How can whispering still sound like that person’s voice even though they’re not using their vocal cords?
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You can turn this on its side: try reading something out loud using only your vocal cords, jaw open, without moving your lips, teeth, or tongue (both the tip and the base). Yep, you kind of sound like some incoherent drunk with strong opinions. At best, you can raise or lower your pitch, but it all just comes out as throaty sounds.
Pretty much everything in your mouth above your throat is responsible for shaping sound. Many consonants come from other sounds make by your mouth, whether it bursts out like P or B, is made by friction like H or Z, or vibrates your palate like M and N.
Even the ability to modify tone is not unique to your vocal cords—your tongue can constrain the airway to make higher pitches, kind of an axis going from O to E, and another going from U to S. These all work the same whether you’re whispering or yelling.
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