Another misconception some have about speaking in other tongues is that it must be intelligible to the hearers. They referenced the event on the day of pentecost where the early believers spoke in tongues and those around heard them praising God in their own language( Acts 2:5-13). Some person wrongly believe it must always be in this format always.
Someone told me a preacher said if you speak in tongues under a language detector machine and the machine fails to pick the exact language you are speaking, then it is gibberish. That is taking the matter too far and devoid of faith. I have not heard about language detector machine until he told me. I only know about lie detector machine.
What that preacher fail to realize is that there are tongues( language) of men and tongues( language) of angels. How did I know? Apostle Paul says, "Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels,...'( 1Cor 13:1). Meaning that there are earthly tongues( like the ones spoken by believers on the day of pentecost) and there are heavenly tongues. If there is a language detector, it will only detect the tongues of men but not the heavenly.
In a book I read years back, "Angels on Assignment", the writer confirmed that there is a language spoken beyond this earthly realm that is only known to beings in that realm. Heavenly language exist. Even in the kingdom of darkness, they have their language which is totally different from any earthly language. Those in deliverance ministry can attest to this. Witches have a language no one earth understands except by the Spirit.
Those who hold the view that every tongue spoken must be an earthly language fail to study their bibles further. In Acts 10:44-46 where Cornelius and his household spoke in other tongues, it was not recorded that people around understood what they said. That's the first scriptural example against that assertion. In Acts 19:1-6, it was not on record that the Ephesian believers who spoke in tongues were understood by those around them. These two instances shows that what happened on the day of pentecost is not a rule.
Personally, I think God allowed what happened on the day of pentecost to happen that way to draw the attention of unsaved men to himself. If you hear a foreigner speak your local dialect, you will be endeared to the person and will give him audience. That was what happened on the day of pentecost. Those unsaved men wouldn't have given Peter audience If they hadn't heard them speak their native language.
Don't bother yourself trying to know the earthly language your tongues sound like. It is a waste of time. I told the story of a brother I took to Ghana. He spoke in tongues and someone there recognized the language he spoke as 'Twi'. This is the same tongues he's been speaking in Nigeria for years but did not know which language it was. The truth is that If he did not go to Ghana to know he spoke in Twi, that wouldn't invalidate the tongues he's been speaking back home in Nigeria. What matters is that the Spirit gave the utterance.
Stop bothering yourself about the intelligibility of your prayer language, go ahead and edify yourself always. It is even a sign of faithlessness wanting to understand a spiritual phenomenon like tongues at all times. How can you tell the Holy Spirit to give you meaning of what you are saying or else you won't speak in tongues? You can't hold him to ransom.
