SPEAKING IN TONGUES: ARE WE SPEAKING LANGUAGES OR JUST SPEAKING GIBBERISH?
The Non-Paul Challenge — From the Tower of Babel to Pentecost, the Book of Enoch, and Ten Different Languages
The Final Jubilee — By Weston Simonis
Introduction: Can You Speak in Tongues Without Speaking Gibberish?
I want to challenge something that has become common in modern Christianity, particularly among Pentecostal and charismatic churches. People stand before congregations and begin making sounds that nobody around them understands. Some call this speaking in tongues. Others describe it as a heavenly prayer language, a spiritual language that only God understands, or evidence that someone has received the Holy Spirit.
But I have a question.
Where did Jesus teach that speaking in tongues means making unintelligible sounds?
And where does the Book of Acts describe the disciples producing gibberish that miraculously transformed into somebody else's language?
I am not asking whether God can perform miracles. I am asking what the Scriptures actually say happened.
There is a difference between speaking a language that your audience does not understand and speaking sounds that cannot be identified as a language at all. There is also a difference between sincerely believing that you are speaking a heavenly language and demonstrating that the language actually exists.
These distinctions matter because Christianity makes claims about truth, revelation, the Holy Spirit, and the authority of Scripture.
For this investigation, we are going to establish one rule: We are not using Paul's thirteen letters to explain speaking in tongues.
That means no Romans, no Corinthians, no Galatians, no Ephesians, and none of the other letters traditionally attributed to Paul. We can examine where those letters were sent and the languages spoken in those regions as historical evidence, but we will not use Paul's theological explanations to establish our conclusions.
Instead, we will begin with Genesis, examine Isaiah, look at the words attributed to Jesus, investigate the actual accounts in Acts, and consider what James, Jude, and the Book of Enoch teach about human speech.
We will also conduct a practical demonstration across ten languages, using the same comparison system developed in my book, Learning Cebuano Through Ten Languages.
By the end of this investigation, I want readers to answer a straightforward question:
Does the biblical evidence describe meaningful communication in different languages, or does it establish the modern practice of speaking unintelligible sounds as a heavenly language?
1. Before Speaking in Tongues, We Must Understand the Tongue
The Bible introduces the importance of speech long before Pentecost.
Genesis 1 repeatedly describes God speaking creation into existence. God commands, and creation responds. He establishes order, separates light from darkness, and brings forth living things.
Then Genesis 1:26–28 describes humanity being created in God's image and receiving God's blessing. Before the fall, before human disobedience, and before the confusion of languages at Babel, humanity is presented as the recipient of divine blessing.
This matters because the human tongue is not introduced as something inherently evil. Speech can communicate truth, express gratitude, give instruction, and bless others.
But Genesis 3 introduces another use of language: deception.
The serpent questions God's command and contradicts God's warning. Eve listens, and the familiar account of disobedience follows.
The first human transgression described in Genesis 3 is not sexual intercourse or the fulfillment of God's command to multiply. It involves deception and disobedience concerning the forbidden tree.
This connects with the broader question of sin and the works of the devil examined in my companion study. John 8:44 describes the devil as a liar, and 1 John 3:8 declares that the Son of God appeared to destroy the devil's works.
Notice the contrast: speech can communicate God's truth, or it can be used to deceive.
The Book of Enoch develops a related theme through its account of the rebellious Watchers, who transmit forbidden teachings to humanity. First Enoch 6–15 describes corruption, violence, and divine judgment associated with this rebellion.
The Enochic narrative does not define Christian speaking in tongues. But it does contribute to the wider biblical discussion of knowledge, instruction, deception, righteousness, and accountability.
This gives us an important foundation.
Before we decide whether someone possesses a miraculous gift of speech, we should understand what Scripture teaches about the purpose and responsibility of speech itself.
2. The Tower of Babel: God Confuses Human Languages
Now turn to Genesis 11:1–9.
The account begins by describing humanity as sharing one language. The people settle in the land of Shinar and begin constructing a city and a tower. Their stated intentions include making a name for themselves and avoiding dispersion.
God responds by confusing their language so that they cannot understand one another.
The people are subsequently scattered.
Think carefully about what this account describes.
It does not say that the people began speaking meaningless religious syllables. It says that mutual understanding was disrupted.
The Hebrew word safah, used in the description of their common speech, literally relates to the lip and can refer to language. The account concerns communication between people who previously understood one another.
