The study of the vocal-tract anatomy is part of many academic curricula for singers, so voice students and teachers increasingly communicate using medical vocabulary. At first, many of the names seem strange, even arbitrary. Where did they come from, and how did they come to designate the parts of the vocal anatomy?
I thought it would be fun to devote a column to these words. Many have an ancient and evocative history. They often come from a time before modern medicine understood their true structure and function, but the names persist, and they resonate with the history and romance of anatomy.
Some structures are simply called by the names of the objects they resemble. The uvula is a good example. This small appendage hangs from the free margin of the soft palate. It acts as a rainspout, collecting nasal secretions from the upper surface of the palate and allowing them to drip to the back of the tongue. I have heard patients prosaically refer to the uvula as “the punching bag,” but the original name is more poetic—it means “small grape.” (Uva is Latin for “grape.”)
The tonsils are a pair of structures in the mouth that also bring a fruit to mind. Many languages refer to them as “almonds” (“Mandeln” in German, for example), due to their shape and pitted appearance.
Often the name of the structure is adjectival, still alluding to an object it resembles. For example, the food gutters on either side of the larynx are the pyriform fossae , the pear-shaped trenches. The names of the three main cartilages of the larynx taken together almost have the quality, if not the structure, of a haiku, painting an image from daily life in ancient times. The thyroid cartilage resembles a foot soldier’s shield; the cricoid cartilage looks like a signet ring; and the arytenoid cartilage recalls the shape of a water jug or ewer.
The allusions can at times be quite fanciful. The term “palate” is relatively new. Surgical books of the late 1800s referred to palate surgery not as “palatoplasty,” but as “uranoplasty,” referring to Uranus, ancient Greek god of the sky and grandfather of Zeus. The metaphor compares the palate to the celestial vault, arching above the earth. And those large round taste buds on the back of the tongue (did you ever wonder what those big bumps were?) are called the circumvallate papillae, the term suggesting small medieval towers surrounded by a moat or trench (circumvallum).
As anatomy and medicine have advanced, we have discarded many of the older names. Some of these antiquated descriptive terms simply reflected an ignorance of function. For example, in the days of Vesalius, an Italian Renaissance anatomist, the trachea was called “arteria aspera,” or “rough artery.” To ancient anatomists, secretly dissecting cadavers by torchlight, the trachea may indeed have resembled a large hollow artery with corrugated walls.
Of course, some names are more mundane. Muscles in the neck are typically named for the bony structures they connect. The thyrohyoid muscle, one of the important elevators of the larynx, lifts the shield-like thyroid cartilage up towards the yoke-like hyoid bone. The sternocleidomastoid (SCM) muscle is the main strap-like muscle that runs obliquely across each side of the neck and is responsible for turning the head. The SCM connects the sternum (breastbone) and the clavicle, below, with the mastoid process (behind the ear) above.
Each of these bony structures, in turn, evokes much richer images. The mastoid is “breast-shaped.” The clavicle resembles a small key (claviculum), perhaps a wrought-iron key to an ancient dungeon. Incidentally, the clavicle also shares its derivation with keyboard instruments such as the clavichord, the klavier, and the Cuban claves. I wonder if this key-shaped bone was the original “skeleton key”?
The sternum, however, takes the etymological cake. Its two main parts, the manubrium (the smaller upper part that articulates with the clavicle) and the larger body, or gladiolus (which articulates with the ribs), refer, in turn, to the handle and the blade of a short Roman sword. Professional fighters who used this breastbone-shaped weapon in lethal battle came to be known as “gladiators.” And you thought singing was difficult.
Some names in anatomy and pathology commemorate and honor great doctors otherwise forgotten. The Eustachian tubes obviously echo an anatomist’s name. The two tiny accessory cartilages of the larynx (don’t worry if you don’t know these—they are real small, and of no significance to singers) perpetuate the memory of the anatomists Santorini and Wirsung. The medical name game even has a competitive, nationalistic edge. A single condition, chronic autoimmune inflammation of the thyroid gland, can be referred to as either Graves’ disease, Basedow’s disease, or Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, depending whether you are English, Russian, or Japanese.
Even today we continue to rename structures, to reflect our growing understanding of their true structure or function. Perhaps most illustrative for singers is the renaming of the two vibrating structures that produce the voice. The older term “vocal cords” implied two taut strings. To the gross anatomist looking at a dry specimen this may be a valid comparison, but the name does not reflect the structural complexity of these structures and the fact that they are covered by a somewhat loose surface epithelium. “Vocal folds” has therefore become the currently accepted term.
Neither term tells the entire story. “Vocal cord” might describe the vocal ligament and “vocal fold” the overlying epithelium (“fold” somehow implies a bunching up or redundancy of a single layer, such as a fold in a piece of cloth), but neither term addresses the multilayered structure of the thing or its function. So the definitive name (at least in English) is still waiting to be invented. The best current descriptive term may well be the German “Stimmlippen” or “voice lips,” which describes what these structures do, rather than just their appearance, and the comparison to the multi-layered and sphincter-like lips implies a complexity that both “vocal cords” and “vocal folds” miss.
But that’s enough entertainment for the moment. And now, students, back to that vocal anatomy class!
