Speech
Speech is the vocalized form of human communication. It is based upon the syntactic combination of lexicals and names that are drawn from very large (usually about 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 (polyglots) are able to communicate in two or more of them. The vocal abilities that enable humans to produce speech also provide humans with the ability to sing.
Read more about Speech.
Famous quotes containing the word speech:
“Greek is the embodiment of the fluent speech that runs or soars, the speech of a people which could not help giving winged feet to its god of art. Latin is the embodiment of the weighty and concentrated speech which is hammered and pressed and polished into the shape of its perfection, as the ethically minded Romans believed that the soul also should be wrought.”
—Havelock Ellis (1859–1939)
“Wine is a part of society because it provides a basis not only for a morality but also for an environment; it is an ornament in the slightest ceremonials of French daily life, from the snack ... to the feast, from the conversation at the local café to the speech at a formal dinner”
—Roland Barthes (1915–1980)