Imagine a community in which everyone speaks English. Suddenly, some people begin speaking Spanish, others Arabic, others Hebrew, and others Cebuano. Unless they already understand those languages, cooperation becomes much more difficult.
That illustrates the linguistic problem described at Babel, although the biblical narrative does not identify the specific languages that emerged.
The central issue is understanding.
A language does not become gibberish merely because the listener cannot understand it.
That distinction is fundamental to this entire investigation.
3. The Book of Enoch and the Division of Ancient Knowledge
Here we need to examine a connection that extends beyond the usual Pentecostal discussion.
The Book of Enoch preserves ancient Jewish traditions concerning heavenly beings, forbidden knowledge, judgment, astronomical order, and the transmission of revelation.
In First Enoch 6–15, the Watchers descend, rebel, and teach humanity practices associated with corruption. Other sections describe heavenly journeys, the movements of celestial bodies, the calendar, and the ordering of time.
Ancient civilizations outside the biblical tradition also preserved accounts concerning heavenly beings, sacred knowledge, cosmic order, and the organization of time.
Mesopotamian traditions concerning Enmeduranki, for example, describe a figure associated with the transmission of sacred knowledge. Egyptian religious texts contain accounts of heavenly realms and divine order. The ancient Chinese Chu Silk Manuscript preserves traditions concerning cosmic organization, seasons, months, and supernatural figures.
These accounts are not identical, and their similarities do not prove that they all came from one original narrative.
But the comparisons raise an interesting historical question.
Could different civilizations have preserved related themes through different languages, religious frameworks, and cultural traditions?
This is where the Tower of Babel becomes relevant to the larger discussion.
Language affects how knowledge is communicated, preserved, translated, and interpreted. As communities separate geographically and linguistically, traditions can develop different expressions and emphases.
My earlier study uses a comparison with the Rashomon effect: the possibility that different accounts may preserve different perspectives on events or themes.
That is a framework for investigation, not proof that all ancient religious traditions describe the same historical event.
Nevertheless, the connection demonstrates why language matters so much when we study ancient religion.
A statement may be translated into another language. Its terminology may change. Its cultural setting may influence how people understand it. Yet meaningful ideas can still be communicated across linguistic boundaries.
This brings us directly to Pentecost.
4. Acts 2: What Did the Disciples Actually Speak?
Acts 2:4 states:
“And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.”
The Greek expression translated as other tongues is heterais glōssais.
The word glōssa can mean the physical tongue or a language. In this passage, the surrounding narrative tells us what the listeners experienced.
Acts 2:6 states:
“Every man heard them speak in his own language.”
Acts 2:8 continues:
“And how hear we every man in our own tongue, wherein we were born?”
Then Acts 2:11 declares:
“We do hear them speak in our tongues the wonderful works of God.”
Read those statements together.
The disciples spoke in other tongues. People from different regions heard speech in their native languages. The listeners recognized the content as a proclamation of God's mighty works.
Where does Acts 2 say that the disciples were speaking gibberish?
It does not.
Where does it say that an interpreter stood beside the disciples translating their speech?
It does not.
Where does it say that the disciples spoke meaningless sounds that transformed into meaningful language?
It does not say that either.
The account identifies the speakers as Galileans and emphasizes the crowd's astonishment at hearing languages associated with their own homelands.
The most straightforward reading is that the disciples were enabled to speak languages beyond their ordinary abilities, and the listeners recognized those languages.
There is a legitimate question about the exact mechanism of the miracle. The account emphasizes both the speaking and the hearing, and it does not explain every detail.
But it does not describe a crowd listening to meaningless vocalizations.
It describes communication.
5. The Difference Between Knowing Languages and Miraculously Speaking Them
There is another distinction that deserves attention.
People have been multilingual throughout history.
A person might grow up speaking one language at home, learn another through trade, and acquire a third through travel or education.
That person could speak three tongues without performing a miracle.
Today, someone might speak Cebuano, English, and Spanish. Another person might speak Hebrew, Arabic, and Greek. Someone else might know Portuguese, Italian, French, and Latin.
These are examples of multilingual ability.
The remarkable element in Acts 2 is not simply that more than one language existed or that multilingual people could communicate. It is that the narrative attributes the disciples' speaking to the Holy Spirit and describes a multilingual crowd recognizing their speech.
Acts 2 does not tell us that the disciples had spent years studying the languages of Parthia, Media, Egypt, Arabia, and the other regions mentioned.
