U N I V E R S I T Y O F E C O N O M Y I N B Y D G O S Z C Z

FACULTY OF APPLIED STUDIES

V i o l e t t a M a k o v i i

The linguistic and non-linguistic aspects ofglossolalia and xenoglossia

B a c h e l o r ’ s T h e s i s

PHILOLOGY

MAJOR: English with Spanish

Under supervision of

dr Wiktor Pskit

Student’s Transcript No.: 19643

W Y Ż S Z A S Z K O Ł A G O S P O D A R K I

W B Y D G O S Z C Z Y

WYDZIAŁ STUDIÓW STOSOWANYCH

Violetta Makovii

Językowe i niejęzykowe aspekty glosolalii i ksenoglosji

P R A C A L I C E N C J A C K A

KIERUNEK: FILOLOGIA

SPECJALNOŚĆ: język angielski z językiem hiszpańskim

Praca wykonana pod kierunkiem

dra Wiktora Pskita

1

Nr albumu autora pracy: 19643

Streszczenie ………………...………………………………………………………………….…3

Introduction...................................................4

Chapter 1 Theoretical background of speaking in tongues........5

1.1 Glossolalia or xenoglossia. Biblical perspective..........5

1.2 Tongues today.............................................6

1.2 Praying in tongues versus speaking in tongues. Singing and

interpretation................................................8

1.4 Variations and different sources of speech manifestations

reminiscent of glossolalia....................................9

1.4.1 Imitations............................................91.4.2 Personality disorders and demonic possessions........101.4.3 Vocalizations induced by LSD.........................11

1.5 How to differentiate between the types of glossolalia.

Biblical perspective.........................................11

1.6 Cerebral activity during glossolalia state...............12

Chapter 2 Glossolalia as a special kind of language independent

from phonological, morphological and suprasegmental rules of a

speaker’s native language.....................................14

2.1 Place for glossolalia in Charles Hockett’s ‘Design features

of language’.................................................15

2.2 Phonological, morphological and suprasegmental analysis of

glossolalia acquired from American Pentecostal...............17

2

2.2.1 Phonological analysis................................182.2.2 Morphological analysis...............................212.2.3 Suprasegmental analysis..............................22

Chapter 3 Speaking in tongues survey..........................24

3.1 Analysis of the answers..................................25

3.2 Discussion:..............................................27

Conclusion:...................................................29

References:...................................................30

Appendix1:....................................................31

Appendix 2:...................................................31

Appendix 3:...................................................32

Streszczenie

Celem pracy było rozważenie czy biblijne mówienie w innych

językach, określane mianem glosolalii, może być rozpatrywane

jako język. Są pewne warunki które glosolalia musi spełniać aby

móc nazywać się językiem. Po pierwsze musi mieć struktury

językowe, a po drugie, i to wydaje się najważniejsze w ocenie

jej językowości, te struktury muszą odróżniać się od struktur

ojczystego języka mówcy.

Pierwszy rozdział pracy był poświęcony mówieniu w językach w

ujęciu Pisma Świętego, między innymi również i ksenoglosji,

która jest mówieniem w znanych językach, których człowiek nigdy

się nie uczył. Przedstawiono również przypadki z historii

mówienia w językach, różne cele tego daru i użycia. Chociaż

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czasami mówi się ze glosolalia nie jest językowym zjawiskiem, w

drugim rozdziale za pomocą różnych środków analizy

lingwistycznej wskazano na argumenty za językowym statusem

glosolalii. Ostatni rozdział był głównie skierowany na przypadki

mówienia w znanych językach, i jest poświęcony analizie ankiet

wypełnionych przez zielonoświątkowców z Polski i Ukrainy.

Introduction

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According to the Bible, the Son of God when telling His

disciples to go and to preach the gospel to every man added that

those who believe the gospel shall receive signs, so that they

will, among other, cast out devils and speak with new languages

(Mark 16:15-18, New International Version, henceforth NIV). Today,

many Christians claim to have received this gift. In biblical

tradition speaking with new tongues may be of two varieties:

known languages or technically ‘xenoglossia’, or unknown angelic

languages, technically called ‘glossolalia’, the languages one

starts speaking without the prior knowledge but under the

influence of the Holy Spirit. As long as there is no evidence

that a sample of speaking in tongues resembles any known

language, it is generally referred to as glossolalia. From

linguistic perspective the most interesting is the evaluation of

credibility of tongues, which is checking whether tongues are

fake or not, whether they resemble any natural language, and to

what extent glossolalia is dependent on or independent from

one’s native language - questions that this work aims to answer.

Certainly, speaking in tongues will be treated mainly from the

linguistic point of view but for the reasons of being among

Christian practices and thoroughly described in the Holy

Scripture, the subject of the thesis requires references to the

biblical teachings. This is not to say, however, that non-

Christians do not experience something similar to glossolalia.

But, in turn, the fact that non-Christians may experience it

does not mean that their vocalizations are equal to that of

Christians’ - the issue to be treated later. All in all, the

first chapter provides a theoretical background on speaking in

tongues. In the second chapter glossolalia is examined with

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different kinds of linguistic analyses, even though, without

semantic information on the samples. The questionnaires acquired

from Christians in Poland and Ukraine are discussed in the last

chapter. In addition, there were recorded some samples of

speaking with tongues that are available from the author upon

request.

Chapter 1

Theoretical background of speaking in tongues

1.1Glossolalia or xenoglossia. Biblical perspective

The concept of speaking in tongues appears more than 30 times in

the New Testament (Sherrill, 2004:70, Cooper-Rompato, 2010:6).

As it was mentioned, there are two different types of tongues:

known languages, that are often referred to as xenoglossia, and

heavenly languages, technically called glossolalia (Isaiah

28:11,12, NIV), languages that one claims to start speaking

under the influence of the Holy Spirit and without previous

learning. The beginnings of speaking in tongues are often

ascribed to the following verses from the book of the Acts of

the Apostles, where it is described how Christians, for the

first time, started speaking in supernaturally acquired known

languages (Acts 2:1-21, NIV):

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“1When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in oneplace.

2 Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came fromheaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting.

3 They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated andcame to rest on each of them.

4 All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speakin other tongues (Or languages; also in verse 11) as the Spiritenabled them.

5 Now there were staying in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from everynation under heaven.

6 When they heard this sound, a crowd came together inbewilderment, because each one heard their own language beingspoken.

7 Utterly amazed, they asked: “Aren’t all these who are speakingGalileans?

8 Then how is it that each of us hears them in our nativelanguage?

9 Parthians, Medes and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Judeaand Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia (That is, the Roman province bythat name)

10 Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya nearCyrene; visitors from Rome

11 (both Jews and converts to Judaism); Cretans and Arabs—we hearthem declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues!”

12 Amazed and perplexed, they asked one another, “What does thismean?”

13 Some, however, made fun of them and said, “They have had toomuch wine.”

14 Then Peter stood up with the Eleven, raised his voice andaddressed the crowd: “Fellow Jews and all of you who live inJerusalem, let me explain this to you; listen carefully to what Isay.

15 These people are not drunk, as you suppose. It’s only nine inthe morning!

16 No, this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel:

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17 “‘In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on allpeople. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young menwill see visions, your old men will dream dreams.

18 Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out mySpirit in those days, and they will prophesy.

19 I will show wonders in the heavens above and signs on theearth below, blood and fire and billows of smoke.

20 The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to bloodbefore the coming of the great and glorious day of the Lord.

21 And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved(Joel 2:28-32)’”.

Reportedly, there were 3, 000 people from different nations at

the feast and many of them heard the disciples (around 120

disciples) speaking in that people’s native languages and

dialects about the mighty works of God. Christians think that

the gift of xenoglossia enabled the disciples, who were mostly

uneducated people, to speak about God to different nations, thus

confirming the words of Jesus that they will be His witnesses

all over the world. The other kind of tongues mentioned in the

Bible, however, cannot be understood by any man, unless

interpreted by someone who has the gift of interpretation. These

are called ‘tongues of angels’ (1 Corinthians 13:1) and those

who pray in a heavenly language are said to speak mysteries to

God (1 Corinthians 14:2). Combined with the gift of

interpretation the gift of speaking in other tongues may serve

as prophecy mentioned in the verses 17 and 18 of the book of the

Acts. All in all, according to the Bible there are two different

kinds of tongues, which linguists call glossolalia and

xenoglossia, which are believed by many Christians to be the

part of the promise of the last days grand outpouring of the

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Holy Spirit (Sherrill, 2004; Ulonska, 1987; Strom, A., 2010;

Joel 2:28-32, NIV).

