I was involved in Pentecostalism as a child by relatives before I was able to defend myself. All of my exposure to it has been extremely awful and terrifically abusive and manipulative, including "tongues" speaking.
1. Do you believe it's a sign of baptism in the Holy Spirit? Why or why not?
I don't have a traditional view on the Holy Spirit, but no, I don't believe tongues-speaking is a sign of anything special or divine. I think that it is often the result of extremely intense emotion, a type of release. From what I saw being exposed to different Pentecostals and congregations over a period of years, they seem to stutter a lot, to the point that most of them are only babbling syllables like "shalalalalalala," not anything like a coherent language. Also, different congregations have different "words" or syllables or even dialects that are common for that group, as if they are collectively creating some type of pseudo-language. Some people are more capable of making it sound like a genuine language perhaps to unskilled ears, but I suspect a language analyst could detect the difference.
2. Is it a real language (or languages)?
In light of the above experiences, no, I'm not convinced anything I ever heard was a real language and especially not the incoherent syllables I let out under intense pressure to receive this "gift." I've heard accounts of people speaking in tongues and someone there understanding the language, but these are all anecdotal. Also, it is not uncommon for our minds to play tricks on us, for instance, constructing singing or speech out of the sounds of a fan or other background noise. In a room full of people rambling away in a pseudo-language, or even just one person, it doesn't seem unlikely that the brain's tendency to look for and even create patterns could make someone mistake babbling for a real language. And this doesn't even take into account all of the techniques Pentecostal churches use to dramatically alter a person's emotions and induce hysterical fits. In such a climate, angels and demons are around every corner. I've seen people in these churches pull people out of wheelchairs, hold them up by the hands, snap pictures, return the person to their wheelchair and claim they were miraculously healed. I am not at all willing to accept any miracle stories as true from people in such an irrational, emotional state, including stories of tongues-speaking being verified as a real language.
3. Do other religions speak in tongues?
Possession and similar (if not identical) states occur in voodoo religions. The trance states are not in my eyes distinguishable from what I've seen in Pentecostal churches. I'm not sure if tongues-speaking occurs in Voodoo, but I've read that it existed in various pre-Christian religions.
4. What other explanations are there for it?
See above.
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