I suspect many if not most of us have had the experience of having audible noises come from the abdomen, as something moves through the alimentary canal and creates sound in the process. I presume that generally it is gas, internally generated by biochemical reactions to foodstuff digestion, with perhaps the occasional liquid.
But I’m wondering where along the esophagus-to-rectum sequence this normally occurs, what (in terms of reactions, not foodstuffs) normally causes it, etc.
Can I glom onto your question and also ask about sounds that emerge when one is super-hungry?
It’s called borborygmi:
More accurately, they’re called borborygmi. Borborygmi is the plural of borborygmus. Pedantic, yes. But that’s gotta be one of the all time great words. It’s right up there with tenesmus - which sometimes follows those borborygmi. I’ll leave the curious to look up tenesmus.
And tenesmus goes hand-in-hand with dyschezia. Vocabulary fun!
Borborygmi is not limited to times when the stomach is empty. Many conditions of gas or water passing through the intestines can make loudly audible sounds. Often, the sounds signal that an inadequate amount of water has been absorbed properly, and a bout of diarrhea soon follows. Gas may similarly be expelled, violently, no long after when the contractions hit the colon. An experienced ear can follow the sounds as the contents move through the convolutions of the small intestine.