1.2 Tongues today

From the day of Pentecost until the beginning of 20th century the

cases of people speaking in tongues were sporadic and often kept

in secret, however, the reported cases of xenoglossia

intensified in the late middle ages (Cooper-Rompato, 2010;

Sherrill, 2004:36). The most well-known and, perhaps, the first

modern-day case of speaking in other tongues took place in the

United States. There, Charles Parham, evangelist and preacher,

attributed much to the spread of Pentecostalism and its

teachings of glossolalia as evidence of the Holy Spirit baptism.

At his Bible College, after thorough New Testament study, the

students concluded that speaking in tongues, and sometimes

prophecy, were present whenever someone was baptized in the Holy

Spirit. Therefore, they decided that glossolalia must be

available for every Christian and started praying for the

baptism. The first to start speaking in new languages at the

College was a young student, Agnes Ozman. This happened on

December 31, 1900 and is considered to be the first contemporary

case when people were waiting and asking God to be baptized in

the Holy Spirit with the evidence of speaking in tongues. Some

say that when the rest of the students were baptized they

started praying in natural languages, among other, in German,

Hindi and Japanese (Cooper-Rompato, 2010; Sherrill, 2004:36).

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Sherrill says that many non-Pentecostal Christians asked him not

to publish their names while giving an interview about speaking

in tongues. Probably, they feared to tell others about their

unusual for that time experience. But the following historic

moment made glossolalia appear in newspaper headlines. It took

place in a large Episcopal church on 3 April, 1960 in Van Nuys,

California. There, Bennett Dennis, the Episcopal minister, after

he prayed for and received the gift, confessed in front of more

than 2500 parishioners that he had been baptized in the Holy

Spirit and started speaking in a language he had no previous

knowledge of. During one month about 70 people and 2 of 4

ministers of that church were also baptized in the Holy Spirit

with the evidence of speaking in unknown tongues. Such

manifestations probably angered others, so, Dennis was advised

to leave in order to avoid the division of the church. The story

was published in ‘Time’ and ‘Newsweek’ (John Sherrill, 2004:60).

Although, initially promoted by Pentecostals only, for example,

by Parham, now speaking with new tongues is practice found in

almost all Christian denominations (Sherrill, 2004; Motley,

1981; Goodman, 1972; Samarin, 1972). According to the Pew

Research Center’s 2011 Report there are around 279 million

classical pentecostal Christians and 305 million charismatic

Christians, with almost each denomination within these groups

supporting the biblical belief that speaking in tongues is God

given gift necessary for personal edification (Pew Research

Center, 2011:67). According to the Report, together these two

Christian groups comprise more than 8% of total world population

and almost 27% of world Christian population. However, there

seems to be no statistics on how many of these people practice

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speaking in tongues these days but in 80th, they say, there were

more than 4 million of tongue speakers in the USA alone (Motley,

1981:18, Samarin, 1972, Sherrill, 2004). The assumption is that

compared to 80th the number of Christians speaking in tongues has

drastically increased all over the world by now.

1.2 Praying in tongues versus speaking in tongues. Singing and interpretation

The most frequent explanation for why Christians use

glossolalia, alternating with prayers in their native languages,

is that it especially helps and edifies them (Sherrill, 2004;

Ulonska, 1987). For example, sometimes people do not know how to

pray about something, particularly in difficult situations they

are not sure about what exactly to ask God for, or may simply be

exhausted or feel bad. Then, when they start praying in tongues,

the Holy Spirit together with their spirit prays within them

with the best kind of prayer and thanksgiving, with the requests

that person could not normally decide to utter (Ulonska, 1987;

Romans 8:26; 1 Cor. 14:14). And, some say, that this perfect

kind of prayer, that is in accordance with God’s will, cannot be

unanswered (Isaiah 55:11; Romans 8:27; Strom, A, 2010; Sherrill,

2004). In their answers to his questionnaires, Samarin’s

respondents often wrote that after praying in tongues they felt

peace, that it helped and that they became closer to God

(Samarin, 1972:201). Some interpret the ability to pray in

tongues as the proof that they are God’s children: “And by him

we cry, ‘Abba, Father’. The Spirit himself testifies with our

spirit that we are God's children” (Romans, 8:16, NIV; Sherrill,

2004). Moreover, as one can sing in natural languages and

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interpret, the same applies to tongues: one may sing in tongues

and interpret them. “Songs from the Spirit” or spiritual hymns

are used to give glory to God and are also said to edify and

strengthen the faith of those who practice it (Ephesians 5:19; 1

Cor. 14:14-15; Ulonska, 1987:121).

Theologians say that there may be praying in tongues, discussed

above, and speaking in tongues (Ulonska, 1987; Sherrill, 2004).

Speaking differs from the personal prayer in tongues because its

function is directed at other people in a church. Its mission is

conveying loud message from God for a congregation or a

particular person and this message becomes intelligible thanks

to interpreting, one of the gifts of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor.

14:13; Sherrill, 2004:72). If someone is speaking in tongues

silently at church or at home, interpretation is not obligatory.

However, the interpretation should be present if someone starts

speaking in tongues publicly because then people do not

understand the message, unless he or she would speak in a known

language (1 Cor. 14). To avoid disambiguation, throughout this

work the term ‘speaking in tongues’ is generally used to

describe both personal and public usage. Given that it is

genuine, a ‘loud’ message in tongues plus the interpretation of

that message serves as a prophecy, direct word from God to the

whole congregation or a particular member. Sherrill provides an

example of one such prophecy: while people were praying, one

Methodist woman came to the middle and delivered her message in

tongues. After some period of silence, one man interpreted what

was said. He spoke quietly using simple modern language. The

message contained information for a particular person, and,

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reportedly, it was consistent with the situation the person had

(Sherrill, 1990:85-86).

What concerns interpretations, some theologians and linguists

point out that although glossolalic words have semantics because

they have some meaning, they do not have semanticity because

there is no correspondence between words and their

interpretations (Holm, 2010; Samarin, 1972:122). Indeed, there

may be no direct correspondence between the particular word and

its translation and between the length of glossolalic message

and the length of interpretation (Sherrill 1990:85, Samarin

1972:122). However, some emphasize that the gift of interpreting

is aimed at explaining rather than at word-for-word translation

of what was said (Ulonska, 1987). A good example of such

interpretation is given in the Old Testament. It happened in the

days of king Belshazzar and is known as Belshazzar’s Feast. The

king made the feast for his wives and concubines but maltreated

God and served the idols. Suddenly a hand appeared and wrote

four words on the wall: “Mene, Mene, Tekil, Upharsin”. It is

mentioned that no one could read or explain these words except

for one Jew named Daniel. Which has to be translated in more or

less the same number of words, Daniel interpreted like that:

“This is the inscription that was written: mene, mene, tekel,

parsin. Here is what these words mean: Mene: God has numbered

the days of your reign and brought it to an end. Tekel: You have

been weighed on the scales and found wanting. Peres: Your

kingdom is divided and given to the Medes and Persians” (Daniel

5:25, 26)

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1.4 Variations and different sources of speech manifestations reminiscent of glossolalia

1.4.1 Imitations

Newberg writes that in 1986, sixty non-Pentecostals were trained

to utter glossolalic speech after they had listened to

glossolalia recordings. Seventy percent became fluent in their

vocalizations, so the researchers concluded that glossolalia is

behavior that can be learnt (Newberg, 2006:196). However, some

of those who had witnessed Christians to start for the first

time and without preparation praying in tongues, suppose that an

ordinary person who never spoke in tongues cannot at once

produce such utterances. They explain that in theory it is hard

for adult speakers to separate themselves from the principles of

their native language and at once produce utterances that are

language-like while not like their native language (Motley,

1981; Sherrill, 2004). Although, some mimic comedians can reach

the goal, consistency comes to them only after much practice,

while Christians, as it was mentioned above, may at once start

speaking structured utterances. Not least, there still seems to

be no scientific evidence for the proposed linguisticality of

those who learned to produce glossolalia (Motley, 1981:26). In

addition, some linguists, upon listening, could easily

distinguish between made-up glossolalia and genuine. When

conducting his experiment on tongues, together with the real

samples of Christian glossolalia Sherrill recorded two

imitations by his wife and son who tried to speak as similar as

possible to some Pentecostals. However, linguists quickly

pointed that two of the samples were definitely not languages

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(Sherrill, 1990:100). Therefore, it appears that comparisons

between glossolalia and imitations may show that made-up

utterances can be less language-like than some samples of

genuine glossolalia (Sherrill, 2004; Carlson, 1967 in Motley,

1981:19).

