Buzz
Few individuals give much thought to the mechanics of their mouth. We mastered the art of producing noises and shaping words so early in life that manipulating your tongue into various positions to articulate every sound in your language (or languages) feels entirely instinctive. A new online voice simulator demonstrates how these sounds are actually formed.
As reported by Motherboard, Neil Thapen, a mathematician based in Prague who also develops video games, created a web app named Pink Trombone that emulates the functions of your mouth, nasal cavity, and throat in generating speech.
You can adjust volume and pitch using the voicebox control bar at the bottom, and interact with different parts of the mouth to alter the sounds produced. Move the circle within the tongue control to hear various vowels; experiment by clicking around the palate or lips to produce consonants (often resembling sounds like “guuuuuuuh”). You can tighten the throat or link the nasal cavity to the oral cavity for a melodic tone.
See how it functions in the video above, or try it out yourself here—then explore these 19th-century diagrams designed to teach proper pronunciation.
