Glossolalia

Glossolalia is fluent, speech-like vocalization produced in religious settings and understood by practitioners as a spiritual language or gift of tongues. Its sounds resemble language, but they generally lack the stable vocabulary and grammar of an ordinary language.

Xenoglossy: The purported ability to speak a real language a person has not learned. Unlike glossolalia, xenoglossy claims meaningful speech in an identifiable human language.
1 Corinthians: A New Testament letter in which Paul discusses spiritual gifts and worship in the Corinthian church. Its chapters 12–14 provide the earliest extensive Christian guidance on speaking in tongues.
Paul the Apostle: A first-century Christian missionary and author of several New Testament letters. Paul addressed tongues, interpretation, and orderly worship in his letter to Corinth.
Prayer: Communication or communion with a deity in religious practice. Prayer may use ordinary language, whereas glossolalia is characterized by speech-like utterance.
Interpretation of tongues: A Christian spiritual gift understood as conveying the meaning of an utterance in tongues. Some churches pair glossolalia with interpretation to make its message intelligible to the congregation.
Prosody: The patterns of rhythm, stress, and intonation that shape spoken language. Glossolalia can preserve language-like rhythm and intonation without conventional words.
Pentecost: The Christian event in which the Holy Spirit is said to descend upon Jesus’s followers. Acts describes followers speaking in other tongues, a foundational account for Christian practice.
William J. Seymour: An African American Holiness preacher who led the Azusa Street Revival. Seymour’s revival popularized tongues within Pentecostalism’s global emergence.
Ecstatic dance: Dance performed in an altered or intense religious or ritual state. Both can express religious ecstasy, but one uses vocalization and the other movement.
Charismatic Christianity: Christian movements that emphasize contemporary gifts and activity of the Holy Spirit. Glossolalia is practiced in charismatic churches beyond Pentecostal denominations.

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