1.4.2 Personality disorders and demonic possessions

As for xenoglossia, the cases of people speaking in natural

languages now have documented evidence. However, these people,

speaking in known languages, were not Christians. For instance,

Dr. Ian Stevenson, a psychiatrist, has investigated quite

sufficient number of subjects from Asia and Europe who under

hypnosis could fluently speak real languages. Stevenson rather

attributed the ability to reincarnation type, as his subjects

themselves insisted. “Celebrated cases described by Stevenson

include T.E., an American woman, who under hypnosis, spoke in

Swedish of her life as a peasant farmer named Jensen Jacoby, and

Dolores Jay, an American who, also under hypnosis, began to

speak in German and claimed her name was Gretchen Gottlieb”

(Cooper-Rompato, 2010:4). To add more, paranormal states and

personality disorders may be part of practices of, to name a

few, spiritists and shamans who do not seem to disprove that

evil spirits or spirits of the dead are speaking through them.

Sometimes these spirits may speak in known languages and

something just language-like (Cooper-Rompato, 2010; Goodman,

1972; Samarin, 1972:129). What concerns mentally ill, for

example, schizophrenic people, researchers say that they

constitute only a small percentage of those who produce

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vocalizations reminiscent of glossolalia. Moreover, their

vocalizations are just shouts of single words (Newberg, 2006,

The measurement of blood flow; Samarin, 1972). Quite

interestingly, but Dr. Ian Stevenson considered true xenoglossia

to be unlikely among Christians, because “their verbal behavior

is not usually accompanied by a marked alteration of

consciousness” (Stevenson, 1956:302, in Samarin 1972). Samarin,

therefore, writes that it is very doubtful that the reported

cases of xenoglossia among Christians are genuine, among other,

due to Christians’ usually normal states of consciousness.

1.4.3 Vocalizations induced by LSD

Some were able to produce very sufficient utterances under the

influence of LSD-25 (Goodman, 1972:124, 125). Goodman writes

that the LSD, beyond any doubt, caused disassociation: the

subject started inadvertently producing unknown utterances and

for more than half an hour he could not control the behavior.

She compares such inability to control oneself to the

glossolalia of some Maya and Spanish Christians she observed.

However, unlike in Maya’s case, the sound inventory within LCD-

induced pulses was rich but pronounced at an extremely high

speed. Still, there were no regularly divided phrases or bars

and no intonation with its onset, rise and decay, that were

present in the glossolalia of Spanish and Maya speakers. Even

though Goodman does not seem to apply it to the Christian

glossolalia samples she examined, she feels that the drug

induced vocalization she listened to resembled a foreign

language.

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1.5 How to differentiate between the types of glossolalia. Biblical perspective

In the world of growing interest in everything unusual and

supernatural Christians warn that one should not accept every

supernatural vocalization as God’s but should test it to know if

this is from Him (1 John 4:1). Theoretically, those who have the

gift of discernment (1 Corinthians 12:10, Strom A., 2008) can

feel which glossolalia is influenced by the Spirit of God and

which is not. For example, in the 1960s Werner Cohn, professor

of sociology, asked some of his collaborators to go and observe

glossolalia at the local Pentecostal church (Newberg, 2006:195).

Among his colleagues there were some amateur actors. Werner then

filmed how his six co-workers were trying to perform glossolalia

while the other young fellow from Trinidad was playing drums. By

the way, many researchers emphasize that rhythmical songs,

drumming and chanting can induce mystical states, that are also

called altered states of consciousness (Newberg, 2006:196;

Goodman, 1972). All of the six managed to produce tongue-speech

and later described that it felt like the language was produced

through them but also despite them. When Cohn showed the video

and explained his experiment to a Pentecostal minister, ‘the

minister felt that this was true glossolalia but that it came

from spiritual sources other than God’ (Newberg, 2006:195-196).

Moreover, according to the Scriptures, when understood, in the

case of xenoglossia, or interpreted, in the case of glossolalia,

demonic speaking in tongues contains curses aimed at Jesus (1

Cor., 12:3, NIV) but genuine contains thanksgiving to God (1

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Cor. 14:16, NIV), describes wonders of God (Acts, 2:11), helps

and edifies listeners (1 Cor. 14:4, NIV). Thirdly, people

possessed by evil spirits while speaking in tongues may, for

example, crash to the floor and roll around, may bark or laugh

uncontrollably. Strikingly, but such behaviors are reported to

be present also between many Christians and are believed to be

influenced by Hindu teachings on ‘Kundalini awakening’ that are

also present within popular today ‘The New Age Movement’

(Samarin 1972; Strom, 2010:62). This is, certainly, contrary to

the orderly manner, from the view point of Bible and, therefore,

Christians, in which glossolalia should occur (1 Corinthians

14:33, 40). In addition, those who speak by the Spirit of God

can stop speaking when they wish, and can control themselves (1

Cor. 14:30-32). It appears that for speaking in tongues two

forces need to cooperate: human spirit and God’s Spirit (Romans

8, NIV). For that reason, theologians consider that those who

received the gift of tongues can use it whenever they want until

they are obedient to God and filled with the Holy Spirit

(Ulonska 1987:119; Acts 5:32; Rom. 8:16; 1 Cor. 14:14-15). And

the last but not least difference: according to the Bible those

who are inspired by God speak in tongues in the name of Jesus,

not in the name of Mary or saints, for example (Mark 16:15-18).

And certainly, the style of one’s life plays an important role

in decision about the source of their glossolalia or xenoglossia

(Strom, 2010).

All things considered, it should be concluded that, even though,

some samples of representatives from, for example, Haitian

voodoo, or Cuba’s santeria cult may sound as much convincingly

language-like (Samarin, 1972:131-132) as glossolalia of some

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Charismatic or Pentecostal representatives, the sources of such

unusual abilities remain completely different, at least this is

what the Bible and the speakers themselves claim.

1.6 Cerebral activity during glossolalia state

In 2006 there was carried, perhaps, the first research to

measure brain situation during glossolalia. Single-photon

emission computed tomography technique, one of a number of brain

scanning techniques, was used to measure regional cerebral blood

flow, the indicative of brain activity, during speaking in

tongues. The subjects’ brains were scanned after speaking in

tongues and after singing in English states and later the brain

scans were compared to see if there were any differences between

the two states. All of the 5 women that took part in the

research have practiced glossolalia for about five years and

claimed to have no voluntary control over the vocalizations.

Their conditions were checked by specialists, for example, no

one of them had brain or nerve disorders or positive pregnancy

test or took the substances that could change brain functions.

Below are the most important findings from the viewpoint of the

researchers.

