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:
“On me your voice falls as they say love should,
Like an enormous yes. My Crescent City
Is where your speech alone is understood.”
—Philip Larkin (1922–1986)
“If the oarsmen of a fast-moving ship suddenly cease to row, the suspension of the driving force of the oars doesn’t prevent the vessel from continuing to move on its course. And with a speech it is much the same. After he has finished reciting the document, the speaker will still be able to maintain the same tone without a break, borrowing its momentum and impulse from the passage he has just read out.”
—Marcus Tullius Cicero (106–43 B.C)
“Some subjects come up suddenly in our speech and cannot be silenced.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)