"…I wonder how much of what I saw was self-directed instead of coming from God? I remember my twig leader's wife always saying the same five or six words in a tongue but the interpretation was at least two or three sentences long. I never gave this linguistic oddity much thought until I brought my friend Steve to Twig – and he pointed that out to me. Every week, the same five or six words – with a different interpretation each time. Maybe each word had multiple meanings and functions – a diagram of the sentence would probably look like a complicated map of the NY Subway System."
GeorgeAar post# 65 June 27 2006 11:29 PM:
"…in fact, I never heard a "tongue" that really sounded like a language at all.
In 15 years of doing the nonsense, it never happened. I heard quite a few that sounded incredibly similar, though."
Oakspear post #67 June 28 2006 2:53 AM:
"I can go along with that. While allowing for the possibility that there might have been a structure or linguistic pattern in a "tongue" that I didn't perceive, most, if not all, tongues that I have heard in TWI and in churches, were just a string of the same sounds repeated over and over."
In Systematic Theology: Volume Four, Church, Last Things by Norman Geisler, Appendix Two, Were Tongues A Real Language?, Geisler makes the point that the speaking in tongues mentioned in the Bible was a real language because I Corinthians 14:10-19 states it must be interpreted for the church – thus logic demands it is a meaningful, translatable language. Concerning "tongues of angels" I Corinthians 13:1, Geisler says, "is probably a figure of speech meaning 'to speak most eloquently.' Even if this is to be taken literally, every time angels spoke in the Bible they did so in actual language that people could understand."
In the previous appendix [Appendix One Only the Apostles Spoke in Tongues At Pentecost, page 663] Geisler concludes, "If tongues were only a sign gift to apostles and only apostles had the gift or could give it to others, this would be confirmation of its temporary nature in laying the foundation of Christ's apostles. Thus, once this basis was established, it would be natural that the gift of tongues would cease – there being no more need for it. Indeed, this seems implied in the phrase "whether there are tongues, they will cease" , since it is in the middle voice and can be translated "They will cease of their own accord."
Getting back to Appendix Two Were Tongues a Real Language?, Geisler doubts [as do GeorgeAar, Oakspear and myself] if today's "tongues" are real languages; Geisler quotes extensively from a book by Samarin – any page references to Samarin's book I will put Samarin's text in bold with the page reference as the following [TMA, page X]: "William Samarin, professor of anthropology and linguistics at the University of Toronto, wrote the first comprehensive book-length study of speaking in tongues [Tongues of Men and Angels, New York: Macmillan, 1972]. In this work he takes Christian charismatic glossolalia – the common contemporary practice of speaking in unknown and unintelligible speech, which Samarin distinguishes from what he calls xenoglossia [the miraculous gift of tongues in which the speaker communicates in an unlearned human language] – and the "tongues" of other religions [including healers, occultists, and shamans] and compares them with known human languages. He concludes from his linguistic analysis that "glossolalia is a perfectly human, perfectly normal [albeit anomalous] phenomenon" [TMA, page 235]. If this is the case, then "speaking in tongues" as commonly practiced today is a creation of the human mind and not the miraculous, divine activity recorded in Scripture…
When Samarin and other linguists attempted to transcribe recorded glossolalia, they found that they continually came up with different results due to the difficulty of finding thoroughly distinct words in the utterances: "On analysis these transcriptions will always expose the linguistically deviant nature of a glossolaic discourse…notwithstanding a charismatist's claim that glossolalia is neither repetitious nor meaningless banality, no "jabber-babble or twattle-twaddle," but clear, distinct, precise, and uncluttered speech." [TMA, page 78]
Samarin concludes from his analysis: "The illusion of word-structure is destroyed when one tries to dissect all the breath-groups of a text…So it is not surprising that a linguistically trained respondent was no more successful in "breaking down" her [the subject's] speech than I was." [TMA, page 81]
This is not the case with a real language, and these results were not limited to the investigators. In a similar experiment with another "tongues-speaker," Samarin noted: "When his [the subject's] own prayer was played back several hours later, he was unable to fulfill the function of the normal speaker of language. In other words, he could not, listening to his own speech, repeat for me what he had just said." [TMA, page 81]
The reason for this linguistic defect is that "there is no grammar for glossolalia, because it is a phenomenon, like a human language in general, and not like a specific language" [TMA, page 73]. Thus, when it comes to these supposed tongues, "nobody can learn a set of rules that would enable him to speak a 'language' that is the same as someone else's. Even what one speaks on different occasions is not the same in the linguistic sense" [TMA, page 73].
Native Speech Patterns
Even in light of these apparently random "word salads," we discover an interesting trend, When glossolaic verbal patterns are analyzed regarding the use of consonants, vowels, and other features, they are revealed as strikingly close to the speaker's native language. "The explanation for this similarity, to put it simply, is that [the subject] is "doing what comes naturally!" In other words, he and every other creator of extemporaneous pseudo language tends to use what is common in his native language…What makes a person's glossa different from his native language is how he uses its sounds" [TMA, page 83,87].
This is to be expected if tongues are the product of an intentional speaker. Because the speaker is making some form of syllabic selection, "Glossolalia, even though it is lexically meaningless, is not a randomized collection of sounds and sound sequences. It is a derivative phenomenon. Its basic features depend on the linguistic competence and knowledge of each speaker. This will surprise no one who came to this study already convinced that glossolalia was some kind of gibberish. However, now he knows that it is not simply that…It is on looking closely at glossas that their artificiality becomes apparent. This is as true of their construction as it is of their function" [TMA, page 127,121].
