Going mute from an arrow (and questions on said muteness)

Exactly what it says. When my MMC was six, he was hit with an arrow from a distance meant to kill him, but his family used magic to save him but he was mute. While it'd be easier to say he went mute from the magic, in his world that would be fixable and most likely would wear off after so many years, so I need an injury that would leave him permanently mute, assuming it's guaranteed to heal enough to save his life. Also, disease is out of the question because the attack is a major plot point. It's also medieval, if that helps any. It can't be something like, say, and arrow to the face, either, since any scars he has aren't easily noticed at first glance, if noticed at all. (So he can't lose his tongue or something equally strange).
Preferably doesn't leave any other serious consequences, but please tell me if it would.

Also, if you could tell me exactly what noises he'd be able to make after receiving the injury, that would be great. (Such as laughing, the sounds you make while crying, etc.)

Perhaps his larynx was damaged beyond repair?

He went mute from shock and trauma. No actual injury to his vocal chords or tongue, but he can't speak because something in his brain locked up.

Where is he hit with the arrow? If you want the arrow to cause muteness, it either has to hit the throat structures where the voice is generated or through the head to hit brain areas that allow for speaking. (I know some aspects of speech derive from the Broca's area, but there are others that could work.)

Also, inability to speak is not the same as muteness. Depending on the mechanism, he may still be able to make vocal sounds, if not words.

Other possibilities are selective mutism (which is psychologically based even though in some mental states patients actually CAN'T speak), non-arrow damage to the vocal cords (maybe something happened when they were trying to open the airway or were suctioning blood if he was bleeding into his airway), or non-arrow brain issues (maybe the wound threw a clot that migrated to the speech-producing areas of the brain, causing a stroke.

I've got a pretty similar question, and I figured I wouldn't make a new topic about it since there exist already quite a few about muteness. But what I wanted to know and not have been able to find so far, is: if the vocal cords are damaged, is there other damage that automaticly goes with it, like breathing problems? (don't know what the vocal cords are for, other than speaking). Or maybe damage that most of the time goes with it?
Also, if a character is unable to speak from birth or from a very young age, would she still be able to understand other people speaking perfectly? (because I think part of learning a language is being able to try the words for yourself and be corrected by parrents or other. Altough I'm not quite sure).

Maybe I can help. My daughter had a tracheostomy tube from the age of 5 months until she was 2 1/2, before that she was on a ventilator. She has vocal chord damage that is probably due to scars left by the vent tubes rubbing against her vocal chords / folds. Additional damage was done to her vocal chords because of reflux (basically, stomach acid eating away at the soft tissues).

I would think that you could have vocal chord damage without having breathing problems.

My daughter could understand people speaking to her as well as any other 2 1/2 year old, even though she was unable to speak. She is now 12 years old and still has speaking difficulties due to the damage (mostly reduced volume and a huskiness that makes her sound like a 4 pack a day smoker). Some of her difficulties are because she has to concentrate to make the differences between sounds like "puh" (p), "buh" (b) and "tuh" (t) . There isn't a problem with her hearing, but because she didn't learn to make these sounds as an infant the differences don't come as naturally to her. We and her teachers are unsure how much of her difficulty in reading / spelling are the result of learning delays and dyslexia and how much is due to how she processes language due to the delay in speaking. For example, she spells much better when someone else is sounding out the word than when she is. Her understanding of spoken language and her "reading comprehension" scores when material is read to her is at or above grade level.

since this thread is pretty old, i'm going to assume that the OP's question has been answered... and i'm going to hijack the thread.

what injury can i give my character that will result in a permanently hoarse or otherwise damaged voice?
details are flexible but the person should be able to function pretty normally - so no paralysis or severe damage to the trachea or spine. I do not want or need total mutism... just a bit of difficulty speaking.
it does need to be an injury though, not a birth defect or the result of smoking or a disease or anything.
medical help - well, that's also somewhat up in the air, but lets say definitely no hospitals and no magic.

thanks in advance!

yeah, i figured the same answers would mostly apply but i was hoping that the fact that the character isn't totally mute would it more believable that said character survived the injury.

thanks for the info. :-)