Glossolalia
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[edit] Definition
Glossolalia, or “speaking in tongues” is speechlike sounds, of no known language, produced usually during a state of heightened religious emotion. The following sample of glossolalia is taken from the ‘’Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language’’:
- Paka bante rina sokuntare mare paka tore moti shalara tamere pakashara merime.
It is quite typical of the genre.
[edit] Origins
[edit] Glossolalia in non-Christian religions
In ‘’An Ethnological Study of Glossolalia’’ (George J. Jennings, Journal of the American Science Affiliation, March 1968), the author identifies religious glossolalia in non-Christian religions of the world including the ancient religions of North America, South America, Australia, the Sudan, the west coast of Africa, Ethiopia, Borneo, Siberia, Greenland, and Tibet.
[edit] Glossolalia in the Primitive Church
According to the Acts of the Apostles, at the first Pentecost:
- They [the apostles] saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.
- Now there were staying in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven. When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one heard them speaking in his own language. Utterly amazed, they asked: "Are not all these men who are speaking Galileans? Then how is it that each of us hears them in his own native language? Parthians, Medes and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene; visitors from Rome (both Jews and converts to Judaism Cretans and Arabs—we hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues!" Amazed and perplexed, they asked one another, "What does this mean?" (Acts 2:3-12)
If this miracle occurred, it would be a case of xenoglossy --- the spontaneous acquisition of a foreign tongue. This is rather different from glossolalia, which is not an intelligible foreign tongue, and is never accompanied by descending tongues of flame.
The basis for taking glossolalia itself as a gift of the Holy Spirit lies in references to the tongues of angels:
- Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. (Corinthians 13:3)
Glossolalia may, on this basis, be taken to be the language or languages of angels. St Paul also refers to a spiritual gift of interpretation of tongues, which presumably involves translating glossolalia into intelligible language.
However, by the time of St Augustine (354 – 430) the practice seems to have lapsed:
- This happened to announce something, (that the Gospel was to be announced to the ends of the earth), then disappeared.
[edit] Glossolalia in modern Christianity
The view of glossolalia is by no means uniform in Christian churches. There are those who are certain that it is a gift of the Holy Spirit; those who downplay it, pointing to St Paul’s own low ranking of “speaking with the tongues of men and angels” compared to “faith, hope, and charity”; there are churches which, to avoid divisiveness on the issue, have adopted a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy on glossolalia; there are those who dismiss it as an unimportant psychological phenomenon; and there are those who regard it as a Satanic deception to get people into the wrong sects.
[edit] Discussion
There can be little doubt that someone in the throes of glossolalia is having an experience which they find genuinely inexplicable because they are not consciously thinking out the stream of syllables which pour from their tongue. In an interview with the linguist William Samarin, one preacher commented: “I could go on forever: it's just like drumming”.
A skeptic would suggest that glossolalia should be classed with such other phenomena as dowsing and the ouija board, where the participant is impressed by effects he himself is producing unconsciously, and ascribes this to some outside agency.
This is supported by linguistic research on glossolalia. In the first place we may note that it is usually acquired gradually, as though by practice, which would not be the case if this were a miraculous gift. The September 1968 issue of the Journal of the American Science Affliation states:
- Several language studies, including our own, suggest that glossolalists develop their speech from ill-formed structure to "practiced" and "polished" glossolalic speech. Thus the quality of glossolalia depends to some extent on the stage of development of glossolalia.
Moreover, the unknown tongue bears a consistent relationship to the native tongue of the glossolaliac. An informal review amongst linguist turned up the following general finding:
- Basically, the finding was that the native language of the speaker was a pretty good predictor of the kinds of sounds that would occur in glossolalia; one general pattern was that sounds perceived as generally marking "foreign" speech (whatever that may mean) would occur, while sounds perceived as typical of the native language would not. Thus, for American English speakers, / r / would be rendered as the alveolar trill, never as the American retroflex; on the other hand, these speakers would not include the low front vowel in their glossolalia, / æ /, because that's perceived as a typically "American" sound for some reason. On the other hand, truly exotic sounds--those not typical of the native language, but that don't happen to be familiar to speakers of the language--would tend not to occur: American English speakers don't produce clicks in their glossolalia.
- And yes, the inventory of sounds is very simple and the sequence is repetitive. [1]
The repetitive quality and reduced scope of glossolalia certainly tells against it being language. The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language (ed. David Crystal) notes:
- The utterance patterns are quite unlike ordinary language: the sounds are simpler and more repetitive; there are few predictable structural units; and there is no systematic word or sentence meaning. When asked, glossolalists are usually unable to repeat their utterances exactly, or give an account of their meaning.
It should be noted also that those who claim to be inspired to interpret speech in tongues do not give remotely consistent results, and do not interpret the same speech the same way twice.
Professor William Samarin, a linguist at the University of Toronto, conducted an extensive study of glossolalia worldwide, and concluded:
- Glossolalia consists of strings of meaningless syllables made up of sounds taken from those familiar to the speaker and put together more or less haphazardly. The speaker controls the rhythm, volume, speed and inflection of his speech so that the sounds emerge as pseudolanguage in the form of words and sentences.
- Glossolalia is language-like because the speaker unconsciously wants it to be language-like. Yet in spite of superficial similarities, glossolalia fundamentally is not language.