Artificial Function and Construction
As to function, "Glossas and natural languages are responsive to the world outside the speaker in different ways. In normal speech it is content, and not merely manner of delivery, that changes constantly in response to topics, person, setting, time and so forth…In construction as well as in function glossas are fundamentally different from languages…If glossas do not have grammatical structure, we might nevertheless expect them to be like languages phonologically, because they sound so much like languages. Even here we are deceived. The total number of different sounds appears to be smaller than one finds in most languages. Glossas are strikingly unlike natural languages in the rank frequency curves of the sounds…This cannot happen in normal language, because the occurrence of sounds is determined by the words in which they occur" [TMA, page 122-126].
"When the full apparatus of linguistic science comes to bear on glossolalia, this turns out to be only a facade of language – although at times a very good one indeed. For when we comprehend what language is, we must conclude that no glossa, no matter how well constructed, is a specimen of human language, because it is neither internally organized nor systematically related to the world man perceives" [TMA, page 127,128].
"[Linguists] know enough to declare what is and what is not a language. We know as much as a mathematician, who can tell the difference between a real formula and a pseudo-formula – one that looks like mathematical language but does not say anything…The glossolalist must grant this, because one of his proofs for the existence of God is orderliness in creation. A hodge-podge of DNA produces biological nonsense just as much as a hodge-podge of syllables produces linguistic nonsense" [TMA, page 234].
To argue [as some do] that these are coded forms of language fails; codes have meaningful linguistic patterns and can be broken, while tongues do not and cannot. Any other so-called code-without-pattern places a tongue out of the realm of the intelligible and into the unverifiable domain of the mystical."
The following is from The Language Instinct: How the Mind Creates Language by Steven Pinker [Pinker is the Johnstone Family Professor in the Department of Psychology at Harvard University. Until 2003, he taught in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences at MIT], pages 168,169:
"An inventory of phonemes is one of the things that gives a language its characteristic sound pattern. For example, Japanese is famous for not distinguishing r from l. When I arrived in Japan on November 4, 1992, the linguist Masaaki Yamanashi greeted me with a twinkle and said, "In Japan, we have been very interested in Clinton's erection."
We can recognize a language's sound pattern even in a speech stream that contains no real words, as with the Swedish chef on The Muppets or John Belushi's samurai dry cleaner. The linguist Sarah G. Thomason has found that people who claim to be channeling back to past lives or speaking in tongues are really producing gibberish that conforms to a sound pattern vaguely reminiscent of the claimed language. For example, one hypnotized channeler, who claimed to be a nineteenth-century Bulgarian talking to her mother about soldiers laying waste to the countryside, produced generic pseudo-Slavic gobbledygook like this:
And of course, when the words in one language are pronounced with the sound pattern of another, we call it a foreign accent, as in the following excerpt from a fractured fairy tale by Bob Belviso:
GIACCHE ENNE BINNESTAUCCHE
Uans appona taim disse boi. Neimmese Giacche. Naise boi. Live uite ise mamma. Mainde da cao. Uane dei, di spaghetti ise olle ronne aute…"
In my 12 years of being with TWI - I have never witnessed an unbeliever [or anyone for that matter] exclaiming "wow - that person speaking in tongues just spoke in my native tongue or a language I also know." And the more I think about some of the accounts given in Acts of speaking in tongues - the fact that some indication is noted of the language being understood by others present leads me to think it was a way for them to verify it was genuine...Perhaps, some charismatic group would record their speaking in tongues and interpretation and submit the tape to a panel of linguistic experts - I figure if it's from God the test results will blow the minds of the language experts.
For that matter - In my opinion, anything God does can stand up to the most stringent scrutiny. I figure doctors could have examined the blind man healed by Jesus and said "yup, this guy's got 20/20 vision."
Glossolalia, even though it is lexically meaningless, is not a randomized collection of sounds and sound sequences. It is a derivative phenomenon. Its basic features depend on the linguistic competence and knowledge of each speaker
This statement agrees with what I personally observed, not only regarding TWI speaking in tongues, but tongues among Catholic charismatics, Pentecostals, and even some Pagans.
People who had exposure to or familiarity with more than one language tended to have a broader range of sounds than those who spoke only English. The only time that I would hear glottal stops, harsh gutterals, clicks, or unusuallly shaped vowels would be when someone with a broad knowledge of language would speak in tongues.
SIT as we were taught in pfal is for our private prater life. SIT done with others around-someone will understand and be able to interpret. Though they do not have to speak. SIT with others hearing is always in the native toungue of the hearer. Acts 2 was not a phenomena.
Acts 11:
14Who shall tell thee words, whereby thou and all thy house shall be saved.
15And as I began to speak, the Holy Ghost fell on them, as on us at the beginning.
16Then remembered I the word of the Lord, how that he said, John indeed baptized with water; but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost.
SIT as we were taught in pfal is for our private prater life. SIT done with others around-someone will understand and be able to interpret. Though they do not have to speak. SIT with others hearing is always in the native toungue of the hearer. Acts 2 was not a phenomena.
Acts 11:
14Who shall tell thee words, whereby thou and all thy house shall be saved.
15And as I began to speak, the Holy Ghost fell on them, as on us at the beginning.
16Then remembered I the word of the Lord, how that he said, John indeed baptized with water; but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost.
Clay, respectfully, I don't see where these verses necessarily mean anything more than these people were witnessed to in their native language, got born again, & spoke in tongues.
Do you speak in tongues? Do you know it to be true? Whenever you do it, does someone around you understand?
This statement [its basic features depend on the linguistic competence and knowledge of each speaker] agrees with what I personally observed...
Which doesn't mean it isn't inspired by God - or the real thing, right?
We were taught that the one SIT is supposed to interpret.
