NASAL INTONATION.

133 before-mentioned characters, have the power of producing a double series of notes, of a different description. To the second series of notes the name of falsetto is applied. The notes of the natural voice-called also chest-notes-are fuller, and distinctly indicate a stronger vibration and resonance, while the falsetto voice has more of a humming character. It is only with the natural voice that the deep notes can be produced, while the highest notes of a male voice are falsetto. The notes belonging to a middle pitch may belong either to the natural or the falsetto voice. Thus the two registers, as they are termed, of the voice are not bounded in such a manner that the one ends where the other begins, as, through a certain compass, they run side by side. It is remarked that the bass voice becomes falsetto lower in the scale than the tenor. the female voice there is less seldom presented a very marked distinction between the natural and falsetto registers.

In

In a human larynx detached from the body two distinct series of tones can be produced, when the tension of the vocal cords is very slight. One of these series corresponds to the tones of the ordinary voice, the other to the tones of the falsetto voice. With a certain degree of tension of the vocal cords both these kinds of tones may be produced; sometimes the one kind, sometimes the other, being heard. With a different kind of tension of the cords, notes of the falsetto character are constantly produced, whether the current of air passing through the glottis be forcible or feeble. If the vocal ligaments be much relaxed, the sounds of the ordinary voice always result, whether the current be feeble or forcible. When a slight tension of the ligaments is kept up, the falsetto is most easily produced by blowing very gently; while if the blowing be more energetic, the sound belongs to the ordinary voice. Thus, two different notes may be produced, under the same degree of tension of the ligaments, by a different force in the blowing; and the distance of these two notes from each other may be as much as an octave. "The real cause," says Müller, "of the difference between the falsetto and the notes of the natural voice is, that for the former the thin aperture only of the lips of the glottis vibrates, while for the latter the whole breadth of the cords are thrown into strong vibrations, which traverse a larger sphere." The peculiarities of the voice in different individuals must be chiefly dependent on the particular form of their air-passages and of the lining membranes, and the consequent differences in their mode of resonance. That such causes are adequate to produce all the varieties of the voice in individuals, appears from the circumstance that many persons, by altering the form of their vocal organs, can imitate the various tones of the voices of other individuals.

This nasal tone

The nasal quality of the voice is determined by like causes. appears to be given to the voice in two ways; thus a nasal sound is produced, though the external openings of the nostrils be closed when the arches of the palate approach each other, and the larynx ascends higher than in the natural voice. When the nostrils are obstructed by mucus a nasal sound is produced; this obstruction having the same effect as the voluntary closure of the anterior opening of the nostrils. In the second mode by which the nasal sound is produced, the nostrils are open, the larynx ascends considerably, the arches of the palate contract, the upper surface of the tongue ascends towards the palate, so that the air passes between the narrowed arches of the palate, and receives the resonance of the nasal cavities without that of the cavity of the mouth. The deficiency of tone in the voice of old people arises from the ossification of the cartilages of the larynx, and the altered state of the vocal cords. It is unsteady, owing to the loss of nervous command over the muscles.

The strength of the voice depends partly on the extent to which the vocal cords are capable of vibration, and partly on the great capacity of the chest, and the fitness of the various parts over which the air passes for communicating resonance. The intensity or loudness of a given note cannot be rendered greater by the mere augmentation of the force of the current through the glottis. Such an increase of force in the current will raise the pitch both of the natural and falsetto notes. It is therefore concluded that the variation in the intensity of a note, without the alteration of its pitch, must depend on some other cause than the mere change in the force of the current. Such a provision plainly lies in the power of modifying the tension of the vocal cords. To render a note more intense, without increasing its pitch, the vocal cords must be relaxed in proportion as the force of the current of the breath through the glottis has increased. When it is desired to render a note fainter, an opposite mode of action must be adopted.

causes.

The failure of perfectness in the notes of the human voice may arise from many Variations in the temperature of the atmosphere, and in its states of humidity, have a powerful influence on the pitch of the voice. While a cold, moist state of the atmosphere prevails in this country, the voices of singers become lower by two or three notes, while they regain their usual pitch when the air becomes dry. Mr. Bishop mentions that when Grassini came to this country, owing to the change of the air from that of Italy, her voice became one octave lower. After singing for two or three seasons her natural voice returned, but it had lost its attractions with the loss of the low tones which had gained her so great applause. After long singing dissonance of the voice is apt to arise; this is easily accounted for by the slight changes produced on the vocal cords in consequence of repeated tension, together with the fatigue of the muscles concerned, which, as in other cases of muscular contraction, at length cease accurately to obey the will, and hence arise unsteady movements.

Whistling. Before leaving the subject of the human voice, whistling deserves a few words. The sound in whistling does not arise from the vibrations of the lips. Several experiments prove that the lips are not thrown into vibrations. They may be touched, covered, or may have a disc of cork with a central hole placed between them, and yet the same sounds will be produced. It has been supposed, then, that the air is thrown into sonorous vibration by friction against the borders of the opening. According to Müller, the cause of the vibration is the same friction of the air; but the vibration produced upon the borders of the opening throws the whole column of air in the mouth into vibrations, and the vibrations of this column of air, by a reciprocal influence, determine the rapidity of the vibrations of the air at the orifice. The only difference, according to him, between whistling and the sounds of a pipe is, that in whistling the whole column of air is in constant progressive motion through the tube and orifice, while in a pipe the air in the tube merely vibrates, and does not move

as a current.

