Duality of Voice

by Emil Sutro

CENTRIPETAL AND CENTRIFUGAL

While speaking our native tongue our muscles move, our sinews tend, our vessels lean, our blood throbs, and our nerves tingle with the essence of our language in its direction, and not in the direction of any other language. We not only speak and sing our language, but we gesticulate it, we walk it, dance it, write it, think it, smile it, and sorrow in it. Everything we do is done differently from the same thing done by a person speaking another language. The movements of the muscles of a German are centripetal, while those of an Anglo-Saxon are centrifugal. With a German they close in around the mouth; with an Anglo-Saxon they depart from the mouth upward and downward. Hence the broad features of the German versus the elongated ones of the Anglo-Saxon. Look at the old people. The centrifugal action with an Anglo-Saxon even in old age still leaves his form erect, his face serene, scarcely showing a wrinkle, either on his forehead, his cheeks, or around the eyes and mouth. Apart from his bleached hair, he frequently retains a quite youthful appearance. The centripetal action with a German in old age, on the other hand, has a tendency to bend his form and draw it together, and to shrivel up his skin into innumerable wrinkles, so that his mouth often resembles the mouth of a purse drawn close together. This youthful appearance with aged English-speaking people reflects on their customs and their costume, which latter retains much of the tidiness of their younger days. Germans, on the other hand, age soon. This fact is so apparent that they conform their habits and general appearance to their age. They feel old, and unhesitatingly submit to their aged condition. They often appear old when still comparatively young. English-speaking old people, on the other hand, are never too old not to wish to appear young. For the terms "Greis" and "Greisin," which imply a weakened and somewhat helpless condition, there is no corresponding expression in the English language.

Observe a gang of laborers carrying a heavy log. If there are Germans among them, their heads and shoulders will be bent, as well as their knees, resembling caryatides in Gothic churches. They carry from below, upward. Those who speak English, on the other hand, will walk with heads erect, straight shoulders, and stiff knees, resembling the caryatides of the Greek temples. They carry from above, downward.

The German mode of expression is produced by contraction, expansion, contraction; the English by expansion, contraction, expansion. For the former, contraction takes place towards the diaphragm, first upward and then downward; that is, from the feet upward, and then from the head downward. For the latter, expansion takes place from the diaphragm, first upward and then downward; that is, from the diaphragm towards the head, and then from the diaphragm towards the feet.

Artists must study these things if they want to get a proper insight into life, and the action of life, characteristic of different nations. The simple study of anatomy gives them no clue to these matters. Everything we do is done differently from the same thing being done by a person speaking another language. The books on physiology do not make mention of these matters. They treat all nations alike. They tell an Englishman that in closing his mouth the muscles of the upper lip by a direct action are first raised and then lowered, while those of the lower are first lowered and then raised. As a matter of fact, the natural tendency with English-speaking people is towards having their mouths open. In closing the same the lower lip is first raised, then lowered, the upper is first lowered, then raised, and again lowered; whereupon the lower lip is raised. This gives three movements to each lip. The natural tendency with Germans is towards keeping their mouths closed. To firmly close the same they must raise the upper lip, lower the lower, lower the upper, and then raise the lower. This gives two movements to each lip. These motions are indirect with Anglo-Saxons, with Germans they are direct. With Anglo-Saxons the lower jaw is the main instrument; with Germans it is the upper. With Anglo-Saxons the lower moves up to the upper; while with Germans the upper closes down on the lower. That Anglo-Saxons move their lower jaw up to the upper, to them will appear as a matter of course; yet Germans do not do this; with them the lower jaw is first raised to be in position to be met by the upper, the latter being lowered from the atlas by motions made by the entire upper part of the head.