When others are listening.
I believe this not to be the way it is.
The hearer interprets.
Okay, maybe. I've heard that from quite a few others whom I respect. I don't see it (which doesn't mean a dang thing); I'll have to check that out further.
SIT with others hearing is in their native language.
And understood by someone, though not all.
"SIT with others hearing is in their native language." Always?
"And understood by someone, though not all." Always?
That just doesn't make any sense to me (which doesn't necessarily mean a dang thing either except for the following):
Tom,
Also one who knows the spirit can recognize SIT while others do not.
This is how believers are indentified yet hidden in plain sight from unbelievers.
The following being that I agree with this last statement completely & know it to be true in my experience.
But if every time someone SIT, someone else understands it, why would it matter that people can have the spiritual eyes to recognize legitimate SIT? Just have someone do it & ask if anyone around understood it.
Sounds kind of - I don't know - the two don't fit in the same world, you know?
Also as we know from the bible some turn away from the truth which can lead to confusion, as well as other things.
I told you it's hard to understand, heck i barely understand it.
But consider this. If a toungue is understood is it still tougues to the person understanding?
It's like 2 mechanics talking car talk and someone else listening doesn't understand what the heck they are talking about although it's in their native language.
Also one who knows the spirit can recognize SIT while others do not.
This is how believers are indentified yet hidden in plain sight from unbelievers.
Been a while, but this has been on my mind since I read it. I'm writing something & whenever something pops up that says to me "THIS should be included," I make a mental note & rarely let it go unwritten - at least as a note. This should be included, so I might as well start by writing about it here. It has to do with recognizing SIT.
Some of you may remember the song that Claudette used to sing that had the refrain (I think the original name might have been changed), "You've been forgiven," picture Claudette belting that out - it would shake all your defenses out on the spot. The song was originally written by Sammy P*uyn. Some of you may remember him from NY. If anyone knows how I can contact him, please let me know. A few of us early Long Island believers witnessed to Sammy. He had an honest heart that was seeking & adamantly wouldn't accept anything that didn't smack him as genuine in every way. After he started coming around to the Word, he asked me to show him how to speak in tongues. I had never done that with anyone before at that point, &, as I thought about it, I naturally went to how I came to do it - via the 1st 5 chapters of the holy spirit book - because I was too uptight to attempt it for the 1st time before everyone in PFAL.
I asked Sammy if he had read the holy spirit book. He said no. I told him to read it - that how to do it was in there, especially the 5th chapter, "How to Speak in Tongues" (if memory serves), but that he should read all the 1st 5 chapters. Then, if he wasn't already speaking in tongues - which I expected he would be - I would take him the rest of the way.
Later, we were on the way to the 1st Rock of Ages (in Mark Gluckin's van if memory serves), when Sammy asked me again if I would show him how to speak in tongues. I asked him if he had read the 1st 5 chapters of the holy spirit book, & he said no. Again, I told him blah, blah, blah (read the above paragraph), & if he hadn't spoken in tongues by then, I would then take him the rest of the way.
Fast forward (we've just arrived at HQ - the 1st time for all of us - for the Rock '71). I get out of the van with Sammy, & we're walking onto a place just to the left of where the 1st Rock was held - later blocked off by a fence & port-a-potties. Now that's probably significant, but, at the time, there was no fence & I don't remember any port-a-potties, & I was EXCITED. I was walking onto holy ground.
And guess what, Sammy askes me if I will show him how to speak in tongues. Around & around we go, I'm thinking, so I ask him if he's read the 1st 5 chapters of the holy spirit book, & he says YES! Uh, oh, now what - I've never lead anyone into speaking in tongues? What to do, what to do? I look around me thinking there must be some better place or time to do this, but I'm without excuse - there can be no better place - I'm next door to the grounds of heaven about to participate in the 1st Rock of Ages (I have no idea what that is, but there can be no better time & place). But what to do? Ah, the directions - chapter 5, that's what I'll do. So I go over the directions with Sammy - it's not your mind giving you the words, breathe in - all that.
Then we sit on the grass, cross our legs, & I'm inspired to actually do this along with Sammy, so we hold hands (it's okay: it's almost the late 60's), breathe, I count to three, & start speaking in tongues. I can hear Sammy freakin' moaning, trying, God he sounds like he is in dire straights, he starts to immitate me - I stop it. We try again - same results - bad.
I tell Sammy, okay, look SIT is perfect prayer, PRAYER. Stop thinking about yourself; think about me, about how your prayer is blessing me. We start the countdown for the 3rd time. 123, I start speaking in tongues, Sammy starts moaning, I feel/perceive this like electrical charge building up between me & heaven. Sammy starts imitating me again. The electrical charge builds in strength, building, building - I can't say it hurts, it doesn't, but it's really getting powerful. Bamb, Sammy comes out with his own tongue; the power charge from heaven into me explodes out of my belly & into Sammy's. Sammy is unaware of any of this.
The 2nd time I lead someone into speaking in tongues the same thing happened - very impressive, but not quite as strong. I figured no problem - I got the message that they really were speaking in tongues.
The 3rd time I lead someone into speaking in tongues - it still happened, but it was barely perceptable. I wondered what the heck was going on, but again - I got the message; they were speaking in tongues. That's all I needed to know.
The 4th time, I was teaching in Sammy's home. While I was teaching, God showed me that there was someone listening that wanted to speak in tongues. After the teaching, I asked him if he wanted to speak in tongues - you know, I knew that he did, but so what do you say? Anyway, God was right; he definitely wanted to know how to speak in tongues, so I invited him into another room to teach him how. It was easy; he spoke in tongues. But there was no power charge. I was ....ed, "Why was there no power charge," I complained to God. I KNOW that he spoke in tongues, &, I realized, in that instant, that I didn't NEED the power charge phenomenon anymore - because I did know. Well, I knew with Sammy, but now I was familiar enough with the perception to warrant the discontinuance of the phenomenon of the charge. I didn't only know; I knew that I knew - sorry for the Wierwillism.
