Read kēng for making a sound or speaking up, most often in the negative pattern 一声不吭 (without a word) and 吭声. A separate reading háng means 'throat', as in 引吭高歌 (to sing at the top of one's voice).
memory
The 口 (mouth) radical is the anchor: 吭 is about a sound coming out of the mouth and throat.
Left mouth radical, a small square for parted lips, here standing in for the throat behind them. It indexes 吭 in the throat-and-voice family: 喉 (throat), 咽 (swallow), 嗓 (voice). It names the act of letting a sound out of the throat.
Right side 亢 supplies the sound: kàng drifting to kēng, and háng in the other reading. Same phonetic powers 抗 (resist), 炕 (brick bed), 杭. It depicts a person with the neck stretched high, which lines up neatly with the throat sense.
