babel
Original: babel on Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
Transcript
Panel 1:
Child: Dad, why are there different languages?
Panel 2:
Dad: One time, some people built a tower.
Panel 3:
Dad: The tower went way up high, into the sky.
Panel 4:
Dad: But it got so high, it fell.
Panel 5:
Dad: People at the top made hardest emitting guttural yelling sounds. They became today's Germans.
A person amid the rubble: ACH! NEIN!
Panel 6:
Dad: People at the bottom had soft landings, sound was gently pressed out of them, making any musical speech. That's where French people come from.
A person amid the rubble: AUOUUFLOUFE BLEAUOUO~? DEBLEAUO?
Panel 7:
Dad: The people of China were in the middle, trapped under heavy building materials, forcing them to develop a complex pictographic--
Panel 8:
Child: Dad! You can just tell me you don't know!
Panel 9:
Dad: Now, English was created after the fall, on a dare between a Viking, a Frisian, a Frenchman, and--
Child (yelling): MOM! HE WON'T STOP!
Votey:
(Later, he is told the actual story of Lojban, and doesn't believe it.)
Child: Dad, why are there different languages?
Panel 2:
Dad: One time, some people built a tower.
Panel 3:
Dad: The tower went way up high, into the sky.
Panel 4:
Dad: But it got so high, it fell.
Panel 5:
Dad: People at the top made hardest emitting guttural yelling sounds. They became today's Germans.
A person amid the rubble: ACH! NEIN!
Panel 6:
Dad: People at the bottom had soft landings, sound was gently pressed out of them, making any musical speech. That's where French people come from.
A person amid the rubble: AUOUUFLOUFE BLEAUOUO~? DEBLEAUO?
Panel 7:
Dad: The people of China were in the middle, trapped under heavy building materials, forcing them to develop a complex pictographic--
Panel 8:
Child: Dad! You can just tell me you don't know!
Panel 9:
Dad: Now, English was created after the fall, on a dare between a Viking, a Frisian, a Frenchman, and--
Child (yelling): MOM! HE WON'T STOP!
Votey:
(Later, he is told the actual story of Lojban, and doesn't believe it.)
Alt text
A nine-panel comic. A child asks their dad why there are different languages. The dad launches into a tall tale based on the Tower of Babel: people built a tower so high it fell. He claims people at the top, yelling guttural sounds, became Germans (a figure in rubble cries "ACH! NEIN!"); people at the bottom had soft landings that pressed musical speech out of them and became the French (a figure babbles soft vowel sounds); and the people of China, trapped in the middle under heavy materials, developed a complex pictographic writing system. The exasperated child interrupts: "Dad! You can just tell me you don't know!" The dad ignores this and keeps going, claiming English came from a dare between a Viking, a Frisian, and a Frenchman, as the child screams "MOM! HE WON'T STOP!" Votey: text reads "(Later, he is told the actual story of Lojban, and doesn't believe it.)" — a joke that the made-up etymologies are more believable to him than the real, deliberately constructed logical language Lojban.
Transcribed by Claude Opus 4.8.