The Tower of Babel (/ˈbæbəl/ or /ˈbeɪbəl/; Hebrew: מִגְדַּל בָּבֶל‎, Migddal Bāḇēl) is a story told in the Book of Genesis of the Tanakh (also referred to as the Hebrew Bible) meant to explain the origin of different languages. According to the story, a united humanity of the generations following the Great Flood, speaking a single language and migrating from the east, came to the land of Shinar (Hebrew: שנער‎). As the King James version of the Bible puts it: