Of late, I have been reading and saying out loud a few tongue twisters in English after picking them up in one of the Facebook shares. While tongue twisters probably exist in all languages ever spoken, I have always considered them as a way of having fun with the language and some lollygagging with your friends. Yet some recent reads<sup>{1}{2}</sup> that I have done seem to suggest otherwise. That tongue twisters in English can play a big role in ***improving speech*** and ***articulation***. 

 - Were tongue twisters in English (also) created for the purpose of speech training? 

 -  Can regularly saying tongue twisters aloud help in improving my articulation?


 -  While most articles suggest *what* a tongue twister is, none of them seems to clearly explain *how* they came into existence. What is the origin of tongue twisters? 

The Wikipedia article on [Tongue Twisters](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tongue-twister) doesn't appear to have any support towards this argument (that tongue twisters have serious purposes beyond "for the lulz"!).

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***References:***

{1} - [Tongue Twisters as a speech training aid](http://www.speaklikeastar.com/2008/08/speech-training-improve-your.html)

{2} - [In Speech Therapy](http://terrifictonguetwisters.com/the-benefits-of-tongue-twisters-in-speech-therapy/)