Children born with cleft palate require surgical correction in order to prevent nasal regurgitation of food and in order to create normal palate function for speech. Uncorrected, speech is hypernasal and unintelligible. Normal speech has very few sounds that are normally nasal. In English, there are only three, "m" as in "Mama", "n" as in "no", and "ng" as in "ring". The remaining 43 sounds in English are made with the soft palate (or velum) closing off the nasopharynx, and projecting speech orally. The goal for surgical separation of the nose and mouth at the hard palate (palatoplasty) is to create a complete separation of the nose and mouth at the hard palate and a functioning soft palate that can open and close the nasopharynx appropriately for speech sound.