Speaking in Tongues

[Brainache]

Finally, a use for Quenya Elvish!

 

[Meadmaker]

If only 6 people in america speak Ancient Aramaic then we're really lucky that this "someone" was there to recognise it.

As it turns out, there are a lot more than 6 people in America that speak Aramaic, and a lot of them live here in Detroit. I work with one, and there are a lot in my neighborhood. I had never heard of a Chaldean before I moved to Detroit, but now I order pizza every week from a famliy of them. A lot of the "party stores", which is what we call family run convenience stores in Detroit, in our area are run by Chaldeans. I was quite surprised the first time I went to an Arab food store and saw several religious items for sale depicting the Last Supper.

If you wanted to hear some Aramaic, you could also attend any Jewish service. One of the prayers we say every week is in Aramaic, not Hebrew.

I'm guessing that the tongue speaker wasn't saying anything remotely Aramaic, and I'm guessing that the person who declared that it was ancient Aramaic didn't know that there was such a thing as modern Aramaic, and certainly wouldn't be able to tell the difference.

 

[Drewbot]

Re: the Aramaic reference

That was mine, I kind of made that up from a blurred memory of my experience.

It was 15 years ago, my GF at the time took me to her church, it was huge, there were 9 pastors or something, anyway, the service was going along, and all of a sudden someone started yabbering away a few rows back, so I kind of jumped, and now that I have seen some of your experiences, it has come back to me exactly what happened.

Persons started yabbering in tongues
I'm like "WTF?"
GF says: 'he is speaking in tongues'
I'm like "WTF?"
She says ''it's the angel's or god's language''
I say "How do you know what he is saying?"
She says "There will be a translator"
I say "How do they know what he is saying?"
She says "God tells them"
Sure enough, a couple seconds later a person 3 rows away from the yabberer stands up, and the minister calls on her, and she says something like "I have heard your prayers and will help MARY X with her cancer". It was a personal message directed at someone in church's family member.

I don't know where I got the Aramaic from.

This is the same GF, who when questioned about evidence answered all queries with: "It's in the bible"

 

[Fnord]

I once said this out loud, and heard it 'interpreted' as an admonition to the wicked:

"Eye ma hop en inna mah hon da anna go en too da wa dah!"

You may have to say it out loud. All I was saying was that I wanted to go to the beach.

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

Given that these aren't folks with a lot of exposure to latin, I should lay some latin on them. Obscure medical terms, perhaps. Wouldn't dare pull that in the catholic church, where someone might just translate, but pentacostal maybe. It's either that or the ewok dance song.

A

Reminds me of the scene in the movie Top Secret where some armed soldiers escort the protagonist out of the cell, preceded by a priest who reads in Latin from a large book: "... corpus delicti, habeas corpus, coitus interruptus..."

 

[bluesjnr]

....snip.... "allababbllababbballalallalalblbalallh!"....snip...

That's quite enough you potty mouth. I won't stand for that kind of foul language.

Reported!

 

[steve s]

Reminds me of the scene in the movie Top Secret where some armed soldiers escort the protagonist out of the cell, preceded by a priest who reads in Latin from a large book: "... corpus delicti, habeas corpus, coitus interruptus..."

"Hic, haec, hoc, hujus, hujus, hujus."

And my favorite--"I know a little German. He's right over there."

Steve S

 

[Complexity]

I think they make more sense when speaking in tongues.

 

[slingblade]

Then later someone will say, 'That was Ancient Aramaic! only six people in America can speak that, it must be GOD speaking through her'

Not in my 30+ years of Assembly of God Pentecostal church attendance. No one ever said any such thing. No one ever tried to identify the language. It was widely accepted that it wasn't an earthly language at all, but heavenly, direct from god. Of course, the bible inconveniently says they are known languages, but good cherry-pickers ignore that, as it's not nearly mysterious and wooish enough, and the "from god" way doesn't require anyone to imitate a known, if rarely used or dead, language.

There was usually a person who gave a translation, apparently as spontaneous and as direct from god as the message given in "tongues." As a child, I often wondered how the translator knew he was supposed to speak, but now, of course, I know that he, at least, was likely planted. It's possible the "babbler" was a plant, too, but it's also possible that it was a given that someone was going to start spouting random syllables at high volume, and the translator plant was there to "interpret," no matter who had spoken.

 

[Simon39759]

Not in my 30+ years of Assembly of God Pentecostal church attendance. No one ever said any such thing. No one ever tried to identify the language. It was widely accepted that it wasn't an earthly language at all, but heavenly, direct from god. Of course, the bible inconveniently says they are known languages, but good cherry-pickers ignore that, as it's not nearly mysterious and wooish enough, and the "from god" way doesn't require anyone to imitate a known, if rarely used or dead, language.

There was usually a person who gave a translation, apparently as spontaneous and as direct from god as the message given in "tongues." As a child, I often wondered how the translator knew he was supposed to speak, but now, of course, I know that he, at least, was likely planted. It's possible the "babbler" was a plant, too, but it's also possible that it was a given that someone was going to start spouting random syllables at high volume, and the translator plant was there to "interpret," no matter who had spoken.