Not the end all & be all of doctrine, but thanks for the door of utterance your observation offered, Dancing.
Let me state for the record that, yes, I still speak in tongues even thirty five years after being exposed to it. Noone led me into tongues or gave me a lengthy explanation of it before I did it. I did , however, hear someone say it was the only true way to say thanks to GOD. The situation ,which is to involved and probably boring to most, was definately one that warranted thanks. And so at 1 or 2 in the morning as I walked a lonely inner city street by myself, I literally shouted out to GOD in what I now refer to as speaking in tongues. I was jubilant and wanted badly to convey this to GOD. The very next day I spoke in tongues and interpreted in a believer's meeting. I patterned my protocol on what I had seen in the few meetings I had been to. By this I mean I waited until the leader asked for tongues with interpretation and jumped in and did it. Those in attendance were taken back. I had no idea you were supposed to take a class in order to qualify for this . The next day when I told the TL ( who had not been present) about this I was given the proverbial "lift list" and some brief instructions.. What occurred immediately upon the implimentation of this "lift list" was to be my first recognisable experience with revelation. I was assured that what I thought was revelation was just unrenewed mind. The image was actually quite disturbing and I actually felt guilty I had allowed my mind to have this thought. This guilt ,of course, did not permeate my every thought but still when the incident came to mind the guilt was there. I have posted before on the specifics of this incident but don't recall the thread. That guilt found a quiet place in my mind to live as I distanced myself from twi and was not aware of much of what took place in the so-called twi2. I found GSC a couple of months ago and see the incident in a whole new light. ------My insight from all this (and this is just my opinion) is that when we recieve the new birth it is not some spiritual "infant" that we need to feed spiritual mashed potatoes by speaking in tongues for hours on end to build up. It's all there waiting for us to interact with. I no longer even believe that sit is some mystic rite we must pass before GOD will speak to us. Christ in us is a wholeness, not some foundation we strive to build on ,by constantly doing all nine all the time. Walking on this is the true essense of believing , not telling GOD what drapes we demand or drawing some elaborate picture of what WE think is the solution.
not to do away with sit as taught by many including the way international
But i am speaking of toungues in your native language from one who knows your native language. Also their is toungues that is employed at times for other uses then the way ever has known or even thought about.
This is where believer speaks to believer. Spirit speaks to Spirit, understanding in oneness.
I think of SIT as similar to meditation using a spoken phrase, and in that way I see it as a positive thing.
However, life became really negative my last few years in TWI, and SIT really became an action I took when worry or anxiety loomed. When situations loomed thatwere not best, I think refusing to think about them and filling my mind with endless tongues became busywork for the brain. I quit deliberately and have not noticed a great drain in my quality of life. I do meditate, but I don't use anything verbal.
PFAL didn't teach me how to do it. I used to do it to relax myself not ever knowing that it was mentioned in the bible. PFAL gave me a definition for it. I've modified my definition, but not my practice.
Our twig leader sometimes interrupted a prophecy if the person was stumbling with it. He'd cut off the person giving the prophecy, SIT aloud and prophesize himself.
People were always told to "expound" in their verbal SITing... not to use the same words over and over. Seemed like some people would get "stuck".
We were reproved for lots of things back then, but not because we didn't SIT properly. It was 1975. Things were different.
I dreaded practices sessions. Always thought something was wrong with me... everyone else was all "fired up". To battle the dreadfullness, I smoked a little something one night before twig. I felt I needed "something" to get me through.
The minute I arrived at twig, I told the leader not to call on me to SIT (just in case his revelation didn't kick in). I was concerned with not being able to deliver a phophecy because of a bad case of cotton-mouth. I think he would have thrown me out right then and there if I hadn't been the ride home for the other five members attending twig. I guess having a car gave me clout.
i am speaking of toungues in your native language from one who knows your native language.
You don't have to feel constrained to answer this, especially if this is the same place we were at last time we discussed tongues, but you have to realize the obvious question.
My native language is English. If someone who knows my native language is speaking to me in my native language, he is going to be speaking to me in English, a language we both understand. In what sense is that speaking in tongues?
Danny------------Whenever I heard VPW teach on the snakes and poison he qualified that it was in the catagory of "if". He would then go on to verbally shred the snake handlers because if they knew what he knew they would know better than to "tempt the lord thy GOD". YUP----- fits like a hand in a wallet!
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T-Bone
T-Bone post #47 June 26 2006 9:19 PM:
"…I wonder how much of what I saw was self-directed instead of coming from God? I remember my twig leader's wife always saying the same five or six words in a tongue but the interpretation was at least two or three sentences long. I never gave this linguistic oddity much thought until I brought my friend Steve to Twig – and he pointed that out to me. Every week, the same five or six words – with a different interpretation each time. Maybe each word had multiple meanings and functions – a diagram of the sentence would probably look like a complicated map of the NY Subway System."
GeorgeAar post# 65 June 27 2006 11:29 PM:
"…in fact, I never heard a "tongue" that really sounded like a language at all.
In 15 years of doing the nonsense, it never happened. I heard quite a few that sounded incredibly similar, though."
Oakspear post #67 June 28 2006 2:53 AM:
"I can go along with that. While allowing for the possibility that there might have been a structure or linguistic pattern in a "tongue" that I didn't perceive, most, if not all, tongues that I have heard in TWI and in churches, were just a string of the same sounds repeated over and over."
