• Quick note - the problem with Youtube videos not embedding on the forum appears to have been fixed, thanks to ZiprHead. If you do still see problems let me know.

Ed Speaking in tongues

Olowkow said:
As a linguist with experience in data gathering for bilingual research, I would record it, and attempt to enlist her help in analyzing the grammatical structure and phonological traits of the words she is using. I have a feeling she would have no interest, when it becomes clear that there is none, and that she is just making up nonsense sounds as she goes.

Religion is just about make believe. Anyone who votes for a politician who is this nuts deserves just what they get.
Click to expand...

Which would be fine if the rest of us did not get that foolishness.
 
arthwollipot said:
It's a fascinating phenomenon, which I experienced first hand when I was a churchgoer.

It's supposed to be the native language of angels - which is why it doesn't submit to ordinary mortal linguistic analysis. Also, it contradicts what is said about the gift of tongues in the book of Acts. You're supposed to be able to speak in your own language and people hearing will hear your words in their native language. This is changed to mean that you can speak in this language of heaven, and those listening are given the gift to interpret the "prophecy" that you speak.

It's all very weird and confusing for someone who hasn't experienced it.
Click to expand...
Back in the day, I read up quite a bit about the Day of Pentecost and how it related to glossolalia as commonly understood. It appears to be quite a source of controversy, even among people who believe in such things. Some argue that Peter was speaking in different languages in turn, some that he was just speaking his own language and it was the hearing which was supernatural. And then there are further arguments about whether this is normative for glossolalia, or just a unique sign. All backed up their arguments with extensive Biblical references. Put like that, it sounds absolutely ridiculous.

I always found the phrase "speaking in tongues" utterly ridiculous, fetishising the supernatural in a way that probably wouldn't be so apparent if you went with the more mundane and less archaic translation of "speaking other languages". And I tended to view the whole thing with a huge amount of suspicion, even though I was involved with a Charismatic church that was really into it. I can't state this as fact, but I got the impression that people who hung out together tended to have their own "dialect", in that they'd make similar sounds, because of their common idea of what it ought to sound like.

The thing that puzzled me was the emphasis on this particular "gift" and the need to go to ridiculous lengths to get people to receive it. I eventually (and temporarily) succumbed to the madness at the end of a week-long conference, when the guy at the front told us (possibly 10,000 people) that we were all going to speak in tongues together, with prayer laid on for "anyone who hadn't yet received the gift". Looking back, it's fairly obvious why this works so often. At the time, I just went along with it.
 
Is their a similarity between speaking in tongues, and faith healing, that both become contagious en masse?
 
Recovering Agnostic said:
I always found the phrase "speaking in tongues" utterly ridiculous, fetishising the supernatural in a way that probably wouldn't be so apparent if you went with the more mundane and less archaic translation of "speaking other languages".
Click to expand...
But speaking an unintelligible stream of sounds is so much easier than actually speaking foreign languages, so it is really a very pragmatic interpretation without which you would not have "tongue-speaking" performed on a regular basis.
 
foophil said:
No wonder I think this 'ability' is complete nonsense and absolute sillyness! I don't have the gift to interpret it! Or so explains a possible republican candidate in Alaska (can't post a link yet - someone please do so for me):


https://disinfo.com/2014/01/republi...deo-singing-tongues-steam-room-confuse-satan/
Click to expand...
It is complete nonsense. It makes the person doing it look like a lunatic. I hd a friend who was into this insanity and he swore by it. You're right though. Its insane gibberish.
 
steenkh said:
But speaking an unintelligible stream of sounds is so much easier than actually speaking foreign languages, so it is really a very pragmatic interpretation without which you would not have "tongue-speaking" performed on a regular basis.
Click to expand...

My point was that it's a bizarrely archaic translation which has stuck from the King James Version, where Christians in other languages just refer to "languages". The theory and theology is that these are indeed different languages being spoken, by the power of Greyskull the Holy Spirit, but the vocabulary used to describe the gift is unusual. The usual lists of spiritual gifts are all things that can be done naturally, but this is the only one which goes by a different name from the mundane.

I'm not aware that non-English-speaking Christians have any difficulty making a stream of nonsensical sounds, even though they don't use a different word from the ordinary use of language, but I've often wondered about whether there are subtle knock-on effects from using a different word.
 
When I was a foolish High School student, and when the occassion called for a trip to a local restaurant to act foolish, our favorite thing to do was to take turns acting like an exchange student from some far off land, (where gibberish was the official language) and another as interpreter for things such as:

"Ishtildiga mayvenusti pothwalinte teshperinas"

"My exotic friend here will have the cheese fries, please. Also, it's his birthday, do you have any free specials?"

Oh how we amused ourselves. If only we were less foolish, and more evil, we could have started a religion based on pretending foreign exchange students had birthdays at local corporate restaurants. We would be awash in tithings of hot fudge brownie sundaes.

ETA: anecdotal, but I can relate to arthwollipot's observation that groupthink takes over the excercise. Our group, although speaking gibberish, seemed to speak with lots of 'hard g's', 'ish's', and ended lots of words in vowels. (The above example was a pretty accurate indicator of the style).

So, in a way, I get it. We all made up the same sort of BS, and we always knew what it meant: Cheese fries, birthday. (Amen, hallelujah).
 
Last edited:
Wouldn't it be easy enough to take a tape of someone like this, claiming to speak in tongues, and then getting a handful of people who claim they are interpreters. Have them listen to the tape individually (and be kept completely separated), come up with their interpretation, and compare the results. Then show them how silly they are... err I mean how amazing they are.
 
The language of the Angels is amazing and can mean many different things at once. God gives each person the interpretation that is right and relevant to them.
 
anglolawyer said:
Not bein' funny but is ther a tredishun of misspelling thred titles at JREF? Its very commen.
Click to expand...

Wow, can't believe I made that spelling mistake. It is one of those words I always type out wrong, see that it looks funny, and correct it. Somehow I missed it this time around. Looks like I can't edit it either. :(
 
foophil said:
Wow, can't believe I made that spelling mistake. It is one of those words I always type out wrong, see that it looks funny, and correct it. Somehow I missed it this time around. Looks like I can't edit it either. :(
Click to expand...

NO worries. I just notice that a lot of the thread titles are mis-spelled and wondered whether it was an in joke.
 
When I was a kid, watching "Your Show Of Shows", Sid Ceasar would do ersatz languages all the time. German, French.... Didn't speak a word. People would write in and swear they could understand him.
I can still do this pretty well, it's a matter of having an ear for the pronunciation, cadence, and so forth. The trick to sounding "real" is to structure your nonsense like real speech, with pauses, inflection, and so forth.
I can rattle out "German", "French" and "Japanese" pretty well... Chinese is harder because of all the weird inflections but working at the university here with about 30% Asian students it's becoming easier.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom