Verses 10-11
Clearly Paul was speaking about languages, not gibberish, even though the Greek word translated "languages" (phone) means "sounds" or "voices." The context shows he had languages in mind. A non-Greek was a foreigner (Gr. barbaros, barbarian) to a Greek. The word barbaros is onomatopoetic, meaning the foreigner’s language sounded like so much "bar bar bar" to the Greek. Paul’s point was that for communicating, the tongues-speaker who did not have an interpreter was no better than an incomprehensible barbarian. Even though his speech may have had meaning to the speaker, it had none to the hearers.
Someone may enjoy watching and listening to an Italian or other foreign language opera occasionally. He or she may like to listen to the music for its own beauty even if he or she may not be able to understand the words. However, when the foreign words being sung are translated into English with captions above the stage or on the screen, the listener can enjoy it even more. Then one can profit from following the story, which he or she cannot do if all that one takes away from the performance is the memory of beautiful sounds.
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