In Systematic Theology: Volume Four, Church, Last Things by Norman Geisler, Appendix Two, Were Tongues A Real Language?, Geisler makes the point that the speaking in tongues mentioned in the Bible was a real language because I Corinthians 14:10-19 states it must be interpreted for the church – thus logic demands it is a meaningful, translatable language. Concerning "tongues of angels" I Corinthians 13:1, Geisler says, "is probably a figure of speech meaning 'to speak most eloquently.' Even if this is to be taken literally, every time angels spoke in the Bible they did so in actual language that people could understand."
In the previous appendix [Appendix One Only the Apostles Spoke in Tongues At Pentecost, page 663] Geisler concludes, "If tongues were only a sign gift to apostles and only apostles had the gift or could give it to others, this would be confirmation of its temporary nature in laying the foundation of Christ's apostles. Thus, once this basis was established, it would be natural that the gift of tongues would cease – there being no more need for it. Indeed, this seems implied in the phrase "whether there are tongues, they will cease" , since it is in the middle voice and can be translated "They will cease of their own accord."
Getting back to Appendix Two Were Tongues a Real Language?, Geisler doubts [as do GeorgeAar, Oakspear and myself] if today's "tongues" are real languages; Geisler quotes extensively from a book by Samarin – any page references to Samarin's book I will put Samarin's text in bold with the page reference as the following [TMA, page X]: "William Samarin, professor of anthropology and linguistics at the University of Toronto, wrote the first comprehensive book-length study of speaking in tongues [Tongues of Men and Angels, New York: Macmillan, 1972]. In this work he takes Christian charismatic glossolalia – the common contemporary practice of speaking in unknown and unintelligible speech, which Samarin distinguishes from what he calls xenoglossia [the miraculous gift of tongues in which the speaker communicates in an unlearned human language] – and the "tongues" of other religions [including healers, occultists, and shamans] and compares them with known human languages. He concludes from his linguistic analysis that "glossolalia is a perfectly human, perfectly normal [albeit anomalous] phenomenon" [TMA, page 235]. If this is the case, then "speaking in tongues" as commonly practiced today is a creation of the human mind and not the miraculous, divine activity recorded in Scripture…
When Samarin and other linguists attempted to transcribe recorded glossolalia, they found that they continually came up with different results due to the difficulty of finding thoroughly distinct words in the utterances: "On analysis these transcriptions will always expose the linguistically deviant nature of a glossolaic discourse…notwithstanding a charismatist's claim that glossolalia is neither repetitious nor meaningless banality, no "jabber-babble or twattle-twaddle," but clear, distinct, precise, and uncluttered speech." [TMA, page 78]
Samarin concludes from his analysis: "The illusion of word-structure is destroyed when one tries to dissect all the breath-groups of a text…So it is not surprising that a linguistically trained respondent was no more successful in "breaking down" her [the subject's] speech than I was." [TMA, page 81]
This is not the case with a real language, and these results were not limited to the investigators. In a similar experiment with another "tongues-speaker," Samarin noted: "When his [the subject's] own prayer was played back several hours later, he was unable to fulfill the function of the normal speaker of language. In other words, he could not, listening to his own speech, repeat for me what he had just said." [TMA, page 81]
The reason for this linguistic defect is that "there is no grammar for glossolalia, because it is a phenomenon, like a human language in general, and not like a specific language" [TMA, page 73]. Thus, when it comes to these supposed tongues, "nobody can learn a set of rules that would enable him to speak a 'language' that is the same as someone else's. Even what one speaks on different occasions is not the same in the linguistic sense" [TMA, page 73].
Native Speech Patterns
Even in light of these apparently random "word salads," we discover an interesting trend, When glossolaic verbal patterns are analyzed regarding the use of consonants, vowels, and other features, they are revealed as strikingly close to the speaker's native language. "The explanation for this similarity, to put it simply, is that [the subject] is "doing what comes naturally!" In other words, he and every other creator of extemporaneous pseudo language tends to use what is common in his native language…What makes a person's glossa different from his native language is how he uses its sounds" [TMA, page 83,87].
This is to be expected if tongues are the product of an intentional speaker. Because the speaker is making some form of syllabic selection, "Glossolalia, even though it is lexically meaningless, is not a randomized collection of sounds and sound sequences. It is a derivative phenomenon. Its basic features depend on the linguistic competence and knowledge of each speaker. This will surprise no one who came to this study already convinced that glossolalia was some kind of gibberish. However, now he knows that it is not simply that…It is on looking closely at glossas that their artificiality becomes apparent. This is as true of their construction as it is of their function" [TMA, page 127,121].
Artificial Function and Construction
As to function, "Glossas and natural languages are responsive to the world outside the speaker in different ways. In normal speech it is content, and not merely manner of delivery, that changes constantly in response to topics, person, setting, time and so forth…In construction as well as in function glossas are fundamentally different from languages…If glossas do not have grammatical structure, we might nevertheless expect them to be like languages phonologically, because they sound so much like languages. Even here we are deceived. The total number of different sounds appears to be smaller than one finds in most languages. Glossas are strikingly unlike natural languages in the rank frequency curves of the sounds…This cannot happen in normal language, because the occurrence of sounds is determined by the words in which they occur" [TMA, page 122-126].
"When the full apparatus of linguistic science comes to bear on glossolalia, this turns out to be only a facade of language – although at times a very good one indeed. For when we comprehend what language is, we must conclude that no glossa, no matter how well constructed, is a specimen of human language, because it is neither internally organized nor systematically related to the world man perceives" [TMA, page 127,128].