At the beginning of the experiment, Andrew Newberg, professor of

radiology, and his colleagues hypothesized that, first of all,

because of the described loss of intentional control over

glossolalia utterances, the frontal lobes activity during

glossolalia state would decrease in comparison with singing

state. The frontal lobes are, among other, responsible for

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language and willful control of behaviors. Indeed, the scans

showed decreased activity in the prefrontal cortices during

speaking in tongues state. That is, when subjects prayed in

English, frontal lobes were activated, but during glossolalia

the activity decreased. Therefore, it was concluded that the

subjects were not in control of the vocalizations. Also, Newberg

concluded that the subjects were not praying in regular

languages because if they would, then the frontal lobes would be

activated. In addition, in his previous studies, Newberg

investigated Buddhists meditating and Franciscan nuns praying.

Both Franciscan nuns and Buddhists are intensely focused while

performing meditation and prayers respectively. Their brain

activity differed from that of the Pentecostal and Charismatic

women. Brain scans of Buddhists, for example, who claimed that

during meditation they lose the sense of self, showed decreased

activity in the superior parietal lobe (SPL). The women

performing glossolalia did not claim that they lose the sense of

self, so the team did not expect and did not find any special

decreases in their SPL activity.

Newberg and Samarin, for example, agree that people while

praying in tongues behave either normally as if they were

praying in L1 or ecstatically, for example, involving bodily

movements. Newberg concludes that the 5 women he investigated

entered altered states of consciousness, presumably, because of

the movements. Gerry Stoltzfoos, a Pentecostal pastor, who

prayed in tongues upon request but without listening to music or

moving as the women did, would rather fit the first type of

speakers. Reportedly, he had more or less the same changes in

brain activity as the women but, maybe because, as Newberg said,

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they were interested in the neurology of the ‘active’ type of

glossolalia, Gerry’s case was not documented but only filmed by

ABC News1. Therefore, it still remains unclear whether those who

behave non-ecstatically in Newberg’s terms also enter altered

states of consciousness. All in all, it was concluded that the

obtained brain scans were consistent with the people’s

subjective descriptions of not choosing the words intentionally,

however, the presence or absence of the Holy Spirit scientists

yet do not seem to be able to prove. They just say that changes

in several brain parts mean complex cerebral activity during

speaking in tongues (Newberg, 2006).

1. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZINWC-oT6x0

Chapter 2

Glossolalia as a special kind of language independentfrom phonological, morphological and suprasegmentalrules of a speaker’s native language

Even though Pentecostals may say that the unspiritual person

cannot judge this phenomenon, linguists, who are the most

concerned about glossolalia’s linguisticality, answer that when

something is pronounced loudly, it immediately becomes part of

the public domain (1 Cor. 2:14-16; Samarin, 1972:233). After

many linguistic investigations, speaking in tongues aroused a

special kind of controversy and disagreement, so in effect,

there is no common definition that would prove or disprove the

linguisticality of glossolalia in general. Most of the previous

21

conclusions on its linguisticality can be collectively presented

by two completely different findings. For example, Motley

describes Pentecostal glossolalia as “a kind of speech behavior

which displays language-like characteristics and structure

without apparent semantic information, and which displays

language-like structures which replace the rules of the

speaker’s natural language” (Motley, 1981:19). And second

conclusion on glossolalia can be summarized as: “strings of

syllables, made up of sounds taken from among all those that the

speaker knows, put together more or less haphazardly but which

nevertheless emerge as word-like and sentence-like units because

of realistic, language-like rhythm and melody” (Samarin,

1972:227). Hitherto, it appears that the main divergence of

opinions over glossas, i.e. samples of speech in tongues, was

caused by non-native phonemes present or absent in glossolalia

discourse.

Mainly because it is not difficult to imagine the kind of

discourse which is not language-like, the primary concern of this

chapter will be to present cases when glossolalia may be

language-like and in the same time independent from a speaker’s

mother tongue. Below, for that reason, it will be assessed in

the light of Charles Hockett’s design features of language, and

later examined by means of phonological, phonemic and

morphological analyses and comparisons with natural languages.

As for xenoglossia, no such linguistic examination is needed

simply because once one is heard to be speaking in an actual

language the linguisticality becomes clear, instead other

questions, for example, that of acquisition or reliability of

22

witnesses, emerge. Samarin adds that linguists would be

interested in xenoglossia in case the language is extinct

because of the new information on that language (Samarin,

1968:52).

2.1 Place for glossolalia in Charles Hockett’s ‘Design

features of language’

The controversy over glossolalia was also caused by the notion

that ‘language’ is a well-defined and broadly agreed-upon

category. For example, Samarin insists that irrespectively of

the tongue-speakers’ assumptions and feelings linguists know

well enough what is language and what is not (Samarin, 1972).

Kildahl in turn, says that linguists rely on adequate

definitions of what is a natural language, and later both of

them add that glossolalia does not meet the requirements of

these definitions (1972, in Holm, Wolf and Smith 2011). The most

referred source for the requirements that glossolalia should

meet, is the article by Charles Hockett “The Problem of

Universals in Language”. Holm, on the other hand, believes that

the primary intention of Hockett’s universals was to save the

generalization (Hockett, “Problem of Universals”, 1963:3 in Holm,

Wolf and Smith 2011). In order to evaluate the linguisticality

of glossolalia Samarin discussed it in terms of Charles F.

Hockett’s sixteen ‘design features of language’ (Hockett

considered the first nine to be present in both animal and human

communicative systems but the last seven to apply only to humans

23

speech). Here is the list of Hockett’s design features that a

language should have (1963 in Holm, Wolf and Smith 2011):

“Vocal-Auditory Channel – Spoken language is produced in the vocal tract andtransmitted/heard as sound, whereas sign language is produced with the handsand transmitted by light.

Broadcast transmission and directional reception – The audible sound oflanguage is heard in all directions but listeners will interpret it as comingfrom one specific direction.

Rapid fading – The sound made by speech diminishes quickly after beingreleased.

Interchangeability – The speaker has the ability to receive and also send thesame message.

Total feedback – Individuals are able to hear and internalize a message theyhave sent.

Semanticity – Speech sounds can be linked to specific meanings.

Arbitrariness – There is no direct connection between the signal and itsmeaning.

Discreteness – Each unit of communication can be separated and unmistakable.

Specialization – Speech is produced for communication, not chiefly for someother function, such as echolocation.

Displacement – The ability to talk about things that are not physicallypresent.

Productivity – The ability to create new messages by combining already-existing signs.

Traditional transmission – The learning of language occurs in social groups.

Duality of patterning – Meaningful signs (words) are made of—anddistinguished from one another by—meaningless parts (sounds, letters). Afinite number of meaningless parts are combined to make a potentiallyinfinite number of meaningful utterances.

Prevarication – The ability to make false statements (to lie). Involves thepurposeful manipulation of a given shared communication system in order tofool other members of the communicating group.

Reflexiveness – Language can be used to refer to (i.e., describe) itself.

24

Learnability – Speakers of one language can learn to speak another”

Taking into consideration the above features Samarin argues that

glossas do not have five of them: semanticity, arbitrariness,

displacement, prevarication, and reflexiveness. That is why the

absence of these five features was sufficient for him to

conclude that glossolalia is not language (Samarin, 1968:66-67).

However, some theologians insist and probably the majority of

Christians practicing glossolalia would say that glossolalia is

a language that deserves a special place just as it is the case

with sign languages (Holm, 2011:134). Holm and Smith propose

that glossolalia is a phenomenon which is on the very fringe of

the category known ‘language’. Holm is a follower of Talmy

Givón’s functionalist approach to language universals, involving

prototype theory. According to Givón “the most prototypical

member of a category is the one displaying the largest number of

criterial features. But other members may display fewer features

and still be members” (Givón, 2001:32). Randall Holm examines and

explains why Samarin’s claim that glossolalia lacks all of the

five design features, such as semanticity, arbitrariness,

displacement, prevarication, and reflexiveness may be not

altogether accurate. He starts with reflexiveness (the ability

to speak in one’s language about this same language) and

advocates the claim that when people pray in tongues about

another person with the intention to ask God to give that other

person the gift of tongues, those people may show reflexiveness.

