Vocalist.org archive


To: "VOCALIST" <vocalist>
Subject: RE: TECH: Body size/Height & Vocal Range
Date sent: Wed, 9 Feb 2000 19:14:33 -0800
Send reply to: VOCALIST <vocalist>

> > 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.

Babies younger than 6 months all around the world, regardless of their
race/culture/country of origin/parent's language/etc., babble phonemes
(sounds) from all languages. It is only after they reach a certain age (I
think it's six months, gotta check my infant development text) that they
start to only use sounds from the language(s) they hear their parents using.
This would seem to me to indicate language is a product of nurture, not
nature. However, this is not to say that learning to speak the sounds of a
particular language won't influence the development of the vocal apparatus
(or that it does - I don't know the answer to this one :o).

Jennifer