Lots of questions about that one too. Just a few short verses:
11 Now the whole world had one language and a common speech. 2 As people moved eastward,[a] they found a plain in Shinar[b] and settled there.
3 They said to each other, “Come, let’s make bricks and bake them thoroughly.” They used brick instead of stone,and tar for mortar. 4 Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens,so that we may make a name for ourselves; otherwise we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth.”
5 But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower the people were building. 6 The Lord said, “If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them.7 Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.”
8 So the Lord scattered them from there over all the earth,and they stopped building the city. 9 That is why it was called Babel[c]—because there the Lord confused the language of the whole world. From there the Lord scatteredthem over the face of the whole earth.
When I read it, the first question I have is “Who is this ‘us’ that you are referring to?” Then, I note that it is interesting that while we commonly read it that the languages are first confused, then the people scattered due to the confusion, the text really does not explicitly say that. It says the people were scattered in verse 8, and the latter verse states the languages were confused, which is actually pretty accurate in describing how languages develop. People scatter due to war, famine, drought, etc. and their languages diverge after seperation. And again, this is centered on the whole world of Isreal, not saying the Mayan and Australian aboriginal language derived from a middle Eastern origin.
Perhaps that is reading too much into the story, however. It is sort of reading linguistic concordance into the text. My feeling is that it is not particularly historical (though may have some truth in it reflecting the recogonition of ancient people that languages have common roots) but is more a story telling of the danger of pride and arrogance. Christian nationalists, take heed.