THE Ashmolean Museum will become a modern day Tower of Babel tonight as a gaggle of languages fill its galleries.

The latest edition of the museum's LiveFriday events is Linguamania – a multilingual world of music, theatre and interactive art.

Visitors will be able to choose from 25 activities and events taking place, including the opportunity to contribute to a multilingual version of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone.

The book has already been translated into more than 70 languages and the new version will include a selection of those.

LiveFriday creative producer Dr Sarah Doherty said: "The LiveFriday events, performances, workshops and talks have been designed to inspire, engage and entertain all ages.

"At Linguamania we will be making the Ashmolean's collections speak for themselves, encouraging our visitors to awaken their own inner linguist."

Other highlights will include Mappa Mundi Mother Tongue, a performance put on by artists and young refugees from Pegasus Theatre's Remix Project.

They will create a giant map of the world with stories and songs that celebrate languages and cultures that have travelled through time and across continents.

The whole event has been put on in partnership with Creative Multilingualism, a language research project led by Oxford University.

It has enabled tickets for tonight to be given away for free.

Professor Katrin Kohl of Creative Multilingualism said: "The Creative Multilingualism project aims to release the potential of modern languages to make linguistic diversity more visible and valued in order to inspire learners, empower communities and invigorate research.

"We hope Linguamania will bring people together to experience languages in action, while every participant will be able to contribute to our research into Creative Multilingualism."

Tonight's event is the 21st LiveFriday since the programme launched in 2013 to celebrate the museum's 330th anniversary.

For more information visit ashmolean.org/livefriday