Displacement (‘things remote in time and space’) is demonstrated

when people pray in tongues for someone who is absent (Hockett

1963:11, in Holm 2011:136). Arbitrariness simply means that

25

there is no direct connection between sounds and meanings, which

is also not obligatory in glossolalia (Samarin, 1972:120; Holm,

2011). Prevarication (the ability to tell lies) is strongly

connected to semanticity, which, in turn, is the cornerstone of

any discussion on glossolalia. To conclude, there are 2 design

features that glossolalia lacks, which gives it a right,

according to Givón and Holm, to be a member of a category known

‘language’, though not the most prototypical.

2.2 Phonological, morphological and suprasegmental analysis

of glossolalia acquired from American Pentecostal

Very often linguists and laymen, who once listened to tongue

speech had common feeling that it resembled some real language

(Motley, 1981; Samarin, 1972; Sherrill, 2004). Known for his

work on laboratory-induced slips of the tongue, Michael Motley,

writes: “Indeed to the linguistically trained listener

glossolalia does not usually sound like a random bubbling or

simple gibberish, but rather sounds sophisticated and

convincingly language-like. Presumably were it not for

glossolalia’s ostensible resemblance to true language, the

phenomenon would seem less unique or miraculous than it does”

(Motley, 1981:18). Taken into consideration such a feeling he

decides to examine and then to confirm or disconfirm the

intuitive impression of glossolalia to be language-like. The

linguist was examining samples of glossolalia produced by 61-

year-old Pentecostal. That man had been speaking in tongues for

20 years and had no special contact with foreign languages

26

through travelling or learning; his mother tongue was American

English (henceforth English). Such information on the linguistic

skills seems to be quite important to disconfirm the possible

explanations of non-native sounds present in his speech as the

result of cryptomnesia, which is “the appearance in the

conscious mind of what was once stored in the memory and then

forgotten” (Samarin, 1972:115). So, there appears to be no

evidence that the subject was familiar with other languages

except for his native English (Motley, 1981; Samarin, 1972). It

seems worth adding that he, upon request, could speak either of

three different types of glossolalia: first variety was judged

by competent linguists to sound like Spanish (hereafter ‘Variety

I’) and another type slightly resembled Russian (‘Variety II’)

(Motley, 1981:19). The last one, which was not included into the

article due to the late arrival, sounded like some of the

‘Oriental’ tone-languages. Moreover, Motley says that the

subject produced this third variety of glossolalia for the first

occasion and after cursory analysis it appeared that ‘Oriental’

type was also not random vocalization. Such an ability to speak

in different types of glossolalia is rare among Christian tongue

speakers but seems to be possible (Motley, 1981; Samarin 1972).

The author made a number of recordings of Variety I and Variety

II, each variety lasted about 5 minutes, both were recorded with

a break of seven to fourteen days, thus together amounting to

more than two hours of Variety I and one hour of Variety II.

Only ten percent, four 3-minute samples of Variety I and two 3-

minute samples of Variety II, were randomly chosen for the

future analysis. Those six samples were transcribed phonetically

by the author and later approved by a competent phonetician. For

27

the efficient analysis to be realized the following set of data

was collected: glossolalia samples’ transcriptions, phonemic

transcriptions of Spanish and Russian, and Denes’ phonology

statistics on two fragments of English (Motley, 1981). Some of

Motley’s findings are presented below.

2.2.1 Phonological analysis2.2.1.1 General comparative phonemic inventories. Relative phone frequencies

Having phonologically analyzed four samples of Variety I and two

samples of Variety II, it was concluded that the distribution of

relative phoneme frequencies was unevenly graduated. In other

words, there were sounds which occurred very often and there

were those which occurred very seldom, and not many in between.

Although for Variety II the distribution was more evenly

graduated than for Variety I, nevertheless, it was not enough to

say that in this respect the glossolalic samples were like

natural languages, where phonemic inventories are commonly

characterized by regularly graduated distribution of phoneme

frequencies (Motley, 1981:20; Samarin, 1972).

In addition, the analysis of the inter-sample phone inventories

showed that there were some inconsistencies in the phone

frequencies between separate samples of speaking in tongues.

This means that there were instances in which a specific phone

appeared more frequently or less frequently in one sample than

in the other samples. Motley provides an example: the phone /ə/

occurred 42 times in sample B of ‘Spanish’ variety, 40 times in

sample C, and 32 times in sample D. However, there were no

28

occurrences of the phone in the sample A. So was the case of

some other 5 phones within Variety I (Motley, 1981). Although

not to such a great degree as in Variety I but the inter-sample

inconsistencies also took place in Variety II, or ‘Russian’

variety, thus being non-language feature of the glossolalia. As

a conclusion the author stresses that such inconsistencies,

especially within Variety I, are abnormal for natural languages

because a phoneme’s relative frequency in natural languages is

supposed to be more or less regular across the discourse

samples, at least this applies to the more frequent phonemes (M.

Motley, 1981:20; Denes, 1964 in Motley, 1981). However,

irrespectively of the relatively infrequent phones, glossolalia

samples of Variety I and Variety II contained approximately the

same number of phone types (30) as many languages have phonemes

(25-40) (Motley, 1981). Such a complete language-like inventory

of phone types shows that glossolalia is language like. However,

it is contrary to many previous researchers considering

glossolalia nonlanguage-like due to its definitely restricted

phone inventory (Samarin, 1972; Carlson, 1967; Jaquith, 1967;

Nida, 1965 in Motley).

The two glossolalia varieties were also compared to one another,

to speaker’s English and to the languages they intuitively

resembled, that is to Spanish and Russian. To make these

comparisons possible, phonemic inventories for English, Spanish

and Russian were prepared. First of all, the relative

frequencies for separate phones appeared to be very dissimilar,

for example, the glossolalia compared to English and Variety I

compared to Variety II revealed different distributions.

29

Secondly, the level of dissimilarity of the phone inventories

between either variety of glossolalia and English appeared to

be, at least, similar to the level of difference between any

three natural languages. This implies that glossolalia might not

be influenced by one’s native language, which also contradicts

the earlier analyses of glossolalia (Jaquith, 1967; Samarin,

1972). Thirdly, as well as in some previous cases, in Motley’s

samples phone /a/ appeared as the most frequent phone within

both varieties of glossolalia (Campbell, 1965; Jaquith, 1967).

This particular phoneme was badly interpreted because of its

neutrality, however, /a/ is also very frequent in natural

languages, and /ə/ which is said to be far more neutral than /a/

was infrequent in glossolalia samples compared to some actual

languages. What is more, relative phone frequencies within

varieties were rather similar to Spanish or Russian than to

English, which in turn is not consistent with previous claims

that glossolalia is tightly bound to the linguistic features of

the speakers mother tongue (Samarin, 1972; Jaquith, 1967 in

Motley 1981). For example, when Variety I was compared to

English the relative phone frequency (henceforth (r)) was .45 ,

to Spanish r = .71, and to Russian r = .57. And for Variety II

compared to English r = .32, to Spanish r = .52, and to Russian

r = .49.

2.2.1.2 Presence of certain non-English and absence of some English

phones

Phone distribution by place and manner of articulation

30

It was found that articulatory characteristics of the

glossolalia differed from the characteristics of English. Both

varieties of glossolalia were concluded to be language-like

while unlike the speaker’s English, among other, because there

were present non-English phones and there were absent some

frequent English phones in his glossolalia. For example, in

Variety I consonants /t/, /d/, /n/ and /r/ were more

apicodental than typical for English apico-alveolar, and /r/ was

either ‘flapped’ or ‘trilled’, with such characteristics typical

for Spanish. Also some non-English phonemes were typical within

Variety I (/β/, /ñ/, /x/) that are found in Spanish but also

some English phonemes were absent (/θ/, /ŋ/, /ž/, /dž/,

/h/, /ɔ/). The same applies for Variety II: it contained a

number of atypical for English language phones but did not

contain some English, for example (/w/, /θ/, /z/,

/tš/, /dž/, /ŋ/, /j/, /h/, /ʊ/), with such characteristics

within Variety II, however, not common even for Russian. In

fact, the overwhelming impression of the place-and-manner charts

of two glossolalia varieties is that their features are

certainly non-English. The results of this analysis are

obviously contrary to Jaquith’s standpoint that glossolalia

contains no non-native phones (Jaquith, 1967 in Motley,

1981:22).

