speech

Speech is the ability to express thoughts and emotions through vocal sounds and gestures. The act of doing this is also known as speech.

Speech is something only humans are capable of doing and this ability has contributed greatly to humanity’s ability to develop civilization. Speech allows humans to communicate much more complex information than animals are able to.

Almost all animals make sounds or noises with the intent to communicate with each other, such as mating calls and yelps of danger. However, animals aren’t actually talking to each other. That is, they aren’t forming sentences or sharing complicated information. Instead, they are making simple noises that trigger another animal’s natural instincts.

While speech does involve making noises, there is a lot more going on than simple grunts and growls. First, humans’ vocal machinery, such as our lungs, throat, vocal chords, and tongue, allows for a wide range of intricate sounds. Second, the human brain is incredibly complex, allowing humans to process vocal sounds and understand combinations of them as words and oral communication. The human brain is essential for speech. While chimpanzees and other apes have vocal organs similar to humans’, their brains are much less advanced and they are unable to learn speech.

The first records of the word speech come from before the year 900. It ultimately comes from the Old English word sprecan, meaning “to speak.” Scientists debate on the exact date that humanity first learned to speak, with estimates ranging from 50,000 to 2 million years ago.

Related to the concept of speech is the idea of language. A language is the collection of symbols, sounds, gestures, and anything else that a group of people use to communicate with each other, such as English, Swahili, and American Sign Language. Speech is actually using those things to orally communicate with someone else.

But what about birds that “talk”? Parrots in particular are famous for their ability to say human words and sentences. Birds are incapable of speech. What they are actually doing is learning common sounds that humans make and mimicking them. They don’t actually understand what anything they are repeating actually means.

Speech is essential to human communication.

Dutch is just enough like German that I can read text on signs and screens, but not enough that I can understand speech.

— Clark Smith Cox III (@clarkcox) September 8, 2009

I can make squirrels so excited, I could almost swear they understand human speech!

— Neil Oliver (@thecoastguy) July 20, 2020

• oral
• vocal
• sound
• communication
• information
• expression
• language

True or False?

Humans are the only animals capable of speech.