My character grows large upper and lower canines, how might their speech be effected?

Question

I've read this answer and it was insightful, but I'm describing a character who undergoes a one off transformation rather than being from a whole new species. She grows fangs (both upper and lower canines) like a baboon, without her skull shape majorly changing (no snout, but still room for the teeth and new larger jaw muscles.)

The upper and lower canines she has are larger than those in the above image, but I can't find a better reference. She can close her mouth and seal her lips, but the lower and upper canines are large and interlock as shown in the image of the skull above.

The linked answer mentions "bilabial stops (/p/, /b/ and nasal /m/)" and "labiodental fricatives /f/ and /v/" being potentially unaffected, but rounded vowels being difficult.

Would this also apply to someone who didn't grow up with that mouth? What kind of believable changes to her speech and expression would one expect?

Answer 1

Not Very Much

This I think will be a frame challenge based on your clarification.

How It Can Work: Girls With Fangs speak for themselves! The very best way to find out exactly how much speech will be affected without doing this to do this yourself is to watch and listen to people with fangs actually talk normally. Humans, as we know, come with canines pre-installed. We have two uppers and two lowers. And our canines come in a wide variety of shapes. A lot of people have kind of nondescript squarish canines, while some have pointy fangs. Some of us who have fangs have short fangs and some have longer, more prominent fangs.

Apart from what Nature has provided, it is possible through the wonders of modern cosmetic dentistry and advanced materials, to make and apply a wide variety of artificial 'super fangs' that will more closely mimic what has happened to your character. These can range from the cheap plastic things you'd find in a costume shop all the way through the spectrum of properly molded clip on veneers to permanently cemented contoured caps and all the way to permanently implanted fangs (either as individual teeth or as part of a complete or partial arch).

Clip on molded fang with arch. Apart from several obnoxious speech habits, this girl doesn't complain of any oral discomfort and can enunciate very well.

Fang overlays. This girl does complain of some slight lip protuberance but otherwise seems to be unaffected. These are removable and available in set sizes.

Custom dental work. This girl had cosmetic dentistry performed, including permanent bonding of artificial tooth substrate which was subsequently shaped by hand. She appeared to have no difficultly with speech.

Mind you, none of these fangs rise more than perhaps a third of an inch above the average tooth height. And none have cosmetic lower fangs at all. Your girl with the baboon like fangs will not likely encounter any particular speech issues. She should be able to pronounce any sound relatively normally and there should be no sounds she can't pronounce. In reviewing several videos with larger cheap fangs, the only obvious defect was a kind of obvious lisp or muffled enunciation.

Her problems with the sudden appearance of very long fangs (perhaps as much as an inch long) will be getting used to how these teeth fit in her anterior mouth --- she'll be biting her lips and maybe even lacerating them terribly. At least until she gets used to her new oral arrangement!

If the Change properly rearranges her dentition, soft tissues and gums all at once, then accustoming herself will be relatively easy. If the only thing that changes is her actual canine teeth, then she won't even be able to close her mouth because human canines don't slide by one another the way baboon canines do. The lowers will become jammed behind the uppers and she won't be able to talk or eat or even close her mouth at all.

Why It Won't Work as Described: You specify "without her skull shape majorly changing" and also specify that your character has two inch long upper and lower canines (fangs) and also that these huge teeth exist in what is essentially a human proportioned skull and that she can close her mouth and lips. You also specify that she has tusks in addition to fangs.

I'm very sorry to report that you can't have all of that. Several of these options are absolutely condradictory. The roots of those upper fangs will literally close off her nasal cavity and most likely displace her eyes and maybe even parts of her brain. Human facial bones are not that robust, and there is a very good chance that she will catastrophically lose those fangs and a whole lot of her maxilla to boot. The lower fangs are just barely conceivable, but again, the human mandible is not designed to serve as the foundation for such oversized teeth. In any event those four teeth together will crowd out and completely distort her dentition and her midface. Her incisors will be jammed together into a very narrow space and her premolars will be pushed out to the side.

Small fangs are bad enough for biting lips --- with teeth like that, she is literally going to shred her mouth. Chances are also very good that her displaced premolars and incisors will lacerate her cheeks and lips.

If you insist on tusks, which are teeth that grow outside the mouth, like those of a walrus, she'll face the same shredded mouth problem. Plus she won't be able to close her mouth or lipsproperly.

Best case scenario is that she runs to the nearest dentist and frantically gesticulates to her baboon fangs whilst writing a message, because she won't be able to talk intelligibly, will be bleeding all over the place and probably won't be able to breathe.

And when the dentist is done grinding them down, she's going to need to see a craniomaxillofacial as well as ENT/plastics surgeon to correct what's happened to her mid face. Those fangs are going to have to be cut out and she'll have to be reconstructed.

Conclusion: You can have a relatively unaltered human skull, the ability to close the mouth, the ability to close the lips if you go with small fangs. As you can hear, your character would talk fine.

If you insist on baboon sized fangs, you can have the ability to close the mouth, but not have the relatively unaltered skull. Your character will also have to deal with the unintended sequellae as described.

If you insist on tusks, then you can not have the relatively unaltered skull or the ability to close the mouth or the lips which contradict three conditions that you set up.

Answer 2

You have a lot of lee-way around this because there are no examples. Humans have an immense amount of muscular control around our lips and tongue compared to other animals, and the entire complex system might be adjusted to allow proper speech, although the tone and timber would be deeper due to the larger speech cavity.

Without "magical adjustment," however, you'll have significant issues. If they jut out of her mouth, both up and down, then she'll have a bad lisp. If you can't produce a proper seal around the teeth, you'll loose P and B. V's and F's might also be impossible, and OO would sound like u in shut.

Possibly a bigger impact would be the larger jaw bone that goes with the teeth and stronger jaw muscles. That would change the shape of the tongue and mouth, possibly requiring retraining to make any consonant sounds at all, and shifting all vowels towards a schwa.

Update: With the clarification that the target entity can effectively close her lips, there should be no overall pronunciation impact, as long as the magical transformation makes accommodations with the muscles. There will still be a change in the quality of her voice, with many vowels being pronounced "wider" and the larger lower jaw dragging the timber down. Properly describing the change would require a lot of jargon, but you can simulate it by stuffing cotton balls in your upper and lower gums, like dentists do. It's kind of a "Marlon Brando" effect.

Overall, even with magical muscle adjustment, it would still take a bit of retraining, during which the speaker would have a tendency to slur their words.