2.2.1.3 Transitional probabilities of phones

31

Phonotactic rules of every language accept particular phoneme

combinations and do not accept others. Motley also attempted to

check whether the phonotactic characteristics of the tongue

speech were random or structured. In case they would be

structured, it was important to examine whether that structure

was imposed by the phonological characteristics of English.

First of all, contrary to Goodman (1972) and Nida (1965) who

wrote that glossolalia does not contain consonant clusters

(henceforth CC), Motley’s glossolalic samples were rich of them.

More significant was the presence of some exceptionally high CC

probabilities within each variety of glossolalia that are

atypical of English. For instance, within Variety I the chance

that /f/ would be followed by /w/ (/fw/) was .50, compared

to .001 in English (Motley, 1981:22). There were some other

probabilities of CC low for English but high for glossolalia:

within Variety I it was /rn/ and /tr/ and within Variety II

- /pr/, /br/, /mpr/, /mbr/, /zl/, /ndr/ and /ngr/. The several

large transitional probabilities of CC combinations in

glossolalia imply that glossolalia is phonotactically structured

rather than phonotactically random, and the differences between

particular CC probabilities for English and glossolalia imply

that the phonotactic structure of glossolalia is not governed by

the phonotactic tendencies of English (Motley, 1981).

2.2.1.4 Intrasyllable consonant clusters

32

The analysis of CC within syllables approaches closer to the

idea of phonotactic rules. The related analyses revealed that

Variety I as well as Variety II contained certain CC which

violated the phonotactic rules of English. This means that both

varieties of glossolalia contained intrasyllable CC which cannot

and do not appear in English. Particularly, such CC as /pw/,

/vr/, /fw/ and /wx/ occurred in Variety I while English does not

allow any /wC/ clusters, and second variety had /dl/ and /sn/.

These findings seem to be noteworthy because the intra-syllable

phonotactic analysis is very important indicator of the level to

which glossolalia conforms to the phonotactic rules of one’s

native language. Some earlier investigators, although they did

not employ phonotactic analyses in their examination of

glossolalia, claimed that tongue speech conformed to the

phonological rules of one’s native language, also because it

contained no no-native syllables (Jaquith, 1967 in Motley 1981;

Samarin, 1972). However, Motley’s findings showed that acquired

samples of glossolalia violated the phonological rules of

English while functioning within some system that was

phonotactically structured.

2.2.2 Morphological analysis 2.2.2.1 Non-English morphemes and morpheme combinations

One more analysis was aimed at checking whether morpheme types

were similar within the glossolalia and English. The examination

showed that of the 282 morpheme types of Variety I and 269 of

Variety II, only 61 were common to both varieties, with the

33

majority of these being comparatively infrequent morphemes. When

compared to English, the situation looks like that: only 43

morphemes of the 282 morpheme types of the first variety were

present in English, for example, /an/, /bi/, /do/, /dor/ and

only 41 of the 269 morpheme types of the second variety could be

found in English, for instance, /bait/, /du/, /in/. (Although

many of these non-English morphemes were syllables that may

occur in English but do not have status of morpheme (e.g. /ta/),

the glossolalia also contained many non-English syllables

(e.g. /viš/), thus, contradicting Samarin’s findings that

tongues-speech has no nonnative syllables (Motley, 1981:26;

Samarin, 1972)). Such possibility of common morphemes is very

similar between natural languages. As an example the author

provides comparisons between Turkish and English and French and

English, pointing that these languages share with English set of

morphemes, for example Turkish and English share /tšok/,

/bir/, /buz/ and French with English have in common /de/, /sis/,

/buz/, for example. To sum up, the morphemes of Variety I and

Variety II were, of course, non-English and the level of the

overlap between the varieties of glossolalia and English was

like that between natural languages.

Moreover, consequent examination revealed that in both

varieties, morpheme sequences, that is two or more adjacent

morphemes, were definitely non-English. This means that, the way

morphemes were selected and sequenced indeed was not based on

the rules of English morphology and lexicon (Motley, 1981).

2.2.2.2 Regularity in position of ‘words’ and ‘phrases’ as indicative

of possible semantic information

34

Unlike natural speech that has rather short words, the

glossolalia discourse consisted of relatively long phrase-like

units or breath-groups. Although these units were not

acoustically separated, the recurrence of particular sequences

of morphemes without usual environments made these combinations

appear word-like. The most interesting thing was that some of

those ‘words’ were “extremely reliable in terms of their phrase-

position (technically, intrajuncture discourse) locations”

(Motley, 1981:24). To give some examples for Variety I: all 10

instances of /patro/ were at the beginning of a phrase, all

15 /ando/ were at the end and all 6 occurrences of /exita/ were

also at the beginning of a phrase. The same reliability of unit

location was noticed for some single-morpheme words, for

example, 24 of 26 instances of /ke/ were phrase-initial and 17

of 25 cases of /ro/ also occurred at the beginning of a phrase-

unit. In Variety II there also were several words that showed

regularity, for example: all 7 instances of /andə/ occurred at

the beginning of a phrase and all 6 /višnlf/ at the end, etc. To

compare with natural language, in French, for example, it is

acceptable that 12 instances of /nɛspa/ would be in phrase-final

position but it is difficult to imagine them in other positions.

Having noticed such appealing similarity to natural languages

within glossolalia discourse in terms of the high predictability

of phrase position for particular word-like units, Motley came

to conclusion that such similarity suggested that the

glossolalia operated within some kind of lexico-syntactic rule

system. Even though there was no information on the meaning of

the utterances, it was concluded that such non-randomness within

35

the glossolalia obviously featured language and also presupposed

the presence of syntax (Motley, 1981).

2.2.3 Suprasegmental analysis2.2.3.1 Stress Patterns

In the course of a simple suprasegmental analysis the stress

patterns within the units of tongue speech were noticed to

demonstrate regularity. For example, disregarding one exception

in Variety I and a few exceptions in Variety II, the rest of

disyllabic word-like units had primary stress on the second

syllable in case the word ended with a consonant. And if

disyllabic word ended with a vowel, then the first syllable was

stressed. The same tendency was observed in polysyllabic units:

when the ‘word’ or ‘phrase’ ended with a consonant, the unit

contained primary stress on the last syllable; the penultimate

syllable was stressed in case the unit ended with a vowel.

Therefore, the linguist concluded that the structure and

regularity of stress patterns within the glossolalia’ units were

undoubtedly a language-like feature. Moreover, he adds that the

suprasegmental rules followed there also differed from those of

the speaker’s English (Motley, 1981).

All in all, Motley’s intuitive feeling that the glossolalia was

language-like, after thorough examinations and comparisons with

natural languages, was confirmed. Even if such conclusion is not

due to superficial sample examination by previous researchers

36

but due to sample fluke, such detailed analyses must be present

whenever someone attempts to judge glossolalia linguistically

(Motley, 1981). All in all, the set of language-like

characteristics and non-native characteristics within the

samples made the linguist conclude that the glossolalia he

examined was indeed language-like not only from hearing but also

structurally.

Chapter 3

Speaking in tongues survey

37

The purpose of this chapter is to present the results of my

research on the phenomenon of both Christian glossolalia and

xenoglossia. I have conducted a questionnaire and observed

Pentecostal services held in Bydgoszcz city, Poland and in

Kotovsk, a small Ukrainian town. It was also possible to hear

and record tongue speech there. The aim of the questionnaire

was, first of all, to check whether the languages people

received as the gift have ever been identified as known

languages and, secondly, whether people can control themselves

and what is uttered to confirm or disconfirm the accusation of

trance states. So, there was a question about awareness during

the prayer which is often mentioned as the indicator of whether

one is in trance-like state or not (Goodman, 1972; Samarin,

1972). In case someone writes that they witnessed xenoglossia,

an additional third question about language skills helps to

decide whether that person was competent to identify the

language they claimed to hear or not. There were around 60

copies printed and distributed to the people who speak in

tongues. Some took questionnaires to give their relatives or for

those who were not present in church at that time but who have

the gift of speaking in tongues. However, some people were

unwilling to fill in the questionnaire and some did not return

it, so, as a result only 52 questionnaires, of which 19 or 37%

were filled in by Ukrainians and 33 or 63% by Poles, were

obtained for subsequent analysis. The questionnaires were

translated into Russian for Ukrainians (not into Ukrainian

because people in the south of Ukraine usually speak Russian and

the sermons at the church were also held in Russian) and into

Polish for Poles.

