The tongue is a boneless hydrostat that tastes and talks
In tetrapods the tongue manipulates food, hosts taste buds on its dorsum, cleans teeth, and—in humans—shapes speech. Average length from oropharynx to tip is about ten centimetres; mean adult weight is roughly ninety-nine grams in men and seventy-nine in women.
A fibrous lingual septum splits left from right as the median sulcus, while a V-shaped terminal sulcus divides oral front from pharyngeal back; the foramen cecum at its apex recalls the embryonic thyroid diverticulum. Four intrinsic muscles reshape the organ without bony anchors; four paired extrinsic muscles, fixed to bone, reposition it. As a muscular hydrostat it works like an elephant trunk—constant volume, changing form.
Old English tunge and Germanic cousins underlie the modern spelling; the silent ue is a fourteenth-century pronunciation flourish. Phonetics distinguishes apical tip sounds from laminal blade sounds. Resting tongue posture influences facial growth, and papillae keep the surface moist with saliva while nerves and vessels pack densely.
Underneath, a fold of mucous membrane called the frenulum tethers the tongue to the floor of the mouth, flanked by small bumps, the sublingual caruncles, where the submandibular salivary glands empty. The positioning muscles have names: genioglossus, hyoglossus, styloglossus and palatoglossus. Genioglossus, which rises from the lower jaw, is nicknamed the safety muscle because nothing else can thrust the tongue forward. Front and back even begin life separately, growing from different pharyngeal arches, and they keep separate wiring: the glossopharyngeal nerve serves the rear, while the lingual nerve, an offshoot of the trigeminal, carries touch from the front.
Posterior attachments reach hyoid, epiglottis, soft palate, and pharynx. The visible anterior two-thirds do most of the tasting and articulating we notice, yet the whole hydrostat is one coordinated machine for chewing, swallowing, and saying what we mean.
Source: Tongue
