VOICE, a sound produced in the throat and mouth of an animal, by an apparatus of instruments for that purpose.
Voice is either articulate or inarticulate. Articulate voices are those whereof several conspire together to form some assemblage or little system of sounds; such are the voices expressing the letters of an alphabet, numbers of which joined together form words. Inarticulate voices are such as are not organized, or assembled into words; such is the barking of dogs, the braying of asses, the hissing of serpents, the singing of birds, &c.
The formation of the human voice, with all the varieties thereof observed in speech, music, &c. makes a very curious article of inquiry; and the apparatus and organization of the parts administering thereto, is something exceedingly surprising. Those parts are the trachea or wind-pipe, through which the air passes and repasses into the lungs; the larynx, which is a short cylindrical canal at the head of the trachea; and the glottis, which is a little oval cleft or chink left between two semicircular membranes stretched horizontally within side the larynx; which membranes, though capable of joining close together, do generally leave an interval either greater or less between them called the glottis. A particular description of each part may be seen in Anatomy, Part IV.