Nor does it establish that one disciple individually spoke every language listed.
It describes a group of speakers and a diverse gathering of listeners.
That distinction is important because we should not exaggerate the account in either direction.
We should not reduce the miracle to ordinary language education when the narrative attributes it to the Spirit.
But neither should we replace recognizable languages with gibberish when the text describes listeners understanding what was proclaimed.
6. The Multilingual World of Paul's Letters — Without Using Paul's Theology
Although we are excluding Paul's thirteen letters as theological authorities for this challenge, their destinations provide useful historical information.
Consider the geographical world in which the early Christian movement developed.
Letter destination | Region | Languages relevant to the setting |
Rome | Italy | Latin and Greek |
Corinth | Greece | Greek and Latin |
Galatia | Anatolia | Greek and Galatian, among other regional speech traditions |
Ephesus | Western Anatolia | Greek and a wider regional multilingual environment |
Philippi | Macedonia | Greek and Latin |
Colossae | Anatolia | Greek and local Anatolian linguistic traditions |
Thessalonica | Macedonia | Greek and other languages encountered through travel and trade |
Crete | Eastern Mediterranean | Greek |
These are broad historical language environments, not claims that every congregation used every listed language. Some traditional letter destinations and attributions are debated.
The surviving letters were composed in Koine Greek, a widely used language of the eastern Mediterranean.
Why does that matter?
Because the early Christian world was not linguistically uniform. People could come from different ethnic and linguistic backgrounds yet communicate through a shared language.
The Book of Acts itself gives us an example involving Paul, without requiring us to use his letters.
In Acts 21:37–40, Paul speaks Greek to a Roman commander and then addresses a Jerusalem crowd in what the text calls the Hebrew language, commonly understood in this context as Hebrew or Aramaic.
Here we have a biblical narrative depicting a person using different languages for different audiences.
The passage does not call this an act of miraculous speaking in tongues.
It demonstrates something much simpler: a person who knows more than one language can speak in more than one tongue.
This makes the Pentecost question more precise.
Were the disciples speaking genuine languages they had not previously learned, through the power of the Holy Spirit?
That interpretation follows naturally from the wording of Acts 2, although the narrative does not fully describe the mechanism.
What it does not establish is that they spoke meaningless syllables that became recognizable languages through an unmentioned translation process.
7. The Ten-Language Crossover: Let's Demonstrate What Tongues Actually Are
Now I want to show readers something practical.
In my book Learning Cebuano Through Ten Languages, I developed a comparison system involving Cebuano, Spanish, European Portuguese, Italian, French, Latin, Greek, Arabic, Hebrew, and English.
The purpose is to recognize how different languages communicate meaning, sometimes through related vocabulary and sometimes through entirely different grammatical structures.
Let's apply that method to a statement relevant to this biblical investigation.
“God is good.”
Language | How the statement is expressed |
Cebuano | Maayo ang Dios. |
Spanish | Dios es bueno. |
European Portuguese | Deus é bom. |
Italian | Dio è buono. |
French | Dieu est bon. |
Latin | Deus bonus est. |
Greek | Ο Θεός είναι αγαθός — O Theós eínai agathós |
Arabic | الله صالح — Allāhu ṣāliḥ |
Hebrew | אלוהים טוב — Elohim tov |
English | God is good. |
Here we have ten ways of expressing essentially the same proposition.
Some expressions look familiar to one another. Others do not.
A Spanish speaker may recognize similarities in Portuguese or Italian. Someone who knows Latin may recognize related vocabulary in several Romance languages.
A person unfamiliar with Cebuano may not understand Maayo ang Dios. Someone unfamiliar with Hebrew may not understand Elohim tov.
But that does not make either expression gibberish.
They are meaningful expressions within real languages.
Now imagine someone standing in front of a congregation and speaking all ten expressions.
They would be speaking in ten different tongues.
They would not necessarily be performing a miracle, because they could have learned those expressions through ordinary study.
The demonstration does not prove that the disciples at Pentecost learned their languages naturally. Acts attributes their ability to the Holy Spirit.
What it demonstrates is the difference between meaningful language and unintelligible sounds.
And that difference is precisely what the modern discussion often overlooks.
8. Isaiah 28:11 — What Are Strange Tongues?
Isaiah 28:11 refers to speech through unfamiliar lips and another tongue.
But what is the context?
The passage addresses people who have refused to listen to God's instruction. Unfamiliar speech becomes associated with judgment and the failure to heed the divine message.
