Secondary articulation

Okay kiddo, imagine you have a piece of candy in your mouth. Now, when you move your tongue and lips around to talk, you can change where the candy is in your mouth, right?

Well, when people speak different languages or even different dialects within the same language, they might use different tongue and lip movements to make their words sound different.

Secondary articulation is when someone uses additional movements to make even more sounds with their tongue and lips – kind of like adding sprinkles to your ice cream to make it extra special.

For example, some languages have sounds that are made by squeezing the back of your tongue against the roof of your mouth, while simultaneously making a buzzing sound with your vocal cords. This is called a "velaric airstream mechanism" and is an example of secondary articulation.

So, just like you can make your candy move around in your mouth to make different sounds, people can use secondary articulation to make even more interesting sounds when they talk.