"[Linguists] know enough to declare what is and what is not a language. We know as much as a mathematician, who can tell the difference between a real formula and a pseudo-formula – one that looks like mathematical language but does not say anything…The glossolalist must grant this, because one of his proofs for the existence of God is orderliness in creation. A hodge-podge of DNA produces biological nonsense just as much as a hodge-podge of syllables produces linguistic nonsense" [TMA, page 234].
To argue [as some do] that these are coded forms of language fails; codes have meaningful linguistic patterns and can be broken, while tongues do not and cannot. Any other so-called code-without-pattern places a tongue out of the realm of the intelligible and into the unverifiable domain of the mystical."
The following is from The Language Instinct: How the Mind Creates Language by Steven Pinker [Pinker is the Johnstone Family Professor in the Department of Psychology at Harvard University. Until 2003, he taught in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences at MIT], pages 168,169:
"An inventory of phonemes is one of the things that gives a language its characteristic sound pattern. For example, Japanese is famous for not distinguishing r from l. When I arrived in Japan on November 4, 1992, the linguist Masaaki Yamanashi greeted me with a twinkle and said, "In Japan, we have been very interested in Clinton's erection."
We can recognize a language's sound pattern even in a speech stream that contains no real words, as with the Swedish chef on The Muppets or John Belushi's samurai dry cleaner. The linguist Sarah G. Thomason has found that people who claim to be channeling back to past lives or speaking in tongues are really producing gibberish that conforms to a sound pattern vaguely reminiscent of the claimed language. For example, one hypnotized channeler, who claimed to be a nineteenth-century Bulgarian talking to her mother about soldiers laying waste to the countryside, produced generic pseudo-Slavic gobbledygook like this:
Ovishta reshta rovishta. Vishna beretishti? Ushna barishta dashto. Na darishnoshto. Koraphnosha.... darishtoy. Aobashni bedetpa.
And of course, when the words in one language are pronounced with the sound pattern of another, we call it a foreign accent, as in the following excerpt from a fractured fairy tale by Bob Belviso:
GIACCHE ENNE BINNESTAUCCHE
Uans appona taim disse boi. Neimmese Giacche. Naise boi. Live uite ise mamma. Mainde da cao. Uane dei, di spaghetti ise olle ronne aute…"
In my 12 years of being with TWI - I have never witnessed an unbeliever [or anyone for that matter] exclaiming "wow - that person speaking in tongues just spoke in my native tongue or a language I also know." And the more I think about some of the accounts given in Acts of speaking in tongues - the fact that some indication is noted of the language being understood by others present leads me to think it was a way for them to verify it was genuine...Perhaps, some charismatic group would record their speaking in tongues and interpretation and submit the tape to a panel of linguistic experts - I figure if it's from God the test results will blow the minds of the language experts.
For that matter - In my opinion, anything God does can stand up to the most stringent scrutiny. I figure doctors could have examined the blind man healed by Jesus and said "yup, this guy's got 20/20 vision."
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Oakspear
People who had exposure to or familiarity with more than one language tended to have a broader range of sounds than those who spoke only English. The only time that I would hear glottal stops, harsh gutterals, clicks, or unusuallly shaped vowels would be when someone with a broad knowledge of language would speak in tongues.
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dancing
SIT as we were taught in pfal is for our private prater life. SIT done with others around-someone will understand and be able to interpret. Though they do not have to speak. SIT with others hearing is always in the native toungue of the hearer. Acts 2 was not a phenomena.
Acts 11:
14Who shall tell thee words, whereby thou and all thy house shall be saved.
15And as I began to speak, the Holy Ghost fell on them, as on us at the beginning.
16Then remembered I the word of the Lord, how that he said, John indeed baptized with water; but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost.
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Tom
Clay, respectfully, I don't see where these verses necessarily mean anything more than these people were witnessed to in their native language, got born again, & spoke in tongues.
Do you speak in tongues? Do you know it to be true? Whenever you do it, does someone around you understand?
Which doesn't mean it isn't inspired by God - or the real thing, right?
God is just working with what he has, no?
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dancing
Tom,
It's such a misinderstood subject that I wouldn't know where to start.
We were taught that the one SIT is supposed to interpret.
When others are listening.
I believe this not to be the way it is.
The hearer interprets.
SIT with others hearing is in their native language.
And understood by someone, though not all.
Also one who knows the spirit can recognize SIT while others do not.
This is how believers are indentified yet hidden in plain sight from unbelievers.
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Tom
Okay, maybe. I've heard that from quite a few others whom I respect. I don't see it (which doesn't mean a dang thing); I'll have to check that out further.
"SIT with others hearing is in their native language." Always?
"And understood by someone, though not all." Always?
That just doesn't make any sense to me (which doesn't necessarily mean a dang thing either except for the following):
The following being that I agree with this last statement completely & know it to be true in my experience.
But if every time someone SIT, someone else understands it, why would it matter that people can have the spiritual eyes to recognize legitimate SIT? Just have someone do it & ask if anyone around understood it.
Sounds kind of - I don't know - the two don't fit in the same world, you know?
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dancing
Tom,
As with everything some things are not done well.
People vary in different things.
And "always'? No not always.
Also as we know from the bible some turn away from the truth which can lead to confusion, as well as other things.
I told you it's hard to understand, heck i barely understand it.
But consider this. If a toungue is understood is it still tougues to the person understanding?
It's like 2 mechanics talking car talk and someone else listening doesn't understand what the heck they are talking about although it's in their native language.
Does that help or further mix it up?
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Tom
Sorry, I don't get it, but that's okay. I don't understand enough about it to have it bother me.
