Mouth Geography...Or,
Sleep Apnea and Linguistics?
William E. Arlinghaus
Broadly
viewed, the human mouth is a cave. Stalactite upper
incisors fit neatly into stalagmite lowers. A salivary river
keeps the cave moist and feeds a host of small organisms that populate
this cave. The uvula, a skin flap at the back of the mouth,
appears to have little function as it hangs down into the entry to the
air passage into the body. (If you wish to read about the biology
of the uvula, please check out any number of other sites.) In
some individuals, when the uvula flops against the back of the mouth
cavity during sleep, a blockage of air flow occurs and the supply of
oxygen is cut for a few instants. This problem can apparently be
more than mere snoring; it can be a serious medical issue called sleep
apnea. Thus, the uvula serves as a sort of a dam to the flow of
air.
One way to improve flow is to remove the dam. Indeed, uvular
surgery appears to be one solution to serious sleep apnea. Unlike
the concrete man-made dam, the uvula is living tissue. Thus, it
seems natural to wonder if there might be a way to "train" the tissue
to stay out of the dam-like position: to divert the dam's action
on the flow rather than the flow's action around or over the dam.
Language trains parts of the mouth. From English, the tongue
learns to take a position to say "th". From Zulu, it learns
various clicks to supplement vocal chord noise. There are
numerous interesting sounds that come from the myriad human languages
of the world. Indeed, there are languages that employ the "uvular
trill" as supplementary to vocal chord sounds. Thus, several
research questions of possible interest emerge:
1. Do individuals who use the "uvular trill" as part of their
language pattern on a regular basis have better "trained" uvulas than
do others?
2. Do language groups using uvular trills have a lower (higher)
incidence of sleep apnea than do language groups not employing the
uvular trill?
3. Depending on the answer to 2, might training of the uvula,
through the systematic linguistic study and practice of phonetics,
divert the damming effect of the uvula and relieve at least some sleep
apnea issues?
References
Sound Catalogue
Trills
Clicks