Tina: I'm so tired. But I guess I gotta go on this walk for my
mental health.
Steph: Hey! Can you throw that back?
Tina: Steph, is that you?
Steph: Oh Hey! Thanks, Tina.
What's—are you okay?
Tina: Am I okay? Are you okay? Why do you sound like that?!
Steph: Sounds like what?? What do you mean?!
Tina: You sound so big, but you're so little.
Steph: It's because I have a big personality.
Tina: Steph may have a big personality. But having a big
voice is usually correlated with having a big body. One feature
that affects how our voice sounds is the size of our body.
Or more specifically, the size of the biological structures
that contribute to the sounds we can produce. In fact, voice
isn't even representative of all the sounds we can make. There
are actually voiced and unvoiced sounds. For example, clicks,
whistles, and whispers.
*clicks*
*whistles*
[whispers]
All of these don't actually use your
voice. They come from other sound producing mechanisms in
your body. So what is voice specifically? Voice is a sound
made by the vocal tract. This covers everything from talking,
singing, to shouting, humming and laughing.
[singing "Is it me you're looking for"]
[huming]
[laughing]
Our vocal tract includes the oral and nasal
cavities, the pharynx (or upper throat) and the larynx, which
houses our vocal cords. However, these structures need air to
produce sound. It's when air travels through your larynx that
the vocal cords vibrate, and this is what creates the sound
of our voice. And changing these vibrations changes your voice.
Now we can control our pitch to some extent by tightening and
loosening the muscles of our larynx, which is what singers
do. But there are limits to how high or low you can go,
depending on the structure of our vocal cords. Longer and
thicker vocal cords can generate lower voices, while shorter and
thinner vocal cords can create higher voices. The size of our
vocal cords and other structures in our vocal tract is strongly
correlated with body size. Hence, it's so weird to find a
tiny person with the vocal qualities of someone twice their
size.
So that's why it doesn't make sense. Steph? Where did you go?
So weird. I swear she was right there.
Nee: Water! Get you some ice cold water!
Tina: Hey, I'll take a water.
Nee: Coming right up. That'll be $10.
Tina: Nee! What are you doing here?
Nee: Oh. Hey, Tina. You know, $10 is actually a good bargain
for some water.
Tina: No, Nee. What are you doing here? Why are you selling
water? And why do you have a Scottish accent?
Nee: Tina, I don't know what you're talking about.
Tina: Nee, do you not hear yourself?
Nee: All I hear is you not getting any water.
Tina: Look, I've known Nee for a year now and never has he had a
Scottish accent. So he definitely did not grow up with
it. Maybe he picked it up from watching too much 'Doctor Who,'
but is that even possible?
Accents are learned in the same way that we learn languages. We
can define accents as shared characteristics in speech of a
particular group. For those of you who think you don't have an
accent, everyone has one. It's just that our ears aren't very
good at hearing our own accents. So, when is your accent
determined? Every baby is born accentless. Generally by six
months old, babies are already categorizing language sounds
based on their native language and accents. That's before many
babies can even speak. This means that our brains are
priming themselves to have an accent ready to go for when we
start learning how to talk. As we age, our way of speaking,
including our accent goes on autopilot. Because of that, we
can be less perceptive to sounds that we haven't been exposed to
or haven't had to produce. That's what makes learning new
languages so hard. Sometimes they have sounds that you can't
even distinguish, let alone mimic, without a lot of work.
Taken together, it makes sense that accents tend to be shared
with the people around us, creating geographic patterns in
accents. Fun fact: some animals have accents. For example, goats
can develop goat accents. *MEEEEP* which are basically
regional differences in the sound of their bleaps. But going
back to our accent mystery— a grown person has been speaking a
language with a particular accent their entire life is
unlikely to emerge from a week long TV binge with a completely
different accent.
And anyway, $10 is entirely too much for a bottle of water!
Nee?
Where did he go?
Justin: Hey? Aren't you that girl I went on that date with?
Tina: Justin. What are you doing here? And why are you in
character?
Justin: Uh, Wrong guy. My name's Chadwig.
Tina: Did you forget who you are, Justin?
Justin: I know who I am. I'm the guy who's playing the guy
disguised as the other guy.
Tina: Okay, knock it off.
Justin: Wow. Thank you. For I once was a boy, and now I'm a
man!
Tina: You sure about that, because you sound prepubescent?
Justin: Thank you for releasing me from the spell of Chadwig!
Tina: So, uh, throughout our lives, our voices do change. The
biggest change that people encounter are typically happens
during puberty. Shifts in our hormonal balance can have a big
effect on how we sound. In particular, the sex hormone
testosterone. Increased testosterone leads to increase
bulk in our vocal muscles and ligaments, which makes them
thicker and therefore allows them to produce lower sounds.
This thickening is also why many people experience voice cracks
when they see a significant increase in testosterone, as
happens during puberty for some people. These changes such as
increased vocal fold size are unidirectional, which is one of
the reasons that exogenous testosterone can help people
lower their voice if that's what they want, but it's not possible
to shrink and thin vocal cords by prescribing estrogens, for
example.
People are weird, and that's why I don't like talking to them.
But that's why I'm happy to talk to you, Fido.
Fido: Awe, thanks, T!
What? Am I not allowed to talk because I'm a dog?
Tina: It's not that Fido is not allowed to talk. It's just that
dogs don't have the machinery for it. And the issue isn't
their vocal cords. It's their brains. Parrots get to talk
because they have the brains for it— which is unfair, I agree.
But parrots have brains that allow them to mimic human
speech, which is difficult enough on its own. But it also
is a brain that allows them to learn the meaning of particular
words, which allows them to speak in a way that makes sense.
It feels surprising, but evolutionary proximity to humans
doesn't seem to be a recipe for the ability to speak. Even our
closest evolutionary relatives, chimpanzees don't have the
neural control to create human like speech. So, don't take it
personally. Monkeys and apes have the vocal tracts for
speech, it's just their brains aren't wired to use the vocal
tracts in the right way.
Wait, why am I even debating science with a dog??! Where did
he go?? This is so weird. Wake up! Wake up, Wake up, Wake up,
wake— *sigh* It was just a dream.
Sound Guy: How's the sound?
Editor: It's a, it's a little quiet.
Sound Guy: Okay. We'll fix it in season two.
*pterodactyl noise*
[whispering: "Hey little mama, let me whisper in your ear"]
*enhales* [screams]
Tina: knock it off. I'm so sorry. Are you ok?
Justin: Nah, nah. It's fine. It's fine.
Tina: Nee! [laughs] Sorry, not Nee. Wrong guy. [laughs]
Nee: Whassup!
[Justin apologizing profusely, nervously]