It does not describe believers gathering to produce meaningless sounds as a sign of spiritual maturity.
Nor does it establish a private heavenly prayer language.
Instead, it shows that speech can be foreign to a listener.
That distinction is important.
A language may be unfamiliar without being meaningless.
When we examine the biblical references to tongues, we should first ask whether the writer is describing recognizable languages, unfamiliar speech, or something whose linguistic form remains unspecified.
We should not automatically assume that every reference means modern glossolalia.
9. Acts 10 and Acts 19: What Do These Accounts Establish?
Acts 10:44–46 describes the Holy Spirit coming upon the people gathered at Cornelius's house. The accompanying believers hear them speaking in tongues and magnifying God.
Acts 19:6 describes people speaking in tongues and prophesying after Paul lays hands on them.
These accounts are important, but they do not provide the same details as Acts 2.
They do not identify the languages being spoken. They do not give a list of listeners' native languages. They do not explain whether the speech consisted of previously unlearned human languages or another form of religious utterance.
And neither passage explicitly defines the tongues as meaningless sounds.
We should therefore be careful.
Acts 2 gives us a clear example of meaningful communication recognized across language differences.
Acts 10 and Acts 19 establish that speaking in tongues occurred in other settings, but they do not supply enough information to classify the precise linguistic form of every occurrence.
We cannot simply invent the missing details to support a preferred doctrine.
That is the standard of this challenge.
10. What About Jesus and the Promise of New Tongues?
Mark 16:17 contains a statement that believers will speak in new tongues.
There is a textual issue that must be acknowledged. Mark 16:9–20, commonly called the longer ending of Mark, is absent from some of the earliest surviving Greek manuscripts. Its history is disputed, and that matters when deciding how heavily to rely on the passage.
Nevertheless, even when Mark 16:17 is included, the expression new tongues is not explicitly defined as meaningless speech or a private heavenly language.
The passage does not provide a description of believers producing sounds that nobody can identify as language.
So the challenge remains.
Where do the teachings attributed to Jesus explicitly establish that speaking in tongues means the modern practice of unintelligible glossolalia?
If a particular interpretation requires additional theological assumptions, those assumptions should be acknowledged rather than presented as the direct wording of Jesus.
11. James, Enoch, and the Judgment of Our Words
Now we return to a subject developed in my companion study: the responsibility of the human tongue.
James 3:9–10 warns that people use the same tongue to bless God and curse human beings made in God's likeness.
That is a remarkable contradiction.
How can someone praise the Creator while cursing people who bear His image?
James is concerned not merely with the sounds coming from a person's mouth but with the moral character and consequences of speech.
Jesus addresses the same responsibility in Matthew 12:36–37, warning that people will give account for careless words.
The Book of Enoch adds another important connection.
First Enoch 1:9 describes the Lord coming with His holy ones to execute judgment, including judgment concerning the harsh words spoken by the ungodly.
Jude 14–15 draws directly upon this Enochic prophecy.
Notice how these passages connect.
The words we speak matter. What we say about God matters. What we say about other people matters. Our speech can bless, condemn, deceive, encourage, or communicate truth.
The biblical concern for the tongue is therefore much broader than the ability to produce extraordinary sounds.
And this raises a question for modern Christianity.
If someone claims to speak a heavenly language but uses ordinary speech to curse, deceive, or condemn people made in God's image, what does James say about that contradiction?
This is not proof that the person's claimed spiritual experience is false. It is a reminder that extraordinary religious claims do not replace the biblical demand for righteous conduct.
The same standard applies to everyone, including those who criticize speaking in tongues.
12. Are Modern Christians Speaking in Tongues or Merely Making Sounds?
Now we reach the difficult question.
In some modern churches, people produce repeated syllables or speech-like vocalizations that are not identifiable as ordinary human languages. This practice is commonly called glossolalia.
Some participants believe they are speaking a heavenly language. Others understand the experience as spontaneous prayer inspired by the Holy Spirit.
We should distinguish sincerity from verification.
A person can sincerely believe that an experience comes from God. That belief does not automatically establish the experience's supernatural origin.
Likewise, the absence of an identifiable human language does not automatically prove that the person is deliberately pretending.
Someone may sincerely produce nonlinguistic religious vocalizations without consciously attempting to deceive anyone.
But when a church claims that such sounds are a language given by God, it is making a claim that deserves examination.
