Talk:Speaking in tongues

The interesting thing about glossolalia is that it appears

syntactically viable!. Do I need to provide a scholarly

reference from a linguist, published in

an archival, peer-reviewed journal to support this claim?

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Some support, yes, and even then, the article must state that others disagree with the claim. Please see NeutralPointOfView. Your claim directly contradicts several things I read online earlier today, and in this reading I saw no mention of any claim that glossolalia often, or ever, has anything like a syntax. I find it extremely implausible, on its face, but I'm willing to be taught on this point. --LMS

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If glossolalia is also associated with mental illness, it would

be nice to have another paragraph, preferably written by

someone with some exposure, if not training with this aspect

of mental illness.

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Another paragraph or several are definitely in order. But I disagree that the person who writes them needs to have exposure or training; he or she needs only to be able to do some good basic research. According to several sources online, which you can find out for yourself by following the links I've added, it is used by the psychiatric community. --LMS

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These links do not point to archival literature.

A search on the

American Psychological Association and the American Psychiatric

Association websites returned 0 results on the query glossolalia.

How shall I assess your claim?

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I'm sure you can be creative; the fact that those websites search engines do not return results for that term proves nothing. Try searching Google.

I will continue to change that definition back to what it should be, because it is manifestly wrong. Glossolalia does not even appear to be syntactically viable language. Who thinks so, besides you? More importantly, consider the merits of your definition as a definition. The essential feature of glossolalia is not that it "utterance of what appears to be syntactically viable language, sometimes as a form of religious worship (religious glossolalia), and sometimes by the mentally ill." According to that definition, the English language would be glossolalia; it certainly appears to be syntactically viable (unlike glossolalia), and it is sometimes used as a form of religious worship (e.g., preaching), and sometimes by the mentally ill. No, the distinguishing feature of glossolalia is that it appears to be nonsense. Now, we can argue 'til we're blue in the face about whether it is nonsense or not; but it's just a fact about what the word means that it appears to be nonsense. --LMS