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Alaryngeal speech


Alaryngeal speech is speech made using sources other than the glottis in the larynx to create voiced sound. There are three types: esophageal, buccal, and pharyngeal speech. Each of these uses an alternative method of creating speech-like phonation to that normally provided by the vocal cords. These forms of alaryngeal speech are also called "pseudo-voices".

Esophageal speech uses air supply to create phonation from the esophagus and pharyngo-esophageal segment to act as a replacement for the glottis. It is usually acquired following speech therapy after laryngectomy as a replacement for laryngeal speech.

This is created by producing an air bubble between the left (or right) upper jaw and the cheek that can act as an alternative "lung". The person then uses muscular action to drive the air through a small gap between or behind the teeth into the mouth. The sound so produced makes a high rough sound. This then is articulated to make speech. It is usually acquired as a taught or self-learnt skill for entertainment. It can be used as a method of singing. It is also known as Donald Duck talk due to its use by Clarence Charles "Ducky" Nash for the voice of the Disney Donald Duck character.

This is created by producing the air supply needed for phonation in the pharynx and creating a replacement for the glottis using the tongue and the upper alveolus, the palate, or the pharyngeal wall.

In one case, pharyngeal speech was studied in a 12-year-old girl that used it as her exclusive form of speech following tracheotomy at 2 years of age. Such speech was impaired in spite of ten years of her exclusive use of it for communication. Fifty percent of her time while speaking was silence. Of the other fifty percent, half was spent creating “quasiperiodic” speech-like sound and the other half spent creating noise. This produced an “unpleasant, markedly hoarse voice quality which was consistently evident in her pharyngeal speech". This contrasts with skilled esophageal speakers that spend less than 20% of their time producing noise. Such speech has limited success in making some place of articulation and especially manner of articulation and voicing phonetic distinctions. There are also difficulties in creating consonant clusters and polysyllabic words. Such speech was "generally well understood by immediate family members" but "reported to be largely unintelligible to outsiders".


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