312 SIR CHARLES BELL ON THE ORGANS OF THE HUMAN VOICE. 
man, instead of being able to deliver an oration of some hours in length, would 
be exhausted in a few sentences; like a person who bellows and gives pain 
by the violence and consequent ungracefulness of his action. 
If we enter into a more particular examination of the formation of the con¬ 
sonants, we shall perceive that, without the action of the pharynx, those letters 
must have been mutes, which, through its operation, do in fact give the 
greatest force and distinctness to language. The circumstance which I have 
to notice could not altogether escape the observation of grammarians. They 
speak of the guttural sounds as belonging to the production of certain conso¬ 
nants. Bishop Wilkins expresses this by referring to that murmur in the throat 
before the breath is emitted in pronouncing these letters. Thus grammarians 
distinguish the mute letter P, which has no sound previous to the parting 
of the lips, from B, which has a guttural sound before the explosion of the 
lips. 
Had the cause of this sound been investigated, these ingenious men 
would have presented the subject to us in greater simplicity. “ This gut¬ 
tural sound,” they say, “ is produced by a compression of the larynx or 
windpipebut this has no meaning, and cannot pass for an explanation. 
This murmur, like all other sounds, proceeds from the vibration of the glottis; 
but, as w r e have seen, the glottis cannot vibrate without the ascent of the 
breath through it;—how then is this murmur to be produced when the mouth 
is closed, and there is no aspiration ? The air ascends because the bag of the 
pharynx, or arriere-bouche, is filling. It is during the distention of the bag, 
that the breath ascends and produces the sound which precedes and gives the 
character to some of the explosive letters ; and it is this preceding murmur 
which distinguishes these letters from others, produced by the same position of 
the “ organs” in the mouth, but which are mute or nasal. Thus the triad of 
consonants D, B, G (hard), are called semimutes, because, without the assist¬ 
ance of any vowel, they are attended with a faint sound, “ which continues 
for a little time.” The letters T, P, K are produced by the same position of 
the organs in the mouth, but they are preceded by no murmur; and therefore 
it is that they are called mutes: whereas, in D, B, G, the pharynx fills, pre¬ 
ceding the parting of the lips. It is this filling of the pharynx, and conse¬ 
quent murmur in the glottis, which gives reason for the grammarians to say 