Maybe the translator just spouted the first thing that came to his mind, and decided it must have been God putting it there (warning: only works when it's something Religious coming up and not when, like me, you are thinking about lingerie to kill time).

 

[Drewbot]

Not in my 30+ years of Assembly of God Pentecostal church attendance. No one ever said any such thing. No one ever tried to identify the language. It was widely accepted that it wasn't an earthly language at all, but heavenly, direct from god. Of course, the bible inconveniently says they are known languages, but good cherry-pickers ignore that, as it's not nearly mysterious and wooish enough, and the "from god" way doesn't require anyone to imitate a known, if rarely used or dead, language.

There was usually a person who gave a translation, apparently as spontaneous and as direct from god as the message given in "tongues." As a child, I often wondered how the translator knew he was supposed to speak, but now, of course, I know that he, at least, was likely planted. It's possible the "babbler" was a plant, too, but it's also possible that it was a given that someone was going to start spouting random syllables at high volume, and the translator plant was there to "interpret," no matter who had spoken.

I corrected my claim in post 63. Sorry.

 

[slingblade]

Oh, no, don't apologize! Unless you've been in it, you can't know how it's often done. I just wanted to explain that for many, there is no identification of the "language." They just babble and interpret.

 

[Starthinker]

Wouldn't this be a good time to jump in as translator and start a revolution?

"I can translate! He says that Jesus himself was homosexual and we should treat fellow homosexuals with reverence and awe!"

 

[Simon39759]

Wouldn't this be a good time to jump in as translator and start a revolution?

"I can translate! He says that Jesus himself was homosexual and we should treat fellow homosexuals with reverence and awe!"

Nah; it only works when God agrees with the pastor.

In fact, this reminds me of a fellow on this forum and the story he told us. He was hearing voices, you see, and, at first, his fellow church goers decided he was blessed and such. But after a few months, the content of his messages must have slipped away from the accepted canon because, by then, he was possessed by the devil!
He thankfully seek real help and is much better now (or so he believes, he as yet to realize that the whole JREF fora only exist in his head).

Can't remember the poster's name but it was an interesting story...

 

[RussDill]

It's also possible to speak English gibberish if you are half-asleep. The words make sense, and are in syntactically correct sentences, but they just make no sense as a sentence.

Yes, I've had this happen, on one hand, to me, what I ways saying made perfect sense. But reflecting back, it was clear the words were totally random.

 

[blobru]

The worst thing about speaking in tongues is the jokes always bomb.

........
..................................................................................

 

[skullerello]

Once, while playing FRIZBEE with an old Pentecostal friend of mine, I began to deliberately stagger about as if neither of my legs wanted anything to do with the other.
He was a little concerned; "Michael, what's wrong?!" he asked.
"I'm walking in legs!"
And he actually got a big laugh out of that.

 

[Moss]

What?! Nobody mentioned Enochian yet?^WP You will all suffer the vonph of Dee!

 

[blobru]

Dee don't scare me! (Dxgz otoh -- that's one bad mother angel.)

Enochian^WP: revealed to 16th century alchemist John Dee as the language of the angels, spoken by Adam & Eve in Eden. Similar to Kabbalists, and Mormons, who also think God has his own tongue (and name -- 216 letters long in Enochian). I remember Umberto Eco's writing about how it was a common belief among medieval Christian scholars that children not taught any language would instead begin speaking in the tongue God implanted in Adam, usually thought to be Hebrew.

 

[JWideman]

Classic story time:
Some guys attending a Star Trek convention see a flyer advertising a dinner at a local church and figure "hey, free meal". None of them know each other nor were they together, they simply all had the same idea. They may or may not have known that it was a Pentecostal church. If they knew, they obviously didn't care.
So there they all were, sitting and talking with the churchgoers as they ate, none of them even aware that others from the convention were present. After the dinner came the church service and all went fine until people started speaking in tongues. One person would spout gibberish, another would "interpret" by reciting a bible passage. Finally, everyone is staring at the newcomers.
So one of the nerds said something in a loud angry voice, going on for longer than was usual. Many of the churchgoers got scared. Finally, he stops, and right away, one of the churchgoers started reciting a scripture about sinners and repentance. One of the other nerds cut him off and says "No, what he said 'Long ago, a storm was heading for the city of Quin'lat. Everyone took protection within the walls except one man who remained outside. Kahless went to him and asked what he was doing. "I am not afraid," the man said. "I will not hide my face behind stone and mortar. I will stand before the wind and make it respect me." Kahless honored his choice and went back inside. The next day, the storm came, and the man was killed, as the wind does not respect a fool."
While all the churchgoers stood around in confusion and surprise, a third one said "That's what he would have said if his pronunciation wasn't so bad."
The whole group of them were still arguing in the parking lot after the Pentecostals had asked them to leave.