What is the evidence that the sounds constitute a language?
What is the evidence that the language is heavenly?
What biblical passage explicitly identifies the sounds as such?
And why should we treat modern unintelligible vocalizations as equivalent to Acts 2 when Acts 2 describes listeners recognizing meaningful speech in their native languages?
Those questions are not attacks on the Holy Spirit.
They are questions about interpretation, evidence, and the authority of Scripture.
There is also an important limitation to acknowledge: the passages examined here do not prove that every spiritual utterance must be a recognizable human language. Acts 10 and Acts 19 do not provide enough linguistic detail to establish that conclusion.
But they also do not establish the modern claim that unintelligible sounds constitute God's private heavenly language.
If we are going to avoid assumptions, we must apply that principle in both directions.
13. Babel, Pentecost, and the Purpose of Communication
Place the biblical accounts beside one another.
At Babel, mutual understanding breaks down, and humanity is scattered.
At Pentecost, people from different regions hear God's mighty works proclaimed in languages they recognize.
The contrast is striking.
Babel concerns confusion and division. Pentecost concerns proclamation and understanding across linguistic boundaries.
This does not mean Acts explicitly identifies Pentecost as a reversal of Babel. That is a theological comparison drawn from reading the narratives together.
But it is a comparison worth examining.
The extraordinary feature of Pentecost is that the message reaches people across their linguistic differences.
The listeners do not need an invented universal language to understand what is being proclaimed. They hear the message in their own tongues.
Now return to our ten-language demonstration.
Maayo ang Dios.
Dios es bueno.
Deus é bom.
Dio è buono.
Dieu est bon.
Deus bonus est.
O Theós eínai agathós.
Allāhu ṣāliḥ.
Elohim tov.
God is good.
Different languages. Different sounds. Different grammatical structures.
Yet meaningful communication remains possible.
That is why I believe we need to reconsider what we mean when we talk about speaking in tongues.
The fact that a listener does not understand a language does not mean the speaker is producing gibberish.
And the fact that a speaker produces unfamiliar sounds does not establish that those sounds are a language.
14. The Non-Paul Challenge: Show Me the Scripture
Here is my challenge to anyone who believes that modern unintelligible glossolalia is the same phenomenon described at Pentecost.
Do not begin with Corinthians.
Begin with Genesis 11 and explain the confusion of languages at Babel.
Examine Isaiah 28 and explain the role of unfamiliar speech in its historical context.
Read Acts 2:4–11 and account for the people who recognized their native languages.
Explain why Acts 2 identifies the content of the speech as God's mighty works.
Show where Acts describes an interpreter translating the disciples' gibberish into meaningful languages.
Then examine Acts 10 and Acts 19 and identify what those passages actually establish about the speech being produced.
Read the longer ending of Mark with an awareness of its manuscript history.
Finally, consider what Jesus, James, Jude, and the Enochic tradition teach about truth, deception, blessing, cursing, and accountability for our words.
If you believe that speaking in tongues means producing an unintelligible heavenly language, explain where that interpretation is established without relying on Paul's letters or later denominational teachings.
And if you believe that every modern practitioner is deliberately faking the experience, demonstrate that claim rather than assuming it.
The purpose of this challenge is not to replace one unsupported assertion with another.
It is to examine what the texts actually say.
Conclusion: Speaking in Tongues Is Not the Same as Speaking Gibberish
The clearest account of speaking in tongues in Acts 2 describes people hearing God's mighty works in their native languages.
No human translator is mentioned.
No passage states that the disciples first produced gibberish that was subsequently converted into recognizable language.
The narrative attributes their speech to the Holy Spirit and describes listeners recognizing what they heard.
That is the evidence we have.
The broader biblical record also teaches that language is powerful. Genesis connects speech with creation, blessing, and deception. Babel connects language with understanding and division. James warns about blessing God while cursing human beings made in His image. Jude draws upon Enoch's warning about judgment for ungodly words.
These connections deserve more attention than they often receive.
I am not arguing that God lacks the power to give someone a language they have never learned. Acts 2 presents precisely such an extraordinary event as a natural reading of its account.
I am questioning the assumption that producing unintelligible sounds automatically demonstrates that a person is speaking God's language.
If we are going to claim that something comes from the Holy Spirit, we should be willing to examine what Scripture actually says about it.
And if someone claims that speaking in tongues means making sounds nobody understands, I have one final question:
Can you show me where Jesus taught that, or where Acts 2 describes it, without turning to Paul's letters?
