Anatomy of the Human Vocal Tract

Fig. 1 shows a diagram of the human vocal tract, with some acoustically-significant features labeled. Acoustically-significant features not shown on the diagram include the lungs, the trachea (or windpipe--this is the tube which connects the lungs to the larynx), the glottis (or opening between the vocal chords or glottal folds), and the uvula (or fleshy prolongation that hangs from the soft palate). A more authoritative source for information about vocal tract anatomy may be found in [Netter 2003].

Figure 1: Diagram of the human vocal tract, showing some acoustically-significant features (adapted from [Cook 1990]).