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From: Steven Fosdick
To: VOCALIST <vocalist>
Subject: Re: TECH: Body size/Height & Vocal Range
Send reply to: VOCALIST <vocalist>

On Wed, Feb 09, 2000 at 11:30:30AM -0800, Tako Oda wrote:

> Certain languages promote different uses of the voice for everyday
> speech. So language might be a factor... but then maybe the chicken
> comes before the egg. Maybe a population speaks a certain way
> because of how their voice boxes are designed.

One would certainly expect that the sounds used in a language are
those that the native speakers of that language find it easy to make,
but I suspect we would find the differences in anatomy between races
that determine the sounds used in language are differences of vocal
tract shape rather than laryngeal size.