WHY ADAMS CHOOSE THE NAME OF BABEL FISH?

In a Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy, Ford Prefect gives Babel Fish to Artur. Douglas Adams describes the Babel Fish “Small, yellow and leech-like, and probably the oddest thing in the Universe. It feeds on brainwave energy received not from its own carrier but from those around it. It absorbs all unconscious mental frequencies from this brainwave energy to nourish itself with. It then excretes into the mind of its carrier telepathic matrix formed by combining the conscious thought frequencies with nerve signals picked up from the speech centers of the brain which has supplied them. The practical upshot of all this is that if you stick a Babel fish in your ear you can instantly understand anything said to you in any form of language. The speech patterns you actually hear decode the brainwave matrix which has been fed into your mind by your Babel fish.” The Babel Fish is a symbolic creature in a Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy. Douglas Adams create different terms in his book, Babel Fish is one of them.

Why Adams choose the name of the Babel? What is the story of the Babil Fish? Where does the Babel Fish take the name of Babel?  Douglas Adams makes an irony of the language theory of Babel Tower that is known as Biblical Explanation. According to Babel Tower Theory, the whole earth spoke the same language and one day they wanted to reach heaven that is located in the sky in their belief. They want to enter in by going in the back door rather than a pearly gate.  This idea angered God, for that reason God wants the stop this building process. People, want to get in heaven in the back door works cooperatively in a Babel Tower Building. The God in order to stop the construction of Babel Tower, makes the differentiated languages between people that work in the construction process, so the tower is never finished with conflict. They could no longer understand each other. This theory also explains the great diversity of languages across the world. Douglas was influenced by this theory when writing the Babil Fish character.

And also in the book, Ford Prefect said that Babel Fish cause more problems an start bloodier wars. Writer touch on the more disagreement arises as we understand what the other person says.