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  • Writer's pictureRowan Collins

What does heteroglóssos mean?

Updated: Oct 7, 2021

Heteroglóssos (2084 in Strong's Concordance) is an adjective in Ancient Greek that means a different language or an unknown language and is constructed from:

  • heteros - a different, another

  • glóssa - a tongue, a language

However, in some cases these two words are treated distinctly as part of a phrase but give the same meaning. For example, in Acts 2, it is written "lalein heterais glōssais" which reads in English "to speak in different languages."


Related Terms

The following terms are often used in connection with heteroglóssos:


Usage

Heteroglóssosis used a single time as a compound word, but is used elsewhere as a phrase. Below is a list of all references in the New Testament:


In the Law it is written, “By people of strange tongues and by the lips of foreigners will I speak to this people, and even then they will not listen to me, says the Lord.”

1 Corinthians 14:21 ESV


And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.

Acts 2:4 ESV *


to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the ability to distinguish between spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues.

1 Corinthians 12:10 ESV *


* please note that these references are phrases that match heteroglóssosis, as opposed to the compound word.

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