ngue is not necessary for articulate speech.

1. Col. Churchill, in his "Lebanon," speaking of the cruelties of
Djezzar Pacha, in extracting to the root the tongues of some Emirs,
adds, "It is a curious fact, however, that the tongues grow again
sufficiently for the purposes of speech."

2. Sir John Malcolm, in his "Sketches of Persia," speaks of Zab, Khan of
Khisht, who was condemned to lose his tongue. "This mandate," he says,
"was imperfectly executed, and the loss of half this member deprived him
of speech. Being afterwards persuaded that its being cut close to the
root would enable him to speak so as to be understood, he submitted to
the operation; and the effect has been, that his voice, though
indistinct and thick, is yet intelligible to persons accustomed to
converse with him.... I am not an anatomist, and I cannot therefore give
a reason, why a man, who could not articulate with half a tongue, should
speak when he had none at all; but the facts are as stated."

3. And Sir John McNeill says, "In answer to your inquiries about the
powers of speech retained by persons who have had their tongues cut out,
I can state from personal observation, that several persons whom I knew
in Persia, who had been subjected to that punishment, spoke so
intelligibly as to be able to transact important business.... The
conviction in Persia is universal, that the power of speech is destroyed
by merely cutting off the tip of the tongue; and is to a useful extent
restored by cutting off another portion as far back as a perpendicular
section can be made of the portion that is free from attachment at the
lower surface.... I never had to meet with a person who had suffered
this punishment, who could not speak so as to be quite intelligible to
his familiar associates."

* * * * *

I should not be honest, if I professed to be simply converted, by these
testimonies, to the belief that there was nothing miraculous in the case
of the African confessors. It is quite as fair to be sceptical on one
side of the question as on the other; and if Gibbon is considered worthy
of praise for his stubborn incredulity in receiving the evidence for
this miracle, I do not see why I am to be blamed, if I wish to be quite
sure of the full appositeness of the recent evidence which is brought to
its disadvantage. Questions of fact cannot be disproved by analogies or
presumptions; the inquiry must be made into the particular cas