“the whole earth was of one language” Genesis 11.1. 

We now have important historical evidence as to exactly what was meant 

by the sentence, “The entire land had one language and a common 

speech.” This may not refer to primal humanity before the division of 

languages. In fact in the previous chapter the Torah has already stated, 

“From these the maritime peoples spread out into their lands in their clans within

their nations, each with its own language” Genesis 10:5. 

{The Talmud Yerushalmi, Megillah 1: 11, 71b, records a dispute between R. Eliezer and R. Johanan, 

one of whom holds that the division of humanity into seventy languages occurred before the Flood}. 

The reference seems to be to the imperial practice of the neo-Assyrians, of

imposing their own language on the peoples they conquered. One  

inscription of the time records that Ashurbanipal II “made the totality 

of all peoples speak one speech.” A cylinder inscription of Sargon II says,

“Populations of the four quarters of the world with strange tongues

and incompatible speech… whom I had taken as booty at the command

of Ashur my lord by the might of my sceptre, I caused to accept a

single voice.” The neo-Assyrians asserted their supremacy by

insisting that their language was the only one to be used by the

nations and populations they had defeated. On this reading, Babel is

a critique of imperialism.

Jonathan Sacks, Covenant and Conversation