What Really Happens When You Whisper?
When you whisper, you reveal a secret. Until that moment, it remains a thought that you exclusively possess in your mind; your little secret. But all of a sudden, through the magic of the whisper, it is revealed to the intended person(s). But only them. None more; none less.
Such is the magic and power of a whisper. A whisper can bring about love; a whisper can bring about war. But what is a whisper, for but a secret awaiting its arrival unto this world?
“It was the kind of conversation you could only hold in whispers.” — Aimee Bender, The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake.
No one can deny that a whisper sounds different. It even feels different. But how does it actually work? How does the human body make it possible? What are the other nuances associated with it? In this article, I try to delve into this intriguing topic. If you’re on board, let’s dive right into the journey.
When You Speak Normally…
To differentiate whispering from speaking normally, let’s look at how the body goes about speaking normally. Various elements of the human body that enable us to speak.
The base is created by the vocal cords, and the finesse or detail is added by the combination of the mouth cavity, the tongue, teeth, and their dynamic combinations.
The base is created by the vocal cords when they vibrate. This vibration is in essence your voice. Below, you can see how abduction and adduction of the vocal cords are performed to optimize for two different human tasks: breathing (involuntary) and speaking (voluntary).
When You Whisper…
When you whisper, you are aiming to remove your voice from your speech. The vocal cords are not vibrating in this case, as they do when you speak normally. This is the key difference between the two activities.
But how can sound be produced without vibrations? Well, they are produced by a different form of vibration. The base for the whisper is created by air turbulence created within the larynx of the throat.
Your Language Changes When You Whisper…
We as human beings have developed speech using our capability to vary sounds coming out of our mouths.
And some of these fundamental sound variations are created by adding vocal cord vibration to a particular state of your vocal cord base and removing vocal cord vibration from the same state to produce an entirely new sound.
Let’s look at examples from the English language. The fundamental difference between the base sound of an ‘f’ and the base sound of a ‘v’ is nothing but the vibration of the vocal cord.
If you are unsure, try experimenting with yourself. Focus on the positioning of your lips, tongue, teeth, mouth, etc. You’ll immediately appreciate the remarkable similarity between the two.
Now, try to whisper the ‘v’ (try to not vibrate your vocal cords). Suddenly, you’d realise how hard it is to do. This is because the ‘v’ was born out of adding vocal cord vibration to the same apparent state of the ‘f’.
There are several more examples of this kind of variation in the English language. If you are the venturous type, here are a couple for you to try out: [‘s’ and ‘z’] and [‘p’ and ‘b’].
In each of these cases, your body state positioning (with your lips, tongue, teeth, mouth, etc.) will be alike, and the difference would be that the second letter has a vocal cord vibration activation added to it.
Now we know why whispers are not always clear to understand. It’s funny how the human body works. Some secrets may not be whispered!
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Further reading that might interest you: Why Do You Feel Odd When You Oversleep? and Why You Tear Already Cut Plastic Bags More Easily?
You can read the original essay here.
