Tongues???

It was possible for someone to speak in tongues without interpretation. Paul would later instruct the one who spoke in tongues to be silent in the church if there were no interpreter. Why would Paul make the point about the barbarian if it were not possible for someone to speak in tongues without no one else understanding.



The analogy regarding the barbarian is about a conversation that does not take place. When someone teaches or prophesies, does he typically have a 'conversation.' One could teach in a conversational manner, but there is no basis for assuming tongues and interpretation were in the form of some kind of conversation as opposed to addressing the assembly.



The lack of understanding is the reason Paul gives instructions regarding the interpretation of tongues. It is obvious from the passage that speaking in tongues without interpretation is possible. Paul was not opposed to praying in tongues, but in the context of the assembly, it does not edify others.



I do not recall anyone on the thread arguing that the ability to genuinely speak in tongues comes from the person speaking in tongues (though I am not sure about the recent diglossia theory posts.)



The verse you quote below argues against that idea. Paul's understanding was 'unfruitful' if he prayed in tongues.



I speak English and I speak Indonesia. I can interpret using my mundane learned abilities.



But that is not what the verse says. In verse 13, Paul tells the one who speaks in an unknown tongue to pray that he may interpret. It doesn't say to pray that someone else might interpret. That's allowed in verse 28. But it is not in verse 13.

The interpreter understands, or receives a message whereby he understands what is spoken in tongues. He shares that interpretation with the assembly.

"Tongues is not an errfhly language but a Heavenly."

'Tongues' are a self-created phenomenon by the speaker - each one is unique to its speaker with no two ever the same. Very earthly and sometimes very predictable; the subconscious playing with sounds to create what is perceived and interpreted as actual, meaningful speech. That said, to practitioners, it is a very real and spiritually meaningful experience; a way to establish a closer connection to God. Tongues are simply the vehicle/tool by which this is accomplished.

Tongues is not an errfhly language but a Heavenly. For we speak to God and in meditation He’ll speak to us.

Fredoheaven,

I am not sure exactly what your stance is from that last post. I believe that the type of speaking in tongues Paul is referring to in the passage is not naturally understood by either the speaker or the hearer and requires a supernatural gift of interpretation for what is spoken to be understood. But 'unknown' as added to the KJV of the text to make it readable or more understandable in the opinion of the translators, which is signified by italics, possible because the KVJ translators understood the tongue to be 'unknown' based on clues from the context which we can all read.

To the above I should have added......

Some tongues speakers will argue that there are “thousands of languages spoken in the world today, how can anyone know that ‘tongues’ are not one of them?” Yes, there are indeed thousands of languages spoken in the world today – unfortunately not one of them is remotely close to what people are producing in their glossolalia/tongues.

As Linguist Dr. William Welmers puts it: “Among us (Linguists), we have heard many hundreds of languages. Furthermore, we have heard representative languages in virtually every group of related languages in the world. At worst we may have missed a few small groups in the interior of South America or in New Guinea. I would estimate that the chances are at least even that if a glossolalic utterance were in a known language, one of us would either recognize the language or recognize that it is similar to some language we are acquainted with."

Dr. Welmers further makes this challenge: "Get two recordings, one of a glossolalic utterance and the other in a real language remote from anything I have ever heard. I'm confident that in just a few moments I could tell which is which and why I am sure of it."

As a Linguist and one who has studied various languages from literally all corners of the globe, both ancient and modern, I completely concur with his challenge - real language is unmistakable.....as is glossolalia.

Let's keep our definitions straight. If we are talking about Biblical terminology, glossalalia is what the disciples did on the day of Pentecost. In the 1800's, some of the liberal theologians began to speculate that it was some kind of babbling. Certain academic fields call free vocalization 'glossalalia' and the term 'xenoglossia' has been devised to refer to speaking in a language you to not know.





