Acts 2 refers to tongues as 'glossa' as well. And I Corinthians does not refer exclusively to 'tongues of angels' as 'tongues.' Paul said 'Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels...' so tongues of men are tongues, too.
When the historian Luke wrote Acts 2:8 his choice of
dialektos (language) was appropriate at this particular location as was referring to how the crowd heard what was being said to the Father, being in their own native languages. With Acts 2:4 Luke is speaking from the perspective of the Christian in that the Holy Spirit was the one who enabled them to speak in tongues, where they were most likely unaware that they were speaking in known human languages until the crowd told them.
So the
glossa of Acts 2:4 is from the perspective of the Christian and the
dialektos of Acts 2:8 is from the perspective of those who heard what they heard.
I was raised Pentecostal, and it is strange to me when people try to ae that tongues are nearly always angelic languages. That's not the historical Pentecostal movement belief.
From my beginnings in Pentecost back in 1974 as a teenager, as much as our theology was still primitive at best, I am aware that some believed that it could be possible to speak in a known human language in the mission field, though this was based more on speculation than with any substantial evidence, but I would say that probably all of those who I associated with would have deemed tongues to be always given in an Angelic tongue.
Since the 1980's we have seen an incredible amount of scholarly material that has been produced by Pentecostal and charismatic scholars, were from memory I cannot recall any published commentary that has suggested that congregational tongues are anything but Angelic.
I have read or heard (interview with attendee) that at the Azusa Street Revival, there were occasions when immigrants would come into the meeting and understand their own language, Japanese or Russian for example, and that is part of what made the revival grow. A/G missionaries reported similar things over the years. Dennis Balcome, a missionary to China wrote an article in which he reported that Chinese villagers would sometimes speak in tongues in English. A few months after reading that, I had the opportunity to meet his daughter and her husband. I mentioned the article to her, and she told me she heard an old Chinese woman in a village who did not know English speaking in tongues in English. I asked what she said. She said she was saying a psalm. I asked her which one. She said she wasn't sure, but it sounded like something out of the Psalms.
Even though . . . it . . . could . . . be . . . possible for the Father to choose to allow someone to speak in English when they could not normally do so, this would be at most a very unusual event. We would have to ask ourselves why such a thing could occur when the previously unreached person could not understand what we were saying about the Gospel be able to go this far.
I've known a couple of other people who've spoken in tongues and others present understood what they said in their natural language.
Back around 1995 I was taking some day classes at a Bible College where we would often start our day with praise and worship, where upwards of 50 people would be praising the Lord (improperly) in tongues without interpretation. After one of our lectures had finished, a Spanish speaking student mentioned to me that he has struggled to be able to pray in tongues, so to avoid any embarrassment he sings to the Lord in Spanish. This means that if you ever hear someone say that they once heard someone speaking tongues in Spanish in Dandenong Melbourne about this time then you can of course pass it by. I have no doubt that many such things occur from time to time and when we add in a bit of storytelling and confusion then I would say that this would be the reason why people presume that they had heard someone speaking in a known human language.
It's not the norm. Normally, if one speaks in tongues in church 'no man understandeth him'. But God can also arrange an Acts 2 situation.
The problem here is that Paul is adamant that within the congregational meeting that no man will ever be able to understand what the Spirit is saying to the Father which is why each tongue must be followed up with an interpretation. If the Father desires to speak to either a congregation or to an individual during a meeting he will use prophecy, which is always given in the local language.
Tongues of angels are a possibility Paul suggests. There is no reason to assume that is the norm.
For Paul and with First Corinthians, Paul leaves absolutely no doubt that tongues will always be given by the Spirit in Angelic tongues, which is why he has gone to so much trouble in 1Cor 14 to demand that all our speech is intelligible to the entire congregation.