No prob
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dancing
That's cool, i understand very little of a lot of things. And a lot of things I don't even know about yet.
Not understanding and admitting it is the road to understanding.
:)
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Tom
Been a while, but this has been on my mind since I read it. I'm writing something & whenever something pops up that says to me "THIS should be included," I make a mental note & rarely let it go unwritten - at least as a note. This should be included, so I might as well start by writing about it here. It has to do with recognizing SIT.
Some of you may remember the song that Claudette used to sing that had the refrain (I think the original name might have been changed), "You've been forgiven," picture Claudette belting that out - it would shake all your defenses out on the spot. The song was originally written by Sammy P*uyn. Some of you may remember him from NY. If anyone knows how I can contact him, please let me know. A few of us early Long Island believers witnessed to Sammy. He had an honest heart that was seeking & adamantly wouldn't accept anything that didn't smack him as genuine in every way. After he started coming around to the Word, he asked me to show him how to speak in tongues. I had never done that with anyone before at that point, &, as I thought about it, I naturally went to how I came to do it - via the 1st 5 chapters of the holy spirit book - because I was too uptight to attempt it for the 1st time before everyone in PFAL.
I asked Sammy if he had read the holy spirit book. He said no. I told him to read it - that how to do it was in there, especially the 5th chapter, "How to Speak in Tongues" (if memory serves), but that he should read all the 1st 5 chapters. Then, if he wasn't already speaking in tongues - which I expected he would be - I would take him the rest of the way.
Later, we were on the way to the 1st Rock of Ages (in Mark Gluckin's van if memory serves), when Sammy asked me again if I would show him how to speak in tongues. I asked him if he had read the 1st 5 chapters of the holy spirit book, & he said no. Again, I told him blah, blah, blah (read the above paragraph), & if he hadn't spoken in tongues by then, I would then take him the rest of the way.
Fast forward (we've just arrived at HQ - the 1st time for all of us - for the Rock '71). I get out of the van with Sammy, & we're walking onto a place just to the left of where the 1st Rock was held - later blocked off by a fence & port-a-potties. Now that's probably significant, but, at the time, there was no fence & I don't remember any port-a-potties, & I was EXCITED. I was walking onto holy ground.
And guess what, Sammy askes me if I will show him how to speak in tongues. Around & around we go, I'm thinking, so I ask him if he's read the 1st 5 chapters of the holy spirit book, & he says YES! Uh, oh, now what - I've never lead anyone into speaking in tongues? What to do, what to do? I look around me thinking there must be some better place or time to do this, but I'm without excuse - there can be no better place - I'm next door to the grounds of heaven about to participate in the 1st Rock of Ages (I have no idea what that is, but there can be no better time & place). But what to do? Ah, the directions - chapter 5, that's what I'll do. So I go over the directions with Sammy - it's not your mind giving you the words, breathe in - all that.
Then we sit on the grass, cross our legs, & I'm inspired to actually do this along with Sammy, so we hold hands (it's okay: it's almost the late 60's), breathe, I count to three, & start speaking in tongues. I can hear Sammy freakin' moaning, trying, God he sounds like he is in dire straights, he starts to immitate me - I stop it. We try again - same results - bad.
I tell Sammy, okay, look SIT is perfect prayer, PRAYER. Stop thinking about yourself; think about me, about how your prayer is blessing me. We start the countdown for the 3rd time. 123, I start speaking in tongues, Sammy starts moaning, I feel/perceive this like electrical charge building up between me & heaven. Sammy starts imitating me again. The electrical charge builds in strength, building, building - I can't say it hurts, it doesn't, but it's really getting powerful. Bamb, Sammy comes out with his own tongue; the power charge from heaven into me explodes out of my belly & into Sammy's. Sammy is unaware of any of this.
The 2nd time I lead someone into speaking in tongues the same thing happened - very impressive, but not quite as strong. I figured no problem - I got the message that they really were speaking in tongues.
The 3rd time I lead someone into speaking in tongues - it still happened, but it was barely perceptable. I wondered what the heck was going on, but again - I got the message; they were speaking in tongues. That's all I needed to know.
The 4th time, I was teaching in Sammy's home. While I was teaching, God showed me that there was someone listening that wanted to speak in tongues. After the teaching, I asked him if he wanted to speak in tongues - you know, I knew that he did, but so what do you say? Anyway, God was right; he definitely wanted to know how to speak in tongues, so I invited him into another room to teach him how. It was easy; he spoke in tongues. But there was no power charge. I was ....ed, "Why was there no power charge," I complained to God. I KNOW that he spoke in tongues, &, I realized, in that instant, that I didn't NEED the power charge phenomenon anymore - because I did know. Well, I knew with Sammy, but now I was familiar enough with the perception to warrant the discontinuance of the phenomenon of the charge. I didn't only know; I knew that I knew - sorry for the Wierwillism.
Not the end all & be all of doctrine, but thanks for the door of utterance your observation offered, Dancing.
It really is something to get off on.
