cm … Synonym dictionary
Babel- Babylonian pandemonium. Tower of Babel. Painting by P. Brueghel the Elder. 1563. Museum of the History of Art. Vein. BABYLON PANILITATION, in the Bible, a story about an attempt to build the city of Babylon and a tower to heaven after the Flood (Babylonian ... ... Illustrated Encyclopedic Dictionary
BABEL. see pandemonium. Explanatory Dictionary of Ushakov. D.N. Ushakov. 1935 1940 ... Explanatory Dictionary of Ushakov
BABYLON PANILITATION, in the Bible there is a story about an attempt to build the city of Babylon and a tower to heaven (Tower of Babel) after the Flood. Enraged by the insolence of people, God confused their languages (they stopped understanding each other), scattered them all over ... ... Modern Encyclopedia
In the Bible, there is a story about an attempt to build the city of Babylon and a tower to heaven after the Flood. Enraged by the insolence of people, God mixed their languages so that people no longer understood each other, and scattered them throughout the earth. In a figurative sense, turmoil, ... ... Big Encyclopedic Dictionary
In the Bible, there is a legend about how God, angered by the audacity of people who intended to build a tower to heaven (the Tower of Babel), mixed their languages (they stopped understanding each other) and scattered humanity throughout the earth ... Historical dictionary
- (inosk.) mess, stupid noisy conversation Cf. I happened to attend some meetings, and what kind of Babylonian pandemonium I met there, it’s hard to believe ... It’s as if everyone speaks different languages, no one wants to listen to anyone, nor ... ... Michelson's Big Explanatory Phraseological Dictionary
Babel- Book. Unapproved Only ed. Complete confusion, extreme disorder, disorganization. There are many miracles in the world, but there are even more of them in our literature. This is a true Babylonian pandemonium, where people ... shout in all kinds of languages and dialects, not ... Educational Phraseological Dictionary
Coordinates: 32°32′11″ s. sh. 44°25′15″ E / 32.536389° N sh. 44.420833° E d ... Wikipedia
Books
- On the sunny side of the street, Dina Rubina. The new novel by Dina Rubina is news in every sense of the word: an unexpected virtuoso somersault "under the dome of literature", an absolute transformation of the writer's style, her usual intonation and circle ...
- Secrets of Babylon, V. A. Belyavsky. What was Babylon like twenty-five centuries ago? Was there really a Babylonian pandemonium or is it fiction? What were and how the Hanging Gardens of Babylon were built and ...
"And there was one language in all the earth, and few words.
- And it happened: moving from the east, they found a valley in the land of Shinar, and settled there.
- And they said to each other: let's make bricks and burn them with fire. And they became bricks instead of stones, and they had rock pitch instead of clay.
And they said, Let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its head to heaven, and make a name for ourselves, so that we will not be scattered over the face of the whole earth.
And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower that the sons of men were building.
- And the Lord said: after all, the people are one and the language is one for all; and so they began to do; and now everything that they think to do will not be unattainable for them?
Let us go down and confuse their language there, so that they do not understand each other's speech.
And the Lord scattered them from there over all the earth; and they stopped building the city.
“Therefore the name Babylon was named for her, for there the Lord confounded the language of all the earth, and from there the Lord scattered them over the face of the whole earth.”
Babylonian pandemonium - phraseologism synonyms
Passage yard;Light performance;
Chaos;
Mad house;
Chaos;
Researchers suggest that the myth of the construction of a huge tower to the sky and the confrontation with the gods that followed was inspired by a large-scale construction site in Babylon. More precisely, in this city everything was saturated with a certain gigantism, great structures were erected everywhere. They were a kind of stepped pyramids. Now they are called ziggurat. The most famous of them was located in the capital itself. Its appearance and many descriptions have come down to our times thanks to many clay tablets found in the area. It is believed that the height of the main ziggurat of Babylon was about 85-90 meters, which corresponds to about 60 floors of a modern residential tower.
Some historians believe that the myth of the Tower of Babel does not quite accurately convey the events that took place. Most likely, the task of the designers and builders of such a skyscraper was not to compete with the gods. Most likely, the memories of the former strongest flood (flood) were very fresh in the memory of people and they built this structure in order to wait out the violence of the water element. And God punished the human race not for being ambitious, but for the fact that people violated the divine covenants, which was given to the pious Noah just before the flood: "multiply and be fruitful, and let your descendants fill the earth."
Use of saying in literature
"There is always a real Babylonian pandemonium at the station, where there are long counters with goods, greedy law enforcement officers, strange old women with various junk, some corpses behind the stalls" ("To the blue dragonflies of Babylon" E. V. Khaetskaya)
"A real Babylonian pandemonium took place in the journalistic bureau - whole hosts of respectable journalistic brethren fought all against all for the best places at the meeting" ("Notes on the Revolution" N. N. Sukhanov)
Babylonian pandemonium educational program
Babel- Phraseologism, quite often used. In what sense the expression Babylonian pandemonium is used, you will learn in this article.
"Babylonian pandemonium" the meaning of phraseology
"Babylonian pandemonium" the meaning of the expression - complete confusion, noise, unrestrained screaming, vanity.
"Babylonian pandemonium" origin
According to the biblical legend "The Tower of Babel", after the Flood, all mankind spoke the same language. People decided to glorify their name and scare the enemies by bringing the brick tower to the sky, and around it - a huge city where they would settle all together - Babylon.
And, struck by the insolence of people, God decided not to allow so many proud and wicked people to live in one city, and punished them. He mixed the languages of the builders, and people stopped understanding each other. Hustle and bustle began, a huge crowd could not act in a coordinated manner, and the construction of the tower stopped.
Phraseologism "Babylonian pandemonium" is used to denote a case that will not be completed, as well as disorder, noise, fuss.
"Babylonian pandemonium" sentences
Who were pandemonium here, no matter who rolled here from where, and the people were indigenous here, because the roots in such soil are deeply seated. (L. Kostenko, who would not be pandemonium here ...)
The heads (Krinichan) were foggy from the unceasing cry of this Babylonian pandemonium (Gonchar, Tavria, 1952, pp. 54-55)
Babylonian creation(pandemonium). The center of human bustle. Stone walls built more than half a thousand years ago have never seen anything like this (R. Ivanchenko).
Now you know what the phrase "Babylonian pandemonium" and "Tower of Babel" means and you can make sentences with these statements yourself.