That is the Non-Paul Challenge.
The Final Jubilee
Biblical passages examined: Genesis 1–3; Genesis 11:1–9; Isaiah 28:11; Matthew 12:36–37; Mark 16:17; John 8:44; Acts 2:4–11; Acts 10:44–46; Acts 19:6; Acts 21:37–40; James 3:9–10; 1 John 3:8; Jude 14–15; 1 Enoch 1:9 and 6–15.
15. The Philippines, Spain, and the History of Language: A Living Example of Speaking in Different Tongues
There is one more historical connection I want to make before closing this lesson, and it brings us directly to the reason I wrote Learning Cebuano Through Ten Languages.
When we examine the history of the Philippines, we discover an important example of how languages spread, influence one another, and become tools for communicating religious teachings across cultures. The relationship between Spain and the Philippines is particularly relevant because it shows what happens when people speaking different languages encounter one another.
The Philippines did not begin with the Spanish language. Long before European colonization, its islands were home to communities speaking their own languages, including the ancestors of modern Cebuano, Tagalog, Ilocano, Hiligaynon, and many others. These languages belong to the Austronesian language family, which developed independently of Spanish and the other Romance languages.
The people of the Philippines already possessed established cultures, trading networks, oral traditions, and, in some communities, indigenous writing systems before the arrival of the Spanish.
Cebuano was not created by Spain. It existed before Spanish colonization, and although it later incorporated substantial Spanish vocabulary, it retained its own grammatical structure and linguistic identity.
This is an important distinction because languages can borrow words from one another without becoming the same language.
Spain Arrives in the Philippines
In 1521, Ferdinand Magellan's expedition reached the Philippine islands while sailing under the Spanish Crown. Magellan arrived in Cebu, where he became involved in local political and religious affairs. He was eventually killed at the Battle of Mactan, where forces led by Lapulapu resisted him.
Permanent Spanish colonial settlement began in 1565, when Miguel López de Legazpi established a Spanish presence in Cebu. In 1571, Manila became the center of Spanish colonial administration.
Spanish colonial rule continued until 1898.
During those centuries, the Philippines underwent major political, religious, cultural, and linguistic changes. Christianity spread widely, Catholic institutions became deeply established, and Spanish vocabulary entered numerous Philippine languages.
These historical events are documented in accounts of Spanish colonial expansion and in the surviving records of missionary activity. The Library of Congress also preserves important early Philippine religious publications, including the Doctrina Christiana en lengua española y tagala, printed in 1593.
That early religious text is particularly interesting because it contains Christian instruction in Spanish and Tagalog.
Why would such a publication be necessary?
Because the people being taught did not all speak the same language.
The existence of bilingual religious material demonstrates the practical need to communicate religious teachings across linguistic boundaries.
Spanish Missionaries Had to Learn Philippine Languages
One of the most revealing aspects of Spanish colonial history is that missionaries did not simply arrive in the Philippines and expect everyone to understand Spanish.
Many missionaries studied the languages spoken by the communities they sought to convert. They produced dictionaries, grammars, religious instructions, and translations to help communicate with local populations.
Joshua Kueh discusses this history in the Library of Congress article Negotiating Empire, Part II: Translation in the Philippines under Spanish Rule, 16th–19th Centuries.
His discussion demonstrates that translation was an important part of Spanish colonial administration and religious activity.
Arwin Vibar also examines the historical development of Philippine missionary language studies in Grammar Writing in the Philippines (1610–1904), published in the academic journal Moenia in 2022.
These studies help establish an important historical reality: missionaries had to take the languages of the people seriously.
Imagine a Spanish missionary arriving in Cebu and attempting to explain the teachings of Jesus to people who spoke Cebuano.
If he spoke only Spanish, many listeners would not understand him.
He would need to learn Cebuano, work with an interpreter, or rely upon translated materials.
He could not simply produce unfamiliar sounds and assume that the people would understand his message.
This is where the history connects directly to our investigation of Acts 2.
At Pentecost, the people heard God's mighty works proclaimed in their own languages. In the Philippines, missionaries generally had to learn local languages through ordinary human effort.
The circumstances were different, but the importance of understandable communication was the same.
We should also recognize that missionary language study occurred within a colonial system involving unequal power, cultural disruption, and religious pressure. The history of translation cannot be separated entirely from those realities.
Nevertheless, the linguistic lesson remains important.
