White and black people's voices.

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Um, I have to be honest, riverotter, you've lost me. Please explain. I may have not provided enough detail to my argument.

Calling other people deluded, etc.
Such language inhibits proper discussion.
I thought the OP was referring to vocal qualities, rather than accent. I could, however, be wrong. Sorry- please carry on.

Then I need to apologize for calling the OP deluded - that was a bit harsh. I'm sorry for the personal criticism - there's really no place for it in this forum, as it belongs in the PPR forum.

I think a great deal of the differance has to do with acculturation and the actual dialect spoken. I've known white people who sound 'black', and black people who sound 'white' because of this. With some of the black people that I've known, most people wouldn't even know, or assume that they were black if they were speaking to them on the phone. --Other than that, there really are no great physical differances involved.

I think the op just wanted the discussion to be based on science and evidence rather than personal opinions.

I have to say, I've noticed it a little. No idea why it'd be so, and I've been too worried about being PC to ask around.

In Britain black people talk perfectly normally, just like white people. In America most black people pick up at least parts of the African American Vernacular English dialect, so they sound slightly different. This is because black people were socially isolated from white people for a long time, and socially isolated populations develop distinct dialects. In Britain we have never historically had a very strong black presence, so a new dialect did not develop. It's a linguistic thing, not intrinsically linked to someone's race.

I'm black, and while I can somewhat see where the OP is coming from, I don't fully agree. Even in my case, I tend to deal a lot with customers on the phone, and when they actually meet me face to face, I always get the, "You're not at all what I imagined." And then they try to sugar coat it, but there's no getting around the fact that they expect me to speak a certain way because of my race . But I suppose it not only has to do with one's voice, but the way one speaks as well. I had a pen pal that I spoke to on AIM all the time, and the first time we talked to each other on the phone, one of the first things she said to me was, "You don't sound black at all," because she based how all black people sounded by the 5 or 6 few black people that attended her school (she later told me).

Although black men tend to have deeper voices after puberty, that is not always the case. But there's also a quality of 'scratchiness' to the voice that sometimes can make people misinterpret if someone is white or black or anything in between. Think Rick Astley or Adele or Joss Stone, in the case of women. But usually, the times that I can usually tell that someone is black is because of his or her dialect/accent and even that can be wrong.

Does anyone remember the tv series on A&E called City Confidential? The show would pick out a town in the U.S. and talk about the town giving some background info. Then it would describe a situation there leading up to a murder, then details about the murder, and then its aftermath. The narrator, Paul Winfield, had a distinct and very pleasant voice. I had never really thought about the narrator's race and then was surprised to find out he was black.

Why do Black people have to shout when they talk?, I sometimes think they are having an argument and are about to have a fight until I realise they are just having a polite conversation.

I have lived all over the world, black people sound different in different places. It is not purely down to race.

However being i minority group, does normally mean you group up at least partially within your subgroup.

Given that any individual can sound quite different from the next, any anatomical average will be distorted by the range of variation.

I know from martial art experience the voice box area is one part of anatomy that varies less in size, regardless of overall size. So someone 6 ft tall doesn't necessarily have a bigger voice box than someone 4ft. However the lungs might be different.