This reminds me of a time I visited a small country church in Georgia, after getting my linguistics degree. I heard a man speak in tongues, and the phonemes he used weren't all English phonemes. I made a mental note of that. I have heard speaking in tongues that doesn't seem to fit with your theory here in regard to phonemes, accent, etc.





Interpretations of Pentecostals and Charismatics, though admittedly varied, seem to align with the interpretations of many other Christians from different traditions who do not speak with tongues. Your interpretation of speaking in tongues in Acts 2 seems rather unusual.





As a social scientist, if you consider your studies to fall into that area, your commentary here is a bit unscientific. What I mean is, none of your research can back up what you say. You can say whether you found support your hypothesis. I suspect there are a lot of fake tongues. IMO, a more sensible approach to research would be to try to look into cases where people actually understood speaking in tongues in their own language. There are many references to this from the early days of the Azusa Street revival. I've come across for or five. I have known people who have spoken in tongues and others understood what they were saying.





I have heard that asserted. And that may be evidence for fake interpretation, which is an area for concern. But, again, you should be researching other kinds of cases, like when two people receive the same interpretation and one gives it. This happened to a guy I went to Christian school with in middle school and one of my college roommates. The same thing happens with prophecies, too. And there are those cases where one goes to one place and receives a prophecy, goes elsewhere and someone else prophesies the same thing he heard at the first place. It has happened to me.





Bold assertions, but not true. It wasn't true in Acts 2. Christians should agree on that. And most of us don't have as non-eventful intepretations of Acts 2 as yourself. In Acts 2, the disciples spoke in languages and many in the crowd heard them speaking in their own languages and dialects. And the assertion in your quote isn't true in the cases of those who heard speaking in tongues in their own languages at Azusa Street and since.


If your research question had to do with whether God healed people supernaturally nowadays, would you search out people who had been prayed for and stayed sick, or would you look for the actual cases where people had been healed? I'd look for the latter.


As far as testable claims, could a lab experiment requiring individuals to speak in tongues and intepret on a recorder, be prone to selection error in terms of your sample? Does a willingness to experiment with gifts of the Holy Spirit in a lab without His permission potentially demonstrate a lack of the fear of the Lord? I don't want to judge anyone, but it doesn't sit well with me personally. There could be a selection error that stacks the deck with those more inclined to speak in fake tongues or give fake interpretations.





I was thinking something like this about your interpretation of Acts 2 when I read it.





I have seen emotional Pentecostals. There are some Appalachian churches where enthusiasm is held in high regard, and all that. But there is also a variety of styles for Pentecostals. I grew up in the A/G which wasn't as into enthusiasm, didn't try to get the crowd excited, etc., but believed in and practiced tongues and interpretation.


Lots of churches that aren't Pentecostal have adapted praise and worship music like Charismatics and some of the Pentecostal churches had been doing for a couple of decades. Are all these churches really whipped into an altered state of consciousness? Speaking in tongues doesn't always, probably doesn't usually, occur in a state of 'emotional frenzy.'


In the A/G churches I attended in my youth, there wasn't intense emotional pressure to speak in tongues, either. They didn't pactice everyone speaking in tongues at the same time. Someone might speak in tongues, usually between songs. Someone else interpreted. Or someone might give a prophecy.


I don't recall if it was an interpretation of a tongue or a prophecy that repeated back to me a question I had just thought, something along the lines, "You have asked...." right after I thought it when I was a teenager. It sure got my attention. I've experienced similar things since, and I've seen witnessed a bit of prophecy that touches on personal details of individual's lives that one could not naturally know.

Languag has evolved to the nth degree in the passing past six thousand years.

It would be virtually impossible for any present day linguisst to determine for certain if a tongue spoken is legitimate or fake, and why would one seek to do so? To prove the gift is not extand? This is not the work of a believer.

Tongues is the sign of receiving Holy Ghost. So praying in tongues is praying in the Holy Ghost.

Your statement is very funny because it is false and silly friend. Every language has a structure, just like this sentence I just used.

