How do we talk? Detailed answer

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How do we talk? Detailed answer

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How do we talk?

The ability of a person to speak is mainly due to the structure of his larynx. It is a hollow organ, shaped somewhat like a box. In fact, it is the expanding part of the windpipe. The walls of this "box" are cartilage, on the inside covered with a mucous membrane.

In a certain place on each side, this shell becomes thicker and protrudes towards the center. These are the vocal cords. Each ligament is moved by many small muscles. When air is released from the lungs, it causes these cords to vibrate, which creates sound.

But what sound? It depends on the location and tension of the vocal cords. The muscular system that controls them is the most sensitive in our entire body. It allows us to produce all the sounds that we make. The vocal cords can take about 170 different positions.

When the vocal cords vibrate, the column of air in the airways begins to vibrate. In fact, we hear these vibrations. If the vocal cords are not tense, long waves are produced and we hear low tones. If they are tense, they vibrate rapidly, producing short waves, and we hear high tones. When boys reach the age of fourteen, their vocal cords and larynx become thicker, and their voice is lower. This change is called "voice breaking".

Thus, we can adjust the pitch of the sound by straining the vocal cords. And the tone? It turns out that it depends on the resonating space in the same way that the tone of a violin is determined by the vibration of the entire instrument. When speaking or singing, organs such as the windpipe, lungs, chest, mouth, and nose are involved. Air vibrations in them help to produce one or another tone.

But that's not all. Our belly, ribs, diaphragm, tongue, palate and lips also take part. So the process of speaking can be compared to playing a very complex and perfect musical instrument. And we learn this "game" from early childhood and do it all our lives.

Author: Likum A.

Random interesting fact from the Great Encyclopedia:

What property of Iapetus, the moon of Saturn, became one of the foundations of Arthur C. Clarke's famous novel "A Space Odyssey 2001"?

A unique feature of Iapetus, Saturn's third largest moon, is that one of its hemispheres is an order of magnitude (about 10 times) brighter than the other. This phenomenon was noticed by the Italian astronomer Giovanni Cassini (1625-1712), who discovered Iapetus in 1671, and then confirmed during the Voyager 2 (1981) and Cassini (2004) spacecraft flying near Saturn.

This feature of Iapetus was used by science fiction master Arthur C. Clarke in his famous novel 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). The hero of this novel, David Bowman, approaching Iapetus in a spaceship, saw in its equatorial region "a dazzling white oval about three hundred by six hundred kilometers in size."

The presence of this oval explained in the novel the difference in the brightness of the hemispheres of Iapetus. In the center of this white "eye" Bowman noticed a black dot, which, when approaching Iapetus, turned out to be a mysterious black monolith - the "Star Gate".

Curiously enough, 13 years later, when Voyager 2 photographed Iapetus, the image clearly showed a huge, almost circular region with a black spot in the center. The famous astrophysicist Carl Sagan, who participated in the processing of images from Voyager 2, sent a photograph to Arthur C. Clarke with the caption "Just think!".

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Another plus is that the collar can sit more loosely around the dog's neck. The same cannot be said for the smartwatches and fitness trackers that people use, which require a tighter fit and good skin contact to get accurate heart rate readings.

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