38

3.1 Analysis of the answers

More or less the same number of men and women were involved in

the survey: 42% of men and 58% of women filled in the

questionnaire. People above fifty comprise 33% of the total

number of respondents. Two second largest groups are relatively

equal in terms of people who took part in the questionnaire: 23%

of people are between 21 – 30 years and 21% aged 41-50 years.

Other 13% belong to 31 – 40 years old’ group and 10 % of tongue

speakers are about 16 - 20 years old.

The third question in the questionnaire was merely to show the

languages a given person knows. Later these answers helped to

make judgments about the reported cases of xenoglossia.

In response to the question: “Are you conscious about what

happens around when you pray in tongues?” all of the

participants answered positively.

In response to the fifth question “Can you start and stop

praying in tongues at any time and at will?” the majority

answered “Yes”, while 10% or 5 people, 3 from Ukraine and 2 from

39

Poland, answered “Not”. One woman wrote: “Not always at any

time, at will – not”. Also 2 out of 5 of those who cannot, one

man from Poland and one woman from Ukraine, provided short

explanations for their inability to start and stop praying in

tongues at any time and at will; their explanations are similar

to one another. Thus, both wrote that they cannot start speaking

in tongues at any time and at will because they need to by

inspired by the Holy Spirit.

As regards the question “Do you have the gift of singing in

tongues?”, 27 people or 52% answered that they have this gift

and 22 or 42% said that they do not have. One Ukrainian who

although do not sing in tongues but wrote: “No, I have not sung

yet, but I have heard prophecy in singing”. However, 3 of 52

respondents which is 6%, were either unsure or did not answer

and one person wrote: “I used to sing but later it has gone”.

After analysis of the answers to the question “Do you have the

gift of interpretation of tongues?” it appeared that only 2

people out of 52, one man older than 50 and one woman between 21

– 30 years, who are both Ukrainians have the gift of

interpretation. 90% of respondents or 47 people do not have this

gift. 2 respondents gave no answer and the third wrote: “I do

not have the gift of interpretation but there were moments when

I myself could interpret what I was proclaiming”.

In their answers to the question “Do you consciously choose

which word to use while praying in tongues or does vocalization

occur spontaneously?” the majority of people, that is 86%, noted

that their vocalization occurs spontaneously. However, one

person marked the first option “I choose the words consciously”

40

which is only 2% of the whole number of respondents. 12% or 6

out of 52 respondents had their own answers to the question.

However, in the course of analysis it appeared that the main

reason for giving ‘other’ answers was due to misunderstanding of

the question. For example, in response to this question 4 out of

6 people said that they do not grope for words but that “it

comes from God as a breath, so easily and simply” or some wrote

that the Holy Spirit enables them to speak. They were more

concentrated on the source, whereas the question was about the

process, whether words are pronounced fluently and easily or

whether they are chosen consciously by the speaker. As those 4

respondents mentioned themselves, they do not choose the words

consciously but the speaking comes naturally, their answers,

therefore, would rather fit to the category “Vocalization occurs

spontaneously”. One person wrote “I do not know” and another “I

do not choose the words consciously, about vocalization I decide

myself”.

In response to the question №9 “Have you personally heard

someone speaking in a known human language that they did not

previously know? What language was it?” 44% answered that they

had and 44% answered that they had not while the remaining 12%

were either unsure or simply did not give the answer to the

question. However, out of those who declared to hear someone

speaking or praying under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit in

a known language not many seem capable to have identified that

languages themselves. From the linguistic point of view this was

due to their lack of corresponding language skills that were

provided by the respondents in question №3. Moreover, some

simply wrote “Yes” and did not mention the language they have

41

heard and some wrote that they have heard a language but they

did not know what language was it. Answers containing words

“maybe”, “probably” were also dismissed as incompetent. All in

all, theoretically, 8 out of 23 had competence to identify the

mentioned languages because they knew or studied the language

they claimed to have heard. So, one man from Poland, who is over

51 and who reported to know 7 languages except for his native

language, wrote that he heard Hebrew and English, languages

which appeared on his list of known or studied languages.

Similarly, 3 women of the same age recognized some known

languages: one Polish woman aged 31-40 years, who knows 5

languages, wrote that she had heard Spanish and another woman

that she had heard French, also one Ukrainian of the same age

reported that she had heard German. Again, 4 respondents, of

which 3 are from Poland and one is from Ukraine, claim to have

heard people to speak in other tongues in English. Of those

Poles, one man is 21-30 years old, one woman is 41 - 50 years

old and one man is older than 50. A woman from Ukraine, who is

also above 50, left a short description of the situation in the

church when she heard English. Here is her answer to the

question: “Yes, I have heard, one sister standing near me was

speaking pure English language. And she decided to look into

English - Russian dictionary. The dialect was immediately

changed to another language”.

In response to the last question “Has any of your tongues ever

been identified as a known language? What language was it?” 12%

responded positively and 75% responded negatively. 13% of

questionnaire participants did not know or were unsure or some

simply left the space for an answer empty and two respondents

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wrote: “It was not but there were several interpretations” and

“I do not know Chinese but I have the conviction that once I

prayed in that language”. Out of those 12% or 6 persons who

answered positively to the question, the competent cases were

again chosen with the help of the answers to the third question.

In this case the reported language should not appear on the list

of known to the person languages. This time, out of 12% or 6

people, theoretically, almost all could speak the reported

languages, except for one person that forgot to specify the

language. For instance, the man who knows or studied 7

languages, wrote that his gift of speaking in tongues was once

identified as Norwegian, the language that was not known to the

speaker. And the woman from Ukraine, who is above 50 again left

a short note on how she spoke in a known language: “To date, my

language has changed completely after one of sisters told me

that I was speaking pure Arabic, the language of speaking

immediately changed”. One Polish 31-40 years old, wrote that her

speaking in tongues was recognized as Spanish and another woman

above 50 said that hers was German language. One Polish man

above 50 wrote that his speaking in tongues was identified

several times: once as Chinese, once as German and also as

Hungarian - languages that he reportedly did not known.

3.2 Discussion:

First of all, the analysis shows that all of the participants of

the questionnaire claim they are conscious of what happens

43

around them during prayer in other tongues and the majority

declared to be able to start and stop praying at any time and at

will. This could be confirmed not only by their answers but also

by personal observation. For example, people could easily start

praying in other tongues when I was ready to record their

prayers; they spoke fluently and without any unusual or ecstatic

bodily movements, no one was clapping or jumping. Moreover,

there were no triggers like music or special words described in

Goodman’s 1972 work that might induce trance (Goodman 1972:84,

90). Such awareness and self-control are certainly not like that

of some Maya and Spanish glossolalists the anthropologist

dedicated her time to. Goodman argued that their vocalization

was accompanied by trance, because such features as awareness

and focusing of attention as well as memory that are “possibly

not available at all in hyperarousal dissociation” had little

presence within Maya and Spanish glossolalists (1972:89, 101).

All in all, there seem to be no signals of dissociative state

within the respondents from Poland and Ukraine.

Interestingly, although in normal speech one is expected to be

able to sing what they utter, the results of the questionnaire

show that not everyone who speaks in tongues can sing in

tongues: only 52% of the respondents have the gift of singing.

The same applies to the gift of interpreting: only 2 people out

of 52 have it.

What concerns xenoglossia, the audience seems to be

linguistically diverse and ready to identify many foreign

languages. While on the subject, the most frequently identified

language (5 times) was English. Intriguing is that the gift of

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xenoglossia is reported to disappear and be immediately

substituted by another language once one has heard it and

understood the message or once one was told that he spoke in a

particular language. Such change of languages is consistent with

the case of xenoglossia at the day of Pentecost: after that day

the disciples seem to speak angelic languages, which is

confirmed by the need of the gift of interpretation (1 Cor.