"
Linguistics is the science of language, and linguists are scientists who apply the scientific method to questions about the nature and function of language.

Linguists conduct formal studies of speech sounds, grammatical structures, and meaning across all the world’s over 6,000 languages. They also investigate the history of and changes within language families and how language is acquired when we are infants. Linguists examine the relationship between written and spoken language as well as the underlying neural structures that enable us to use language.

Clearly, many of the questions linguists pose overlap with fields in the life sciences, social sciences, and humanities, thus making linguistics a multidisciplinary field. As a multidisciplinary field, Linguistics, attempts to understand how language is stored in the human mind/brain and how it is part of everyday human behavior through its sister fields of neuroscience, philosophy, psychology, anthropology, sociology, and computer science.

It is important to note that the term “linguist” may cause some confusion because it is known to be used differently in non-academic domains. Sometimes language experts are referred to as linguists, but those individuals do not necessarily conduct the same kind of scientific research on language as carried out by those with advanced degrees in linguistics. “Polyglot” is the term used for a person who has knowledge of multiple languages. And although it is possible for a person to be both a linguist and a polyglot, it is just as possible that a linguist speaks only one language.

The resources available below on this page offer some perspectives on the science and applied science of linguistics. A selection of FAQ pamphlets which offer particular insights into language from a scientific perspective may be found here. An overview of linguistics research available via LSA publications and meetings may be found here.

Other resources describing the science of linguistics from the LSA YouTube channel are linked below:

• Language documentation
• Sociolinguistics
• Neuro- and psycholinguistics
• Anthropological linguistics
• Computational linguistics

The Domain of Linguistics is a series first published by the Linguistic Society of America in 1982. It was written to explain the discipline to the general public, facilitated by a Challenge Grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. A selection is available below:

• Applied linguistics by G. R. Tucker
• Computers and Language by J. Hobbs
• Grammar by S. Chung and G. Pullum
• Language and the Brain by S. Crain
• Language Variation and Change by S. Thomason
• Machine Translation by M. Kay
• Meaning by W. Ladusaw
• The Sounds of Speech by M. Halle
• Neurolinguistics by L. Menn
• What is ‘Correct’ Language?: Prescriptivism by E. Finegan

The Routledge Guides to Linguistics series, produced as part of the LSA’s publishing partnership with Routledge, is a new series of publications meant to serve as introductions to various topics and questions within the field of Linguistics. You can find a full list of available new titles and purchase them here. The series includes approachable and informative guides to many topics in Linguistics:

• Language in Children by Eve V. Clark
• Language and Meaning by Betty J. Birner
• Is English Changing? by Steve Kleinedler
• Sign Languages by Diane Lillo-Martin, Sandra Wood, and Joseph Hill
• Why Study Linguistics by Kristen Denham and Anne Lobeck
• Language, Gender, and Sexuality by Scott F. Kiesling
• Bilingualism by Sharzad Mahootian (forthcoming)
• Ebonics by Sonja L. Lanehart (forthcoming)

The LSA has also compiled a list of Podcasts related to Linguistics and Language, which cover a variety of topics and subfields within the field of linguistics.

"
https://www.linguisticsociety.org/resource/science-linguistics

I suppose all know more than do I. Having studied linguistics at the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana so long ago, I suppose I do not qualify to have my studied opinion.

The gift of tongues is a very powerful gift to the person who receives it -----when you come across a difficult situation and you have no idea how to pray about it -----you can rely on the Holy Spirit who will pray for you about the problem ------also you can use tongues in intercessory prayers when you pray for another person--When you pray in the Spirit you are praying directly to God Himself by the Spirit ----when you pray in English Satan has access to block your prayers by putting doubt and fear in your thoughts that your prayer won't be answered ----

Satan hates people speaking in tongues as he has no access to block the prayer

When the person prays in Tongues --they edify themselves -----the gift of Prophecy is a better Gift to get as it edifies the Church ----not just the person ------