2454: Neutral Position of Articulators Aug 30, 2021

The neutral position of an articulator—which is to say where one rests one's tongue, lips, etc. when not speaking—will actually vary notably between speakers of different languages. For instance, Russia speakers tend to leave their tongues flat on the floor of their mouths, while English speakers keep them towards the middle, pointed to the alveolar ridge (sometimes called 'teeth-ridge'). More remarkable even, bilinguals can be seen making adjustments relative to the language in question such as when presented with linguistic stimuli that switches languages in an MRI machine. Again, this happens even when the person is not speaking or even necessarily planning to speak.