Speech. Speech is peculiar to man. Because speech is not possessed by individuals deprived of the organs of voice or of hearing, it is not, therefore, to be concluded that it originates in the mere possession of these organs. Inferior animals are fully provided with the organs both of hearing and of voice, and yet, in all essential respects, they are destitute of speech. Speech, therefore, must be considered under the light of a potentiality of man's intelligence, the condition of the exercise of which is the presence of the organs of hearing and of voice. That is to say, man is born susceptible, by the development of his nervous system, of the acquisition of speech, provided his

REPRESENTATION OF SOUNDS BY SYMBOLS.

135

rgans of hearing and voice are perfect. But if man be born susceptible of speech, it may be asked, why does not the deaf-mute invent a language? He does invent a language, but it is a language of expression independently of speech; he fails to express his inward feelings by the use of speech, because the defect of hearing prevents him from discovering the sounds which his voice is capable of producing. His language, therefore, is confined to the other modes of expression by which an intercommunication, however imperfect, can be carried on between men. The deaf-mute might undoubtedly carry the use of natu al signs of expression much farther, were he not overwhelmed and overpowered by the multitude of ideas which his fellow-men around him possess, and are continually striving to make him understand. It may also be asked if, owing to this natural susceptibility of speech, every infant should not invent a language. In so far every infant does invent a language, but as, long before any progress is made in its language, the sounds which it continually hears are caught up, it is impossible to judge to what extent each individual is capable of carrying such an invention.

There is no more interesting speculation than to consider the several steps by which language must have arisen among men. It is easy to understand how, in the rudest community of mankind, conventional signs must have arisen of every description; nor is it difficult to perceive that those sounds of speech which are most easily produced would quickly form a large share of those conventional signs. But it forms no part of our present design to investigate the origin of languages; it is more to the purpose to consider, in a few words, how men came to understand the several acts concerned in speech. At a certain period, then, in the progress of mankind, it appears that languages of no inconsiderable extent had already been formed, and yet that no attention could have been paid to the individual sounds composing those languages. Men spoke, and in that speech employed words without the least reference to letters, and perhaps with none even to syllables. The curious inquiry, then, which arises is, in the first place, how men were led to reduce speech to letters; that is, to analyze words into their elementary sounds.

We may suppose that the difficulty of pronouncing certain sounds, such as the words of a foreign language, must have been the first circumstance which would lead men to reflect on the modes by which speech is produced. Man's natural curiosity would not fail to engage him more largely in this inquiry as soon as the subject was suggested. Little progress, however, could be made in this pursuit till some method of fixing the sounds by name, and of representing them to one's self, or to others, at periods more or less distant from their first recognition, was invented. It may be supposed that men had already acquired the art of depicting objects of sight, were it no more than rude representations made with a rod on the sands left by a receding sea. The idea, however, of representing a sound by such a symbol is plainly not of the same kind. To think of representing a sound by a symbol is manifestly a fresh step in discovery. It required, in short, an effort of invention to produce such a stretch of thought. But the moment the idea arose all difficulty must have vanished. Nothing was easier than to observe the similar simple sounds occurring in the compound sounds which constitute speech. The mere observation of the form of the mouth, as certain simple sounds are uttered, would be sufficient to afford a foundation for this kind of knowledge. What the original symbols corresponding to our modern alphabets were, is of little moment. The first alphabets, doubtless, consisted of the representatives of but a small number of sounds. It is easy, however, to perceive that as soon as this kind of investigation was fairly commenced, it would make rapid progress, there being no great difficulty in dis

136

CONVERSION OF VOICE INTO VOWEL SOUNDS.

covering the collocation of the several parts of the mouth concerned in the production of most of the simple sounds. Thus, by an easy analysis, syllable-sounds would be reduced to letter-sounds, and each letter would quickly come to be marked by a particular symbol. The most remarkable effect of this great discovery, simple as it seems to us, would unquestionably be the rapid multiplication of sound-symbols-that is to say, the vast extension of language. The greatness of the discovery hardly strikes us at the first sight. Some idea of the character of it is obtained from the fable of words spoken becoming frozen at the moment in their fixed forms, and not reaching the ear until the return of a more genial temperature. Letters, in short, are the pictures of sounds, by which any sound now pronounced is perpetuated, while the picture itself, or a copy of it, shall endure.