Thanks again,
Tom
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waysider
Let me state for the record that, yes, I still speak in tongues even thirty five years after being exposed to it. Noone led me into tongues or gave me a lengthy explanation of it before I did it. I did , however, hear someone say it was the only true way to say thanks to GOD. The situation ,which is to involved and probably boring to most, was definately one that warranted thanks. And so at 1 or 2 in the morning as I walked a lonely inner city street by myself, I literally shouted out to GOD in what I now refer to as speaking in tongues. I was jubilant and wanted badly to convey this to GOD. The very next day I spoke in tongues and interpreted in a believer's meeting. I patterned my protocol on what I had seen in the few meetings I had been to. By this I mean I waited until the leader asked for tongues with interpretation and jumped in and did it. Those in attendance were taken back. I had no idea you were supposed to take a class in order to qualify for this . The next day when I told the TL ( who had not been present) about this I was given the proverbial "lift list" and some brief instructions.. What occurred immediately upon the implimentation of this "lift list" was to be my first recognisable experience with revelation. I was assured that what I thought was revelation was just unrenewed mind. The image was actually quite disturbing and I actually felt guilty I had allowed my mind to have this thought. This guilt ,of course, did not permeate my every thought but still when the incident came to mind the guilt was there. I have posted before on the specifics of this incident but don't recall the thread. That guilt found a quiet place in my mind to live as I distanced myself from twi and was not aware of much of what took place in the so-called twi2. I found GSC a couple of months ago and see the incident in a whole new light. ------My insight from all this (and this is just my opinion) is that when we recieve the new birth it is not some spiritual "infant" that we need to feed spiritual mashed potatoes by speaking in tongues for hours on end to build up. It's all there waiting for us to interact with. I no longer even believe that sit is some mystic rite we must pass before GOD will speak to us. Christ in us is a wholeness, not some foundation we strive to build on ,by constantly doing all nine all the time. Walking on this is the true essense of believing , not telling GOD what drapes we demand or drawing some elaborate picture of what WE think is the solution.
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dancing
not to do away with sit as taught by many including the way international
But i am speaking of toungues in your native language from one who knows your native language. Also their is toungues that is employed at times for other uses then the way ever has known or even thought about.
This is where believer speaks to believer. Spirit speaks to Spirit, understanding in oneness.
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Bramble
I think of SIT as similar to meditation using a spoken phrase, and in that way I see it as a positive thing.
However, life became really negative my last few years in TWI, and SIT really became an action I took when worry or anxiety loomed. When situations loomed thatwere not best, I think refusing to think about them and filling my mind with endless tongues became busywork for the brain. I quit deliberately and have not noticed a great drain in my quality of life. I do meditate, but I don't use anything verbal.
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Amazingrace
Since I have no time for meditation, I SIT.
PFAL didn't teach me how to do it. I used to do it to relax myself not ever knowing that it was mentioned in the bible. PFAL gave me a definition for it. I've modified my definition, but not my practice.
Our twig leader sometimes interrupted a prophecy if the person was stumbling with it. He'd cut off the person giving the prophecy, SIT aloud and prophesize himself.
People were always told to "expound" in their verbal SITing... not to use the same words over and over. Seemed like some people would get "stuck".
We were reproved for lots of things back then, but not because we didn't SIT properly. It was 1975. Things were different.
I dreaded practices sessions. Always thought something was wrong with me... everyone else was all "fired up". To battle the dreadfullness, I smoked a little something one night before twig. I felt I needed "something" to get me through.
The minute I arrived at twig, I told the leader not to call on me to SIT (just in case his revelation didn't kick in). I was concerned with not being able to deliver a phophecy because of a bad case of cotton-mouth. I think he would have thrown me out right then and there if I hadn't been the ride home for the other five members attending twig. I guess having a car gave me clout.
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Tom
You don't have to feel constrained to answer this, especially if this is the same place we were at last time we discussed tongues, but you have to realize the obvious question.
My native language is English. If someone who knows my native language is speaking to me in my native language, he is going to be speaking to me in English, a language we both understand. In what sense is that speaking in tongues?
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dancing
Just because the language is understood does not mean what is said is understood.
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dancing
And yes, if it is understood then it wouldn't be a toungue to the one understanding what the other is saying but recognized as toungues.
One can even recognize toungues without understanding fully if one knows what they are looking for.
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TheInvisibleDan
Might "new tongues" be (also?)speaking - not literally nor necessarily a foreign language -
but of the "new" contents of spiritual speech -
The "New Testament",
which by virtue of its "newness" and "strangeness"
strikes profoundly "foreign" to those hearing it.
And might "interpretation" of this "new language"
be akin to the pesher practice of expounding scripture,
examples abundant among the writings of the Dead Sea scrolls.
If taken literally with the other content of Mark 16, one might expect to literally drink poison,
play with actual snakes and babble incoherent Martian-speech.
I imagine a combination of the poison and the snakes could do that. :)
Can't wait to see "Snakes on a Plane".
Yours Truly,
"Dr. Tongue" (and Bruno)
...in 3-D.
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waysider
Danny------------Whenever I heard VPW teach on the snakes and poison he qualified that it was in the catagory of "if". He would then go on to verbally shred the snake handlers because if they knew what he knew they would know better than to "tempt the lord thy GOD". YUP----- fits like a hand in a wallet!
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TheInvisibleDan
Depends how filled that wallet is.
Is it "filled" below capacity" -
or will it overflow with sweet cash?
"Dats-ruuu-iiiight...."
I swear all those old Way leaders spoke like hoodlums from the old "Superman" series.
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dancing
hmm yeah Danny taking on serpents without them hurting you
Somewhat similar to toungues....
I thank my God(as opposed to another god) that i speak in toungues more then you all.
must have been quite a few understanding.
Cuz who says acts 2 was a phenomena and not the way it is alll the time.
Wierwille of course.
Just Cuz they were all Galiliens don't mean they didn't know these other dialects.
And being moved by the Holy Spirit, just the right words came out.
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dancing
Perhaps many have lost interest in Acts 2 and Mark 16.
Along with 1Cor 12, 13 and 14...
Could be a much different approach and realization of these things.
Resigned to the incoherent toungues as taught by the way and others.
I submit and for consideration that there is more, much more then previously thought by many.
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Tom
A couple of things:
I still don't get what's to consider in the much more that you're talking about.
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