Blumenbach has given us a most ingenious definition of this wonderful function. The voice, properly speaking, is a sound formed by means of expiration in the larynx, which is a most beautifully constructed organ, fixed upon the top of the windpipe, like a capital upon a column. It is composed of various cartilages, united in the form of a little box, and supplied with numerous muscles, that, moving altogether or separately, produce the variations of sound. The part of the larynx most concerned in producing the voice is the glottis, or narrow opening of the windpipe, having the epiglottis suspended over it like a valve. The air expired from the lungs strikes upon the glottis, and thus becomes sonorous. The change that the glottis undergoes in the modulation of the voice has been matter of much controversy. Aristotle and Galen compared the glottis to a wind instrument; Ferrein assimilated it to a chorded one. This latter hypothesis was objected to, on the principle that a chord, to vibrate, should not only be in a state of tension, but dryness; characters which this organ does not possess, being constantly lubrified with mucus, and in a state of greater or lesser relaxation. Fulgentius considers the human voice to be composed of ten parts: the four first are the front teeth, so useful for the appulse of the tongue in forming sounds, without which a whistle would be produced instead of a voice; the fifth and sixth are the lips, That every degree of action in the glottis is due to the muscles of the larynx is proved by the experiment of tying or dividing the recurrent nerves, when the voice is destroyed or weakened. Speech is a peculiar modification of the voice adjusted to the formation of the sounds of letters, by the expiration of the air through the nostrils and mouth, and in a great measure by the assistance of the tongue applied and struck against the neighbouring parts, the palate and front teeth in particular, and by the diversified action of the lips. This is Payne Knight’s doctrine, in his analytical essay on the Greek alphabet, and an illustration of the notions of Fulgentius. Singing is compounded of speech and a musical modulation of the voice, a prerogative peculiar to man even in his most savage state; for, despite the assertions of the visionary Rousseau, who maintained that it is not natural to our species, we find that even in the uncivilized regions of Ethiopia, Greenland, and Kamtschatka, singing is a solace and a comfort. The mechanism of speech and articulation is so intricate, that even the division of letters and their distribution are attended with difficulties. The following is the division of Amman in his work Surdus Loquens, published at Amsterdam in 1629, and enlarged under the title of Dissert. de Loquela, 1700, and is, perhaps, the most natural and intelligible. He divides into, I. Vowels; II. Semi-vowels; III. Consonants. I. The vowels are simple, a, e, i, o, u; and mixed Ä, Ö, Ü: these are formed by the voice only. The semi-vowels and consonants are articulated by the mechanism of speech. II. The semi-vowels are nasal, m, n, ng (n before g, which is nearly related to it), that is, the labio-nasal m, the dente-nasal n, and the gutture-nasal ng; or oral (lingual), r, l, that is, r with a vibration of the tongue, or l with the tongue less moved. III. The consonants he distinguishes into sibilant (pronounced in succession), h, g, ch, s, sh, f, v, ph, that is h, formed in the throat, as it were a mere aspiration; g and ch, It has been thought that the tongue was indispensable for the purposes of speech, yet there are instances on record in which this has not been found an invariable rule. Dr. Conyers Middleton mentions two cases of distinct articulation with at least little or no tongue. In his exposure of the pious deceptions of weak and wicked Christians during the first centuries of the Christian era, he notices a pretty tale of an Arian prince cutting out the tongues of some of the orthodox party, and these being as able to talk as before; nay, one of them, who had been dumb from his birth, gained the faculty of speech by losing his tongue! We find various accounts of persons who spoke more or less fluently without this organ. Jussieu has inserted in the MÉmoires de l’AcadÉmie des Sciences, 1718, the case of a Portuguese girl, who instead of a tongue had merely a little protuberance of about four lines in diameter in the middle of her mouth, and endowed with the power of contraction and dilatation; she spoke distinctly, but experienced difficulty in pronouncing c, f, g, l, n, r, s, t, x, and z, when she was obliged to bend her neck forward to upraise as it were the larynx. In this case, deglutition could not be well performed, and she was obliged to use her finger to propel the masticated food downwards. Dr. Eliotson observes, that it is by no means improbable that the progress of modern art may present us at some future period with mechanical substitutes for orators and preachers; for, putting aside the magic heads of Albertus Magnus and Roger Bacon, Kratzenstein actually constructed an instrument to produce the vowels. De Kempelin has published a full account of his celebrated speaking machine, which perfectly imitated the human voice. The French celebrated mechanician, the AbbÉ Mical, also made two heads of brass, which pronounced very distinctly entire phrases; these heads were colossal, and their voices powerful and sonorous. The French government refusing, it is said, in 1782, to purchase these automata, the unfortunate It has been observed, that in various races the pronunciation seemed to depend upon some peculiar and characteristic conformation; and Adelung informs us that in the Hottentots, the bony palate is smaller, shorter, and less arched than in the other races, and that the tongue, especially in the Bosjesman tribe, is rounder, thicker, and shorter. Hence their pronunciation is singular, and has been compared to the clucking of the Turkey, or the harsh and broken noises produced by some other birds. They combine their aspirated gutturals with hard consonants, without any intervening vowels, in a manner that Europeans cannot imitate. No doubt the differences of language are as numerous as the other distinctions which characterize the several races of men. The various degrees of natural capacity and of intellectual progress; the prevalence of particular faculties; the nature of surrounding circumstances; the ease or difficulty with which our different wants and desires are gratified, will produce not only peculiar characters in the nature and construction of language, but in its copiousness and development. One of the most curious points in the subject of language, is the continued existence in a large portion of Asia, very anciently civilized, and considerably advanced, at least in the useful arts, of simple monosyllabic languages, which are not in the slightest degree connected with the peculiar organization of the Mongolian variety, to which these people belong, and whose language is distinctly polysyllabic. The attempts that have been made to trace the origin of languages to the varieties of our species, or to the influence of climate, have hitherto been fruitless, and the doctrines broached on the obscure subject refuted by observation. Mr. Jefferson states that there are twenty radical languages in America for one in Asia; more than twenty languages, he adds, are still spoken in the kingdom of Mexico, most of which are at least as different from one another as the Greek and the German, the French and the Polish. The variety of idioms spoken by the people of the new continent, and which without the least exaggeration may be stated at some hundreds, offers a very striking phenomenon, particularly when we compare it to the few languages spoken in Asia and in Europe. Vater also informs us, that in Mexico, where the causes producing insulation of the several tribes have been Although brutes pronounce no articulate sounds, there is, no doubt but they have a language perfectly intelligible to one another. Their manner of expressing their different emotions is in some instances perfectly distinct; and birds have most decidedly a peculiar language. The following may be said to be the words of a nightingale’s strain observed by Bechstein, an ingenious ornithologist, and committed to paper several times while he listened with deep attention to that sweet bird’s “complaining notes,” that “tune our distresses and record our woes.” Tiouou, tiouou, tiouou tiouou A story is related of an irascible Irish piper of the name of |