During speech the head of an Anglo-Saxon remains impassive; there is no perceptible movement except in connection with his lower jaw. Hence his stolid immovability in contradistinction with the mobility and vivacity of a German, whose entire head, often accompanied by his entire body, appears to take part in his speech. These motions, though fundamental with these peoples, vary with locality, individual character, temperament, etc. A German if he keeps his cranium entirely still will be unable to produce a sound; while an Anglo-Saxon will be unable to produce a sound if he should move it as Germans do. A German's power of vocal utterance lies in the flexibility of his cranium; an Anglo-Saxon's in that of his lower jaw.

An Anglo-Saxon grinds the teeth of his lower jaw, in anger or in passion, or while masticating food, or under any other circumstances, against those of his upper; a German grinds those of his upper jaw against those of the lower.

All motions in connection with vocal utterance on the part of an Anglo-Saxon are of a decidedly larger compass than those of a German; the latter being confined to the slight motions he is able to make with his head, while the former frequently draws down his lower jaw to a very great extent, far more so than a German would be able to draw down his.

The "life" with the German is in the upper, with Anglo-Saxons it is in the lower jaw; the former representing the thorax, the latter the abdomen. While the thorax, as already mentioned, with Germans is the predominating vehicle for every performance of life, with Anglo-Saxons it is the abdomen.

With Germans the lower jaw is the anvil, the upper the hammer; with Anglo-Saxons the upper is the anvil, the lower the hammer; the action, the life, always being with the hammer.

If you watch an American girl chewing taffy you will find her lower jaw going way down, then out, and up again. This is characteristic of the manner in which Anglo-Saxons breathe and speak. The chewing process, owing to the adhesion of the taffy to the teeth, together with the greater flexibility of a girl's jaws, brings out these features more strikingly than under ordinary circumstances. In chewing taffy the lower jaw (the hammer) meets with some difficulty in making its movements; it is therefore lowered as much as possible, so as to be able to more effectually close in with the upper (the anvil). A German girl's movements under similar conditions are restricted, being largely confined to the upper jaw, which cannot be raised to any great extent.

An Anglo-Saxon speaker or singer makes movements similar to such a chewer of taffy. He draws his lower jaw down and out to make room in the lower cavity of his mouth for the expression of his main sounds. These are the product of the abdominal cavity and find their way out through the œsophagus from beneath the lower surface of the tongue. Here they pass the replica and the frænum, which impart to them their rhythmical expression. Any one doubting the correctness of these statements, by making the replica and the frænum, or either of them, rigid, will not, if he is an Anglo-Saxon, be able to produce a single sound; if he is a German, he will still be able to utter his main sounds coming to the surface through the trachea, over and above his tongue. An Anglo-Saxon, on the other hand, may still speak when he makes the vocal cords of the larynx rigid; while a German in that case will be unable to produce any sound whatsoever. To these matters I have already called attention in a previous publication, in connection with the man who was deprived of his larynx by a surgical operation, but not of his power of speech.

A similar experiment may be made in regard to breathing. By making the soft palate, representing the thorax, rigid, you will not be able to inspire, though you may expire. By making the bottom of the mouth close to your teeth (the soft palate of the lower jaw), representing the abdomen, rigid, you will not be able to expire, though you may inspire. With a German the precisely opposite facts prevail. By making the soft palate rigid, he will stop expiration; by making the bottom of the mouth close to the teeth rigid, he will stop inspiration.

During vocal utterance, with Germans every superior muscle first moves downward, every inferior upward; while with Anglo-Saxons every superior muscle first moves upward, every inferior downward. This is preparatory and previous to action. During action the German opens his mouth, the Anglo-Saxon closes his. Hence the Anglo-Saxon's half-open mouth while in repose, and his almost stern expression while in action, pleasurable action even, which has provoked the witty saying that "Englishmen take to their pleasures sadly."

The abdomen being the centre of gravity for English speech, and the lower jaw being in direct communication with the same by way of the œsophagus, by making the lower jaw rigid you stop the flow of English sounds. The thorax, on the other hand, being the centre of gravity for German speech, and the upper jaw being in direct communication with the same by way of the trachea, in making this jaw rigid you stop the flow of German sounds.