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Interesting and little-known facts about the language
Last reviewed: 01.07.2025
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The tongue is a very useful organ, and not just for chatting. It turns out that our muscular organ, which is located in the mouth (and the tongue is just that) can surprise us with some facts about itself.
What is language?
The tongue is a muscular organ, which consists of 16 muscles, covered with a mucous membrane. When a person sleeps, his tongue is still in constant motion, and its entire thickness is penetrated by blood vessels.
What is on the tongue?
Our tongue is able to distinguish tastes, thanks to which we can enjoy food, and taste buds help it with this: filiform ones are responsible for tactile receptors and touch; mushroom-shaped ones help to distinguish salty taste; leaf-shaped ones – sour. Also on the tongue there are roller-shaped papillae, responsible for taste.
Tongue of a newborn
The tongue is a vital organ for a baby, because with its help babies can suck milk. By the way, it is interesting that newborns can do something that no adult can: they can suck, swallow and breathe at the same time.
How do we distinguish tastes?
The tongue contains taste buds that send a signal to the brain as soon as food hits them. Thanks to this cooperation between the tongue and the brain, we feel the taste of food. Women, by the way, are luckier than men. They have more papillae, which allows them to distinguish more shades of taste.
Feeling of hunger
It turns out that the more papillae there are on the surface of the tongue, the less often a person feels hungry. If there are few papillae, then a person constantly wants to eat because he or she has a poor perception of the taste of food.
Language protects us from danger
It is thanks to the ability to sense taste that our tongue helps us to be selective in our choice of food, rejecting expired and unfit for consumption, protecting us from poisoning.
The tongue is involved in digestion.
As soon as solid food gets on our tongue, the glands of the papillae begin to dissolve it.
Language is an indicator of health
The color of the tongue can say a lot about a person's health. A pink tongue without a coating indicates well-being in the digestive system.