What Makes You Able To Talk?

If you put your fingers on your throat and say a word, you will get a “buzzing” feeling, or vibration, on your fingers. These vibrations come from the voice box, or larynx, inside your throat.

Your larynx is a box-shaped organ between the back of your tongue and trachea, or wind pipe. As you breathe, the air to and from your lungs passes through your larynx. Inside your larynx are two bands of elastic tissue called vocal chords. When you are just breathing and not speaking, your vocal chords are relaxed and form a V-shaped opening through which the air passes.

But when you speak and air comes from your lungs and through your vocal chords, tiny muscles in your vocal chords stretch, contract, and change thee shape. These movements, or vibrations, of your vocal chords cause sounds.

Your lips and tongue then help make those sounds into words.

Just as no one in the world has the same fingerprints as you, so no one in the world has exactly the same voice as you either!