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Voice and sound are different from one another; and language differs from voice and sound. The fact is that no animal can give utterance to voice except by the action of the pharynx, and consequently such animals as are devoid of lung have no voice; and language is the articulation of vocal sounds by the instrumentality of the tongue. Thus, the voice and larynx can emit vocal or vowel sounds; non-vocal or consonantal sounds are made by the tongue and the lips; and out of these vocal and non-vocal sounds language is composed. Consequently, animals that have no tongue at all or that have a tongue not freely detached, have neither voice nor language; although, by the way, they may be enabled to make noises or sounds by other organs than the tongue.

Insects, for instance, have no voice and no language, but they can emit sound by internal air or wind, though not by the emission of air or wind; for no insects are capable of respiration. But some of them make a humming noise, like the bee and the other winged insects; and others are said to sing, as the cicada. And all these latter insects make their special noises by means of the membrane that is underneath the 'hypozoma'-those insects, that is to say, whose body is thus divided; as for instance, one species of cicada, which makes the sound by means of the friction of the air. Flies and bees, and the like, produce their special noise by opening and shutting their wings in the act of flying; for the noise made is by the friction of air between the wings when in motion. The noise made by grasshoppers is produced by rubbing or reverberating with their long hind-legs.

No mollusc or crustacean can produce any natural voice or sound. Fishes can produce no voice, for they have no lungs, nor windpipe and pharynx; but they emit certain inarticulate sounds and squeaks, which is what is called their 'voice', as the lyra or gurnard, and the sciaena (for these fishes make a grunting kind of noise) and the caprus or boar-fish in the river Achelous, and the chalcis and the cuckoo-fish; for the chalcis makes a sort piping sound, and the cuckoo-fish makes a sound greatly like the cry of the cuckoo, and is nicknamed from the circumstance. The apparent voice in all these fishes is a sound caused in some cases by a rubbing motion of their gills, which by the way are prickly, or in other cases by internal parts about their bellies; for they all have air or wind inside them, by rubbing and moving which they produce the sounds. Some cartilaginous fish seem to squeak.

But in these cases the term 'voice' is inappropriate; the more correct expression would be 'sound'. For the scallop, when it goes along supporting itself on the water, which is technically called 'flying', makes a whizzing sound; and so does the sea-swallow or flying-fish: for this fish flies in the air, clean out of the water, being furnished with fins broad and long. Just then as in the flight of birds the sound made by their wings is obviously not voice, so is it in the case of all these other creatures.

The dolphin, when taken out of the water, gives a squeak and moans in the air, but these noises do not resemble those above mentioned. For this creature has a voice (and can therefore utter vocal or vowel sounds), for it is furnished with a lung and a windpipe; but its tongue is not loose, nor has it lips, so as to give utterance to an articulate sound (or a sound of vowel and consonant in combination.)

Of animals which are furnished with tongue and lung, the oviparous quadrupeds produce a voice, but a feeble one; in some cases, a shrill piping sound, like the serpent; in others, a thin faint cry; in others, a low hiss, like the tortoise. The formation of the tongue in the frog is exceptional. The front part of the tongue, which in other animals is detached, is tightly fixed in the frog as it is in all fishes; but the part towards the pharynx is freely detached, and may, so to speak, be spat outwards, and it is with this that it makes its peculiar croak. The croaking that goes on in the marsh is the call of the males to the females at rutting time; and, by the way, all animals have a special cry for the like end at the like season, as is observed in the case of goats, swine, and sheep. (The bull-frog makes its croaking noise by putting its under jaw on a level with the surface of the water and extending its upper jaw to its utmost capacity. The tension is so great that the upper jaw becomes transparent, and the animal's eyes shine through the jaw like lamps; for, by the way, the commerce of the sexes takes place usually in the night time.) Birds can utter vocal sounds; and such of them can articulate best as have the tongue moderately flat, and also such as have thin delicate tongues. In some cases, the male and the female utter the same note; in other cases, different notes. The smaller birds are more vocal and given to chirping than the larger ones; but in the pairing season every species of bird becomes particularly vocal. Some of them call when fighting, as the quail, others cry or crow when challenging to combat, as the partridge, or when victorious, as the barn-door cock. In some cases cock-birds and hens sing alike, as is observed in the nightingale, only that the hen stops singing when brooding or rearing her young; in other birds, the cocks sing more than the hens; in fact, with barn-door fowls and quails, the cock sings and the hen does not.

Viviparous quadrupeds utter vocal sounds of different kinds, but they have no power of converse. In fact, this power, or language, is peculiar to man. For while the capability of talking implies the capability of uttering vocal sounds, the converse does not hold good. Men that are born deaf are in all cases also dumb; that is, they can make vocal sounds, but they cannot speak. Children, just as they have no control over other parts, so have no control, at first, over the tongue; but it is so far imperfect, and only frees and detaches itself by degrees, so that in the interval children for the most part lisp and stutter.

Vocal sounds and modes of language differ according to locality. Vocal sounds are characterized chiefly by their pitch, whether high or low, and the kinds of sound capable of being produced are identical within the limits of one and the same species; but articulate sound, that one might reasonably designate 'language', differs both in various animals, and also in the same species according to diversity of locality; as for instance, some partridges cackle, and some make a shrill twittering noise. Of little birds, some sing a different note from the parent birds, if they have been removed from the nest and have heard other birds singing; and a mother-nightingale has been observed to give lessons in singing to a young bird, from which spectacle we might obviously infer that the song of the bird was not equally congenital with mere voice, but was something capable of modification and of improvement. Men have the same voice or vocal sounds, but they differ from one another in speech or language.

The elephant makes a vocal sound of a windlike sort by the mouth alone, unaided by the trunk, just like the sound of a man panting or sighing; but, if it employ the trunk as well, the sound produced is like that of a hoarse trumpet.