14:13). Yet, St. Paul does not exclude the possibility of known

languages to be spoken again (1 Cor. 13:1; Sherrill, 2004;

Ulonska, 1987).

As it was previously mentioned, xenoglossia is possible but

documented cases are only those of people with personality

disorders (Samarin, 1972). That is why, there is likelihood that

the reported cases of xenoglossia in this questionnaire are

genuine, even though the respondents do not seem to have mental

disorders. Nonetheless, it appears that one has to be in the

right place at the right time to hear and experience this

phenomenon.

45

Conclusion:

The purpose of this work was to investigate whether the

phenomenon of the biblical speaking in tongues may be worthy of

linguistic attention, whether it may be language-like. As it was

emphasized before, violation of one’s native language rules

within glossolalia gives the higher probability that glossolalia

is a language (Motley, 1981; Samarin, 1972). Therefore, many

attempts have been made to detect whether glossolalia is

derivational form of one’s native language or whether it is

innovative and independent language with its own rules and

structures. Motley, for example, has found that the obtained

glossalic utterances from one American Christian differed from

the speaker’s mother tongue, among other, because of non-native

phonemes and unallowable for the speaker’s L1 clusters present

in his glossolalic utterances. All in all, the set of language-

like features and non-native characteristics made the linguist

conclude that the glossolalia resembled language. Moreover,

there were hints on semantics due to high predictability of

‘word’ position. Motley’s findings on glossolalia are quite

provocative, and, maybe, therefore, they are not frequently

referred to.

Certainly, it is true that not every sample is language-like

from the linguistic perspective (Samarin, 1972; Goodman, 1972)

and, certainly, not every glossolalia or even xenoglossia is

God’s from the Bible’s perspective. But if just any of such

46

speech manifestations may be language-like or may resemble a

true language, then the phenomenon raises many thought-provoking

questions.

From the viewpoint of this study, glossolalia that fits into

biblical teachings is believed to be the result of the Holy

Spirit intervention. Moreover, the assumption is that even if

someone’s glossolalia contains many repetitive words and it

sounds like gibberish and yet the speaker fits the Bible’s

teachings about speaking in tongues, the frontal lobes activity

would show exactly the same decrease as would the activity of

those Christians who speak convincingly language-like. If this

is true, it will imply that even not very complex utterances

might not be as simple as they seem but this is, of course,

nonlinguistic issue.

References:

Cooper-Rompato, Christine F. (2010) The Gift of Tongues: Women's

Xenoglossia in the Later Middle Ages, University Park: The Pennsylvania

State University Press

Denes, P. B. (1964) On the statistics of spoken English, Journal of the

Acoustical Society of America, 35, 892 – 904

Givón, T. (2001) Syntax: An Introduction Vol. 2, Amsterdam: John

Benjamins Publishing Company

47

Goodman, F. D. (1972) Speaking In Tongues: A Cross-Cultural Study of

Glossolalia, Chicago: University of Chicago Press

Hockett, Charles, The Problem of Universals in Language (ed.) Joseph

Greenberg (1963) Universals of Language, Cambridge (MA): MIT Press,

1-29,

Jaquith, J. R. (1967) Toward a typology of formal communicative behaviors:

glossolalia. Anthropological linguistics, 9, 1-8

Kildahl, J. P. (1972) The Psychology of Speaking in Tongues, New York:

Harper & Row

Motley, M.T. (1981) A linguistic analysis of glossolalia: Evidence of unique

psycholinguistic processing, Communication Quarterly 30:18-27

New International Version Bible, 2011

Newberg, Andrew (2006) Why We Believe What We Believe, New York: Free

Press

Newberg, Andrew B., Nancy A. Wintering, Donna Morgan, Mark R.

Waldman (2006) The measurement of regional cerebral blood flow during

glossolalia: A preliminary SPECT study Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging, Elsevier

Ireland Ltd.

Nida, E. A. (1965) A preliminary report on glossolalia, paper presented to

the American Bible Society

Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, Global Christianity

(2011) A Report on the Size and Distribution of the World's Christian Population

Randall Holm; Matthew Wolf; James K.A. Smith (2011) New Frontiers in

Tongues Research: A Symposium, Journal of Pentecostal Theology,

Volume 20, Issue 1, pages 122 – 154

Samarin, W. J. (1972) Tongues of Men And Angels: the Religious Language of

Pentecostalism, New York: Macmillan,

Sherrill, John L. (2004) They speak with other tongues, Baker

Publishing Group

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Strom A., (2010) True & False Revival, RevivalSchool

Ulonska Reinhold (1987) Gifts of the spirit in theory and practice, Kraków

Appendix1:

The Polish version of the questionnaire:

1. Płeć: a) Mężczyzna, b) Kobieta 2. Wiek:a) 16 – 20 lat, b) 21 – 30 lat, c) 31 – 40 lat, d) 41 – 50 lat,

e) 51 lat i więcej3. Jakie języki znasz lub jakich języków się uczyłeś? 4. Czy jesteś świadomy tego, co dzieje się wokół ciebie, gdy

modlisz się w językach? a) Tak, b) Nie5. Czy możesz rozpocząć i zakończyć modlitwę innymi językami w

każdej chwili z własnej woli? a) Tak, b) Nie6. Czy masz dar śpiewu w językach?a) Tak, b) Nie7. Czy masz dar wykładania języków? a) Tak, b) Nie8. Czy świadomie dobierasz słowa podczas modlitwy w językach lub

wokalizacja występuje spontanicznie?a) Dobieram słowa, których użyć, b) Wokalizacja występuje

spontanicznie c) Inne:9. Czy osobiście słyszałeś kogoś mówiącego w znanym języku,

którego ta osoba wcześniej nie znała? Jaki to był język?10. Czy twój dar języków był kiedykolwiek rozpoznany jako jeden

ze znanych języków? Jaki to był język?

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Appendix 2:

The Russian version of the questionnaire:

1. Пол: а) Мужской, б) Женский

2. Возраст: а) 16 – 20 лет, b) 21 – 30 лет, c) 31 – 40 лет, d) 41 –50 лет, e) 51 год и больше

3. Перечислите языки, которые вы знаете или когда-либо изучали: __________

4. Осознаете ли вы что происходит вокруг вас, когда вы молитесь на иных языках?а) Да, б) Нет

5. Можете ли вы начать и закончить молитву на иных языках в любое время по собственному желанию?а) Да, б) Нет

6. Есть ли у вас дар пения на иных языках?а) Да, б) Нет

7. Есть ли у вас дар истолкования иных языков?а) Да, б) Нет

8. Задумываетесь ли вы над тем какое слово нужно употребить когда вымолитесь на языках или говорение дается само собой?а) Задумываюсь над тем, какое слово употребить б) Говорение дается само собой

в) Другое:9. Слышали ли вы лично кого-то говорящим на известном языке которого

тот человек не знал прежде? Какой это был язык?10. Был ли ваш дар говорения на иных языках когда-либо распознан как

один из известных языков? Какой это был язык?

Appendix 3:

The English translation of the questionnaire:

1. What is your sex?a) Masculine b) Feminine2. Age:

50

a) 16 – 20 years, b) 21 – 30 years, c) 31 – 40 years, d) 41 – 50 years, e) 51 year and more3. What languages do you know or studied at school?4. Are you conscious about what happens around when you pray intongues?a) Yes b) No5. Can you start and stop praying in tongues at any time and atwill?a) Yes b) No6. Do you have the gift of singing in tongues?a) Yes b) No7. Do you have the gift of interpretation of tongues?a) Yes b) No8. Do you consciously choose which word to use while praying intongues or does vocalization occur spontaneously?a) I choose the words consciously b) Vocalization occurs spontaneously с) Other 9. Have you personally heard someone speaking in a known human language that they did not previously know? What language was it?10. Has any of your tongues ever been identified as a known language? What language was it?

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