Phonetic Descriptions of Glossolalia

Abstract

This paper phonetically describes the glossolalia speech of three native Englishspeaking subjects. The subjects were interviewed for biographical information and recorded speaking in tongues. After transcribing the speech into International Phonetic Alphabet symbols, segment inventories were generated for each of the subjects’ samples, and the segments of glossolalia were described in light of phonological universals. This study concludes that linguistic universals influence glossolalia and that the segments of a glossolalist’s speech are a subset of the segments of his or her native language. These conclusions have particular implications for the potency of phonological universals as well as for further phonetic studies of glossolalia.