When people speak different languages, meaningful communication requires a language that can be understood or a means of translation.
How Spanish Became Part of Cebuano
Over centuries of contact, Spanish vocabulary became deeply embedded in Cebuano.
This is one of the most interesting connections between the history of the Philippines and my own language studies.
Jesum M. Pitogo examines this process in Nativized Hispanic Borrowed Words in Cebuano Visayan, published in 2022.
The historical vocabulary can also be examined through John U. Wolff's A Dictionary of Cebuano Visayan, published in 1972.
Consider the following examples:
Spanish | Cebuano | English |
mercado | merkado | Market |
escuela | eskwela | School |
hospital | ospital | Hospital |
minuto | minuto | Minute |
importante | importante | Important |
mesa | mesa | Table |
cuchara | kutsara | Spoon |
zapato | sapatos | Shoe |
ventana | bintana | Window |
hora | oras | Hour or time |
Notice that these words are recognizable across the two languages, but they are not always spelled or pronounced identically.
Spanish escuela became Cebuano eskwela. Spanish cuchara became kutsara. Spanish ventana became bintana.
These changes reflect the adaptation of borrowed vocabulary to the sounds and spelling conventions of Cebuano.
They are not examples of meaningless sounds.
They are examples of language contact, borrowing, and historical development.
And the connection extends beyond Spanish.
Spanish developed from Latin, as did Portuguese, Italian, and French. Consequently, some words that entered Cebuano through Spanish can also be compared with related vocabulary in other European languages.
That does not mean Cebuano descended from Latin. It remains an Austronesian language.
It means that languages can influence one another through historical contact while retaining their own identities.
Why I Wrote Learning Cebuano Through Ten Languages
This is one reason I developed Learning Cebuano Through Ten Languages.
Rather than studying Cebuano entirely in isolation, my book compares ten languages:
Cebuano
Spanish
European Portuguese
Italian
French
Latin
Greek
Arabic
Hebrew
English
Cebuano remains the primary language being learned. The other languages provide opportunities to compare vocabulary, pronunciation, grammatical patterns, and equivalent expressions.
Some of these languages are historically related. Others belong to entirely different language families.
The purpose is not to pretend that all ten languages developed from one another. It is to understand how different languages express meaning and how historical relationships can make certain words easier to recognize.
Consider the word for market:
Language | Word |
Cebuano | Merkado |
Spanish | Mercado |
Portuguese | Mercado |
Italian | Mercato |
French | Marché |
Latin | Mercatus |
English | Market |
These words illustrate historical relationships and borrowing, although their meanings and usage are not perfectly identical in every language.
A student who recognizes Spanish mercado may find Cebuano merkado easier to remember.
A student familiar with Latin may recognize relationships among several Romance-language forms.
This is an ordinary method of language learning.
It involves recognizing vocabulary, understanding grammatical differences, practicing pronunciation, and learning to communicate.
And it brings us to the central question of speaking in tongues.
A person who speaks Cebuano, Spanish, Portuguese, and English is speaking four different languages. That person is speaking in different tongues.
Nothing about that ability requires the person to make unintelligible sounds.
The Connection Between the Philippines and Acts 2
Now imagine a sixteenth-century Spanish missionary arriving in Cebu.
Suppose he had never studied Cebuano but suddenly began speaking it fluently, communicating a meaningful message that Cebuano-speaking listeners understood.
If that ability came through the direct intervention of the Holy Spirit, it would be an extraordinary event.
It would also resemble the kind of remarkable communication described in Acts 2.
The listeners would hear a recognizable language.
They would understand what was being said.
Now imagine a different situation.
The missionary begins producing repeated sounds that nobody can identify as Cebuano, Spanish, or another known language. He then claims that the sounds are a
heavenly language.
That is a different claim.
It may represent a sincere religious experience, but it is not the same kind of evidence described in Acts 2:4–11.
Acts 2 identifies listeners who recognized their native languages and understood that God's mighty works were being proclaimed.
The passage does not say that the disciples produced gibberish that was subsequently translated.
Nor does it mention a human interpreter standing beside them.
The historical experience of Spanish missionaries in the Philippines helps us understand the difference between speaking an unfamiliar language and making sounds whose linguistic meaning has not been established.
From Babel to Pentecost to the Philippines
Now we can connect the larger biblical lesson.
Genesis 11 describes humanity's language being confused at Babel, disrupting mutual understanding.
