Abstract: 1846 Korean and Han Chinese from university, middle and primary schools in Yanji, Jilin w ere investigated o n their abilities to roll, fold, twist and doclover-leaf tongue. The results show that there is no difference between Korean and Han o n all the four kinds o f tongue movements. The difference in sex on tongue twisting is probably because girl 's tongue is agiler than boy 's a t the age of 10— 19 year old. The analysis o f data from 24 family trees indicate that tongue rolling is a dominant character, tongue folding or twisting is a recessive character, and clover-leaf tongue is irregular dominant character with low penetrance.

Key words: Rolling tongue, Folding tongue, Twisting tongue, Clover-leaf tongue, Family tree, Hereditary mode, Korean, Han