TONGUE AS A SPEECH ORGAN

TONGUE AS A SPEECH ORGAN 

The tongue has long been thought of the speech organ par excellence, even though its biological role lies in tasting and swallowing, not in vocalizing. In many languages the word for “tongue” and the word for “language” are one and the same (French langue, Spanish lengua, Russian iazyk for instance, or tongue in Biblical and Shakespearean English). In actual fact the larynx is also important, as we have seen — but as people are much less conscious of it, it seems to have attracted less attention.
Anyway, the tongue is certainly involved in the articulation of a large number of sounds, just a few of which have been mentioned above. Its versatility is due to the fact that it consists entirely of nerve and muscle tissue, so it is highly flexible and mobile.  The tongue is not thin and flat (even though it may feel that way), but has a considerable amount of depth or body.
It’s convenient to consider the tongue as consisting of a number of different sections . As there are no clear cut-off points on the tongue itself, these division are somewhat arbitrary, and can vary from one authority to another. But most phoneticians distinguish between the TIP, the BLADE, the FRONT (not a good name, as it’s more like the middle than the front!), the BACK and the ROOT. These articulate against different parts of the roof of the mouth, giving sounds like the s of so (with the blade),the sh of shall (with the front), and so on.