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Vocalization
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Educational diagram showing the human voice-producing apparatus, including a side view of the head and neck with labeled tongue, larynx, vocal cords, and trachea, plus a top-down view of the vocal cords during inhalation and sound production. Labels explain the roles of resonators, vocal cord positioning, and cartilage structures in speech.
Listen to a humpback whale pod communicate via underwater ā€œsongsā€
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Male muscle, man flexing arm, bicep curl.
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Muscles of facial expression, human anatomy, (Netter replacement project - SSC). Human face, human head.
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Vocalization

sound
Also known as: vocal sound, voice
Written and fact-checked by
Britannica Editors
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Vocalization, any sound produced through the action of an animalā€™s respiratory system and used in communication. Vocal sound, which is virtually limited to frogs, crocodilians and geckos, birds, and mammals, is sometimes the dominant form of communication. In many birds and nonhuman primates the adult repertoire comprises a number of different calls, used to indicate territoriality, aggression, alarm, fright, contentment, hunger, the presence of food, or the need for companionship. Bird song (q.v.), the most intensively studied of animal vocalizations, consists primarily of territorial and mating calls.