Originally "speaking in tongues" literally meant speaking in a genuine foreign language (that they had supposedly never learned,) as was verifiable by others in the crowd who spoke that language natively. But they don't let that stop them: I have spoken to people who are clearly babbling nonsense, and yet insist it is a foreign tongue, they (and I, by obvious extension) just don't know which one. "Probably an African language, you know, they're a lot less complex than ours are."
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