Voiceless consonant: Encyclopedia - Voiceless consonant

Voiceless consonant

In phonetics, a voiceless consonant is a consonant that does not have voicing. That is, it is produced without vibration of the vocal cords. Voiceless obstruent consonants are usually articulated more strongly than their voiced counterparts, because in voiced consonants, the energy used in pronunciation is split between the laryngeal vibration and the oral articulation.

The IPA diacritic for voicelessness is the under-ring, [  ̥].

Vowels may also be voiceless, usually allophonically. For example, the Japanese word sukiyaki is pronounced [su̥kijaki]. This may sound like [skijaki] to an English speaker, but the lips can be seen compressing for the [u̥]. Something very similar happens in English with words like peculiar and particular.

For examples of voiceless vs. voiced sounds in English, see voiced consonant.

See also

• voice onset time
• phonation
• manner of articulation
• list of phonetics topics

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Voiceless consonant", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki