What is speaking in tongues and should women really be silent in church?

For a man who has never spoken in tongues, I read 1 Corinthians 14 with much interests this morning. Two questions came to mind:
(1) What really is speaking in tongues?
(2) Is the Apostle Paul really telling women to be silent in church services?

Before this morning I believed that some Christians were blessed with the gift of speaking in tongues, which I assumed was unintelligible mumbling, often musical, and often in the context of praying. At one point in my life I even specifically asked the Lord to bless me with such a gift - as a form of validation of the Lord's presence in my life. I was going through what I now think was a depression. The Lord never blessed me with that gift but instead blessed me with something even better, which I will save for another occasion. I also thought that the gift of tongues was often very important to some Christians and had the effect of keeping them strong in the faith. I also thought that there were a lot of copy-cats out there, who needed to put themselves in higher "spiritual" status.

What Paul was addressing in 1 Corinthians 14 may have been specific to a particular problem in the Corinthians church. But there are clearly several important teaching about speaking in tongues.
Grace to You has written a nice article about this. It contains a number of points which are new to me:

1. "Tongues" were real languages - this is a real surprise to me. The author Phil Johnson put forth a good argument about this but this is a really good point: "if someone is authentically speaking in tongues, the utterance contains a message, and the message must be translated for those who hear. Even if the tongues-speaker is praying alone and no one else is around to hear, he is to pray that he may interpret." So tongues may not be a known foreign language as we know it - it is nevertheless a translatable language. I wonder if someone has ever documented what that language is. Can you help, Wycliffe Translators?
2.  Speaking in tongues is not supposed to be a mystical exercise that bypasses the mind - I am in total agreement about the importance of the mind in our faith but I must admit that I did until today, believe that the "mystical" experience of speaking in tongues seems to go beyond the mind. Johnson explained: "Go through this passage and notice how many times the apostle uses terms like understanding, edification, and the mind. A lot of Christians in the post-charismatic era have the utterly false notion that true spirituality is something that bypasses the intellect and operates mysteriously in the soul. That opinion has more in common with Hinduism than with true Christianity. Genuine Christianity is not anti-intellectual. We do not believe that the mind is a detriment to spirituality. In fact, we believe true spirituality involves being transformed by the renewing of our minds (Romans 12:2). We are sanctified by the truth, and truth is something we apprehend primarily with our minds." Also "When we have a message for the assembly of God’s people, the sound must be distinct. The message, not the language, is the key to the gift of tongues. The Holy Spirit does not gift people with languages just to make interesting noises. There’s a message to be conveyed, just like on Pentecost, when the wonderful works of God were proclaimed in the hearer’s native tongues. And notice this carefully: Regardless of your position on the charismatic movement, you must ultimately confess that Scripture demands that tongues-speakers remain silent, unless the message they have to convey is going to be understood be the people who are present to hear. Verse 28: 'If there is no one to interpret, let each of them keep silent.'"
3. It is wrong to allow the church service to become chaotic - my experience with charismatic churches and gatherings were typically quite unpleasant. When people started speaking in tongues they did so all together and were very chaotic. I was never included in what was happening. In fact, I remember being on a mission trip while attending a prayer meeting in which many prayed in tongues the only sentence I could hear and understand was "let those who have ears hear"! If I was confused I can't imagine what a non-christian would feel. Again Johnson explained, "Can God possibly be behind such phenomena (chaotic worship)? The Bible answers that question with a definitive no. Verse 33 says, “God is not a God of confusion.” Such chaotic displays in the churches must not be attributed to Him. The Word of God speaks with the utmost clarity on this. In more familiar King James terminology, “God is not the author of confusion.” He is neither glorified nor pleased where chaos and confusion reign."
4. Tongues are a sign to unbelievers - this point spoke to me so much more clearly this morning from the reading of 1 Corinthians 14. I really appreciate what Johnson wrote and I summarize it here: "In verse 22, Paul writes, “Tongues are a sign not for believers but for unbelievers.” Here he contrasts tongues with prophecy, which he says is meant for believers. What is his point? Simple: Prophecy involved a message from God in a language everyone understood. The message conveyed in tongues was intelligible only to those who understood the language. Remember, all the languages a tongues-speaker used were Gentile languages. Hebrew was the Jewish language, and Aramaic was a first-century variation of Hebrew. All other tongues were Gentile languages... The gift of tongues changed all that. For the first time ever, inspired truth was revealed by God in languages other than Hebrew. This in and of itself was a remarkable sign, not only to the unbelieving Gentile hearers, but also to the unbelieving Jews And for the unbelieving Jews, it was a sign of judgment to come. Isaiah 28:11 contains this promise about the Messiah: “By people of strange lips and with a foreign tongue the Lord will speak to this people.” The apostle Paul paraphrases that verse in 1 Corinthians 14:21, just before saying that tongues are a sign to unbelievers. His primary meaning, then, is that tongues are a sign of judgment against the unbelieving Israelites and a token of divine grace to the Gentile unbelievers who hear the message in their own tongues...That was the primary significance of the gift of tongues. It was never intended to be a Babel of noise that no one, including the speaker, understood."

What about the question "Is the Apostle Paul really telling women to be silent in church services?".
Doesn't the bible say "Women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the law says. If they want to inquire about something, they should ask their own husbands at home; for it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in the church." (1 Corinthians 14:34-35)?
I always believed that these verses addressed a particular problem in the Corinthians church and after reading around a bit this morning I have not changed my view on the matter. The main points are:

• Women were allowed to speak in church (1 Corinthians 11:5, Titus 2:4)
• The Corinthians church was known to be chaotic and lacking order in worship (1 Corinthians 14:26-33)
• Apparently, certain women in the Corinthian church were also out of order in disruptively asking questions during the already chaotic services. The context of "women should remain silent" points to those disruptive women who was prophesying and speaking in tongues

 1 Corinthians 14 does not deal with the whole question of women's role in church ministries. This issue will have to be dealt with in other places in scripture.