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File:Real-time MRI - Speaking (English).ogvPlay media
Speech production (English) visualized by Real-time MRI
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Speech is the vocalized form of human communication. It is based upon the syntac
tic combination of lexicals and names that are drawn from very large (usually ab
out 10,000 different words) vocabularies. Each spoken word is created out of the
phonetic combination of a limited set of vowel and consonant speech sound units
. These vocabularies, the syntax which structures them, and their set of speech
sound units differ, creating the existence of many thousands of different types
of mutually unintelligible human languages. Most human speakers are able to comm
unicate in two or more of them,[1] hence being polyglots. The vocal abilities th
at enable humans to produce speech also provide humans with the ability to sing.
A gestural form of human communication exists for the deaf in the form of sign l
anguage. Speech in some cultures has become the basis of a written language, oft
en one that differs in its vocabulary, syntax and phonetics from its associated
spoken one, a situation called diglossia. Speech in addition to its use in commu
nication, it is suggested by some psychologists such as Vygotsky is internally u
sed by mental processes to enhance and organize cognition in the form of an inte
rior monologue.
Speech is researched in terms of the speech production and speech perception of
the sounds used in vocal language. Other research topics concern speech repetiti
on, the ability to map heard spoken words into the vocalizations needed to recre
ate them, that plays a key role in the vocabulary expansion in children and spee
ch errors. Several academic disciplines study these including acoustics, psychol
ogy, speech pathology, linguistics, cognitive science, communication studies, ot
olaryngology and computer science. Another area of research is how the human bra
in in its different areas such as the Broca's area and Wernicke's area underlies
speech.
It is controversial how far human speech is unique in that other animals also co
mmunicate with vocalizations. While none in the wild have compatibly large vocab
ularies, research upon the nonverbal abilities of language trained apes such as
Washoe and Kanzi raises the possibility that they might have these capabilities.
The origins of speech are unknown and subject to much debate and speculation.