loz THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



result of training, managed in a more artistically effective manner 

 than in ordinary speech. 



Speech differs from song as walking does from dancing ; speech 

 may be called the prose, song the poetry of vocal sound. Mr. Her- 

 bert Spencer has denned song as " emotional speech," but this 

 term might with greater justice be used to designate the hystero- 

 epileptic oratory which threatens to become acclimatized in this 

 sober island, or even to the exchange of amenities between two 

 angry cabmen. It would be more accurate to call song " musical 

 speech," using the word " musical " in its strict sense as signifying 

 sound with definite variations of tone and regularity of time. But, 

 just as there may be " songs without words," so there may be 

 speech without voice, as in whispering. Sound, as we have already 

 seen, is produced in the larynx, but articulation, or the transforma- 

 tion of meaningless sound into speech, is performed in the mouth ; 

 in speaking, therefore, the two parts work together, the larynx 

 sending out a stream of sound, and the mouth, by means of the 

 tongue, cheeks, palate, teeth, and lips, breaking it up into vari- 

 ously formed jets of words. In other words, the larynx supplies 

 the raw material of sound which the mouth manufactures into 

 speech. Time, which is an essential element of song, is altogether 

 disregarded in speech, while the intervals of tone are so irregular 

 as to defy notation, and are filled up with a number of interme- 

 diate sounds instead of being sharply defined. The voice glides 

 about at its own sweet will in speaking, obeying no rule whatever, 

 while in song it springs or drops from one tone to the next over 

 strictly measured gaps. In singing, short syllables are lengthened 

 out and cease in fact to be short, and (except in certain kinds of 

 dramatic singing and in recitative) the accent naturally falls on 

 the vowels and not on the consonants. In speaking, only the lower 

 third of the voice is employed as a rule, while in singing the 

 greatest effect is generally produced, except in the case of contral- 

 tos and basses, by the use of the upper and middle notes. In speech 

 the range of tone, even in the most excitable persons, hardly ever 

 exceeds half an octave; in singing the average compass is two 

 octaves. Singing tends to preserve purity of language, the rules 

 which govern the utterance of every note also affecting the artic- 

 ulate element combined with it, and keeping the words cast in 

 fixed forms a stereotype of sound, if I may venture the metaphor. 

 Speech, on the other hand, like handwriting, is always changing. 

 As Max Miiller says : " A struggle for life is constantly going on 

 among the words and grammatical forms in each language. The 

 better, the shorter, the easier forms are constantly gaining the 

 upper hand, and they owe their success to their own inherent 

 virtue." * Thus speech not only tends to split language into dia- 



* " Nature," January 6, 1870. 