Acts 2 describes people from different regions hearing God's mighty works proclaimed in languages they recognized.
The history of the Philippines demonstrates how language barriers were encountered through centuries of cultural contact, translation, education, missionary work, and vocabulary exchange.
These are not three identical events.
Babel is a biblical account of divine judgment and linguistic confusion.
Pentecost is a biblical account of Spirit-enabled speech and understanding.
Spanish colonial history in the Philippines is a documented historical process involving language contact, translation, religious expansion, and political power.
But all three draw our attention to the importance of language and communication.
When we read Acts 2, the emphasis is not simply that the disciples made unusual sounds.
The emphasis is that people from different places heard God's message in their own tongues.
That is why the ten-language comparison in my book matters to this discussion.
It allows us to demonstrate something practical.
A statement spoken in Cebuano may sound completely unfamiliar to someone who knows only English.
A statement spoken in Hebrew may sound unfamiliar to someone who knows only Spanish.
A statement spoken in Arabic may sound unfamiliar to someone who knows only Portuguese.
But unfamiliarity does not make a language meaningless.
And a claim that unfamiliar sounds are a heavenly language does not, by itself, demonstrate that they constitute a language.
The difference must be examined rather than assumed.
Final Reflection: What Does It Mean to Speak in Tongues?
The history of Spain and the Philippines provides a real-world example of how people speaking different languages can eventually communicate through study, translation, and cultural contact.
My book Learning Cebuano Through Ten Languages applies that understanding to practical language education.
Acts 2 describes something extraordinary: the disciples began speaking in other tongues as the Holy Spirit enabled them, and listeners from different regions recognized their native languages.
The biblical account attributes the event to divine intervention.
The history of the Philippines illustrates the ordinary human work required to overcome language barriers.
Neither example requires us to define speaking in tongues as gibberish.
And neither establishes that every modern religious vocalization is deliberately fraudulent.
The question remains whether a particular claim about speaking in tongues is actually supported by Scripture.
If the disciples spoke recognizable languages at Pentecost, why should we automatically identify their experience with sounds that nobody can recognize as a language?
If the listeners understood God's mighty works in their own tongues, why should we overlook the importance of communication?
And if we are going to claim that an unintelligible utterance is a heavenly language, where do Jesus or the accounts in Acts explicitly establish that interpretation?
That is the challenge.
Not whether God is powerful enough to give someone the ability to speak a language they have never learned.
Not whether sincere people can experience powerful religious emotions.
But whether the modern explanation of speaking in tongues actually matches the biblical account.
From Babel to Pentecost, and from Spain to the Philippines, language has shaped how people communicate, understand, teach, and preserve religious traditions.
The words may change.
The languages may change.
But the distinction between meaningful communication and an unsupported claim about language remains.
Before we call something the gift of tongues, we should first ask what Scripture means by a tongue.
Historical Sources and Further Reading
Joshua Kueh — Library of Congress (2021). Negotiating Empire, Part II: Translation in the Philippines under Spanish Rule, 16th–19th Centuries. Historical discussion of translation, religious instruction, and colonial administration in the Philippines.
Arwin Vibar — Moenia (2022). Grammar Writing in the Philippines (1610–1904). Academic research on missionary grammars and the documentation of Philippine languages.
Jesum M. Pitogo (2022). Nativized Hispanic Borrowed Words in Cebuano Visayan. Research concerning the adaptation of Spanish vocabulary into Cebuano.
John U. Wolff (1972). A Dictionary of Cebuano Visayan. A major linguistic reference for Cebuano vocabulary and usage.
Library of Congress. Doctrina Christiana en lengua española y tagala (1593). An early printed religious text containing Spanish and Tagalog Christian instruction.
Weston Simonis. Learning Cebuano Through Ten Languages. The multilingual language-learning framework used for the comparisons in this lesson.
Biblical and Enochic References
Genesis 11:1–9 — The Tower of Babel and the confusion of languages.
Acts 2:4–11 — The disciples speaking in other tongues and the crowd hearing their native languages.
Acts 10:44–46 — Speaking in tongues at the house of Cornelius.
Acts 19:6 — Speaking in tongues and prophecy.
James 3:9–10 — Blessing God and cursing people made in God's likeness.
Jude 14–15 and 1 Enoch 1:9 — Divine judgment and accountability for ungodly speech.
The Final Jubilee — The Non-Paul Challenge
By Weston Simonis
Companion language study: Learning Cebuano Through Ten Languages
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