Babble imitates the "bab-bab" of infant speech — a sound so universal that unrelated languages independently coined similar words for nonsensical talk.
To talk rapidly and incoherently; to make continuous murmuring sounds. As a noun, the confused or meaningless speech itself.
From Middle English babelen, likely of imitative (onomatopoeic) origin, possibly influenced by the biblical Tower of Babel story where God confused human languages Key roots: *bab- (Proto-Germanic: "imitative root for inarticulate speech sounds"), Bāḇel (Hebrew (folk-etymological influence): "Babylon; gate of God").
Babble is probably onomatopoeic — mimicking the bab-bab sounds babies make — but it has been influenced by the biblical story of the Tower of Babel, where God confused humanity's single language into many. The Greek word barbaros (source of "barbarian") works the same way: it imitates the "bar-bar" sounds that foreign speech seemed to make to Greek ears. The bab-/bar- pattern for incomprehensible speech appears independently across many unrelated languages, suggesting a universal human