What Makes Us Able To Speak?

Babies can babble almost as soon as they are born. Later they learn the names of objects by coping their parents. Being able to speak, sense and producing sound from the mouth are two different things. Over the years speech has become more complicated. We are able to say more because men's intelligence has developed.

But our apparatus for producing the sound itself is still simple. The sound is made by means of vibrations of the vocal cords. These vocal cords are two bands of elastic tissue in the larynx, a valve guarding the entrance to the windpipe in the neck. When air is taken in and out the vocal cords rub together and part again. Puffs of air escape rhythmically from the larynx into the cavity behind the mouth and the nasal passage, and out by the mouth and nose producing a tone. A man's vocal cords are longer than a woman's so his voice is lower. By moving our lips and tongue in different ways, we are able to pronounce the particular words we want to say.