Speech, then, consists of combinations of sounds produced in the larynx, and variously modified in their transition through the oral or nasal passages outwards. No language exhausts all the sounds which can be produced in the passage of the voice outwards in this manner. Languages may be described as composed of those sounds which are most easily produced in the passage of the voice from the larynx outwards into the atmosphere. And languages differ from each other chiefly by presenting various predominant groups of such sounds. The chief distinction of the sounds of speech is according as they are transmitted through the oral canal before spoken of, or the nasal passage. Another important distinction between articulate sounds is, that some are only of momentary duration, taking place during a sudden change in the conformation of the mouth, and are not capable of prolongation by a continued effusion of the breath, while others can be prolonged all the while that a particular disposition of the mouth and a constant expiration are maintained.

The same sound produced in the larynx is converted into any one of the vowelsounds merely by a modification of the parts of the mouth through which it passes. The parts of the mouth concerned have been termed the oral canal and the oral opening. The oral canal, it is to be remembered, is the space between the tongue and the palate; the oral opening is the aperture formed by the lips. Some physiologists have described five degrees of size in each of these two parts—that is, five degrees of size in the oral canal, and five degrees of size in the oral opening. One sound, then, produced in the larynx is converted into a, e, i, o, u, according to the modifications in the size of these two parts. Thus when the size of the oral canal is in the third degree, and the size of the oral opening is in the fifth or highest degree, the act of voice is converted into the sound of the English a in far. When the size of the oral canal is in the second degree, and that of the oral opening in the fourth degree, the sound of the English a in name is produced. When the size of the oral canal is in the first or lowest degree, and that of the oral opening in the third degree, the sound of the English e in theme is produced. When the size of the oral canal is in the fourth degree, and that of the oral opening in the second degree, the sound of the English o is produced. When the size of the oral canal is in the fifth or highest degree, and that of the oral opening in the first or lowest degree, the sound of u like oo in cool is produced. Of the general truth of this statement any person may satisfy himself by remarking, when he utters the broad a, how much he opens his mouth, simply breathing forth the voice with open mouth. When, on the contrary, he with the same breath attempts to pronounce e, he finds the mouth close considerably, and the tongue rise towards the roof of the mouth, so as to contract the oral canal. In pronouncing o he will observe how the lips are thrown into the form of the letter, the tongue at the same time raised from the

bottom of the mouth. The form of the vowel o in most languages points to one source of origin of those representations of sounds which we call alphabets.

Some consonants, like vowels, can be pronounced with an uninterrupted sound, which continues as long as the expiration can be prolonged, the disposition of the parts within the mouth remaining throughout as at the commencement of the sound. Of these, the aspirate is pronounced with the whole oral canal open; no interruption is offered to the passage of the breath; its sound is the simple result of the resonance of the walls of the cavity during expiration. Others of the same class, such as m, n, and ng, are produced by continuous expiration through the nasal canal, the aperture of the mouth being closed either by the lips or by the tongue being pressed against the palate. The mouth is closed by the lips while m is pronounced, the sound being produced by the simple passage of the air through the nasal cavity. When n is pronounced, the mouth is closed by the extremity of the tongue being pressed against the fore part of the palate. Ng is regarded as a simple sound in the word sing and bang. It is produced also by the passage of sound through the nostril, while the posterior part of the tongue is pressed against the palate. Other consonants, again, of the same class, are continuous sounds developed by the valve-like application of different parts of the mouth to each other, such as f, s, r, l. Fis pronounced by the application of the lower lip to the teeth. In pronouncing s, the teeth are brought into contact with each other, while the point of the tongue touches the lower teeth; in the sound of r, the tongue vibrates against the palate; in the sound of l, the point of the tongue is applied close to the palate, and the air escapes between the tongue and the cheeks. The English th is a modification of s.

The mute consonants with explosive sounds come next to be spoken of. The organs of speech by which these sounds are formed undergo a sudden change of position during their production. The sound commences with the closing of the mouth and terminates when it opens-that is to say, these consonants cannot be prolonged at pleasure; b, g, d, of which p, k, t are modifications, coming under this head. In sounding 6, the lips are brought together and close the mouth, while they separate again at the moment the air is expired. In sounding d, the tongue is applied to the anterior part of the palate, or to the upper teeth, so as to close the mouth, which opens with the escape of the breath. In sounding g—that is, the hard g, as in gold-the momentary closure of the passage through the mouth takes place, more posteriorly, by the application of the back part of the tongue to the palate. In sounding p, t, and k, the requisite modifications of b, d, and g are produced by a stronger aspiration during the opening of the mouth, which was previously closed. All the sounds hitherto mentioned are capable of being pronounced in whispered speech. The English y and z cannot be uttered without an accompanying vocal sound. Thus, when an attempt is made to sound the English y in a whisper, the German ch is produced in its stead. All the vowels are capable of being produced equally in whispered speech, and with a vocal tone. Many consonants also, as f, s, r, l, m, n, ng, can be pronounced either with mute sounds or with vocal intonations. The continuous consonant h can only be pronounced in whispered voice; and it is quite impossible to combine the sounds of the explosive consonants, b, d, g, and their modifications, p, t, k, with an intonation of the voice.

Besides the ordinary sounds of consonants which enter into the formation of languages, other sounds are capable of being produced in the mouth and throat. The smacking sounds produced by the separation of the teeth from the tongue or palate,