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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Pliantreality" data-source="post: 5754448" data-attributes="member: 6686815">Let me predicate this post with a caveat; anything I proffer here should be taken with a grain of salt.  Preferably the kind which rival Betelgeuse in size and density.Unless I'm very much mistaken, the spell name is a reference to the idiom 'Speaking in Tongues' which has been around awhile.  That idiom is itself offspring from something called 'glossolalia' (god help me on spelling), which was a supposedly religious experience in which the speaker tapped into a sacred, universal language.  Purportedly, to speak in tongues was to speak the fundamental language of heaven.  Or something.The idiom as we know it today - speaking in tongues as a byphrase for speaking gibberish - comes from the practical experience of watching someone supposedly speak in tongues.  The priest would say the speaker was tapping into sacred language, but what actually came out... gibberish.I'm by no means a scholar on all of the above, and would be very much surprised if I were remotely close to the mark.  Nonetheless, a quick wikipedia wouldn't turn.I would timidly tender that, if one accepts the name and inspiration, then the spirit (bugger all if I can aptly argue the letter) of the Tongues spell would - to my thinking - point towards a universal langauge.  Were I to DM it, I would rule the subject of a Tongues spell able to speak and understand any language.  Those spoken to would hear in their vernacular, and the speaker himself would percieve in their vernacular.So.  Yeah.  Those are my two ha'pennies.  Please don't hurt me.</blockquote>

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