Consonant Vowel Co-occurrence Patterns in Glossolalia

A preference for physiologically economical consonant vowel combinations labial+central vowel, coronal+front vowel and velar+back vowel has been identified as characteristic in infant babbling for a number of languages (Davis and MacNeilage 1990 and 1995, Zlatić et al. 1997, Texeira and Davis 2002.) In adult language, where perceptual needs demand combinatorial complexity, these patterns are less robust (Ohala and Kawasaki (1984), Maddieson and Precoda (1992)). Glossolalia, or “speaking in tongues,” has been shown to reflect a simpler phonological make-up than the native language of the glossolalist (Samarin 1972, Chilton 1979), which is related to a lack of one-to-one coding indicative of natural language. In this paper I consider the hypothesis that these physiologically economical consonant-vowel combinations are preferred in the glossolalic utterance of one Korean-English Pentecostal preacher, Pastor X.