yoel-
Believe it or not, I spoke in tongues. I hated doing it, but it was so
expected of me, that I eventually did it with some coersion. The pathetic
thing is that a missionary got up and gave a "translation", while I knew I
was making it up. How was I coerced? Well, these American charisnatic
missionaries I was living with did not like the Norwegian missionaries
whith whom I had previously been living, and both of them had forbidden me
contact with the other. When the Norskies found out that I had been
fraternizing with the Americans, they kicked me out. Then, the Americans
had a "prayer session" in which they read Jesus' command which in their
Bibles said "when men persecute you, jump for joy", and they all began
jumping for joy (literally) right there in front of me, babbling in
tongues. I felt ridiculous, so I didn't do it. Well, they locked me up and
put me on a forced fast until I would "jump for joy". Eventually, I was so
hungry and lonely that I gave a little hop and babbled a bit in tongues,
while all of them were overjoyed at my "baptism" into the Holy Spirit, and,
like I said- I got a "translation". Latter on, me and a girl who spoke
yiddish used to like to go into churches and "speak in tongues". My
favourite was to do "Octopus' Garden" in Hebrew and she would do various
70's disco hits in Yiddish. We were so convincing, we would often get
spiritual "translations": "I am the Lord thy God..." We would later get
drunk and spend hours howling in laughter!
By the way, most people who "speak in tongues" are unilingual. I know that
language is much more than consonant vowel consanant vowel, vonsonant
vowel. If you will notice- their "languages" are usually in monotone, non
inflected, used consonant blends which are common to their language...
It reminds me of my sister. When I was young, I learned Spanish as my first
language, but my sister did not know it.
We spent a summer in South America, and my sister (she was 6.5) kept trying
to make Spanish setnences by putting nonsense syllables together. By the
end of the trip, I wanted to strangle her.