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| Voiceless | |
|---|---|
| ◌̥ | |
| Encoding | |
| Entity(decimal) | ̥ |
| Unicode(hex) | U+0325 |
Inlinguistics,voicelessness is the property of sounds being pronounced without thelarynx vibrating. Phonologically, it is a type ofphonation, which contrasts with other states of the larynx, but some object that the word phonation impliesvoicing and that voicelessness is the lack of phonation.
TheInternational Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) has distinct letters for many voiceless andmodally voiced pairs of consonants (theobstruents), such as[pb],[td],[kɡ],[qɢ],[cɟ],[fv],and[sz]. Also, there are diacritics for voicelessness,U+0325 ◌̥COMBINING RING BELOW andU+030A ◌̊COMBINING RING ABOVE, which is used for letters with adescender. Diacritics are typically used with letters for prototypically voiced sounds, such asvowels andsonorant consonants:[ḁ],[l̥],[ŋ̊].In Russian use of the IPA, the voicing diacritic may be turned for voicelessness, e.g. ⟨ṋ⟩.[1]
Sonorants are sounds such as vowels andnasals that are voiced in most of the world's languages. However, in some languages sonorants may be voiceless, usuallyallophonically. For example, theJapanese wordsukiyaki is pronounced[sɯ̥kijaki] and may sound like[skijaki] to an English speaker, but the lips can be seen to compress for the[ɯ̥]. Something similar happens inEnglish words likepeculiar[pʰə̥ˈkj̊uːliɚ] andpotato[pʰə̥ˈtʰeɪ̯ɾoʊ̯].
Voiceless vowels are also an areal feature in languages of theAmerican Southwest (likeHopi andKeres), theGreat Basin (including allNumic languages), and theGreat Plains, where they are present in NumicComanche but also inAlgonquianCheyenne, and theCaddoan languageArikara. It also occurs inWoleaian, in contrast to the otherMicronesian languages, which instead delete it outright.
Sonorants may also be contrastively, not just environmentally, voiceless.Standard Tibetan, for example, has a voiceless/l̥/ inLhasa, which sounds similar to but is less noisy than thevoiceless lateral fricative/ɬ/ inWelsh; it contrasts with a modally voiced/l/. Welsh contrasts several voiceless sonorants:/m,m̥/,/n,n̥/,/ŋ,ŋ̊/, and/r,r̥/, the last represented by "rh".
InMoksha, there is even avoiceless palatal approximant/j̊/ (written inCyrillic as⟨йх⟩jh) along with/l̥/ and/r̥/ (written as⟨лх⟩lh and⟨рх⟩rh). The last two have palatalized counterparts/l̥ʲ/ and/r̥ʲ/ (⟨льх⟩ and⟨рьх⟩).Kildin Sami has also/j̊/⟨ҋ⟩.
Contrastively voiceless vowels have been reported several times without ever being verified (L&M 1996:315).
Many languages lack a distinction between voiced and voicelessobstruents (stops, affricates, and fricatives). This is the case in nearly allAustralian languages, and is widespread elsewhere, for example inMandarin Chinese,Korean,Danish,Estonian and thePolynesian languages.
In many such languages, obstruents are realized as voiced in voiced environments, such as between vowels or between a vowel and a nasal, and voiceless elsewhere, such as at the beginning or end of the word or next to another obstruent. That is the case in Dravidian and Australian languages and in Korean but not in Mandarin or Polynesian. Usually, the variable sounds are transcribed with the voiceless IPA letters, but for Australian languages, the letters for voiced consonants are often used.
It appears that voicelessness is not a single phenomenon in such languages. In some, such as the Polynesian languages, the vocal folds are required to actively open to allow an unimpeded (silent) airstream, which is sometimes called abreathed phonation (not to be confused withbreathy voice). In others, such as many Australian languages, voicing ceases during the hold of a stop (few Australian languages have any other kind of obstruent) because airflow is insufficient to sustain it, and if the vocal folds open, that is only from passive relaxation.
Thus, Polynesian stops are reported to be held for longer than Australian stops and are seldom voiced, but Australian stops are prone to having voiced variants (L&M 1996:53), and the languages are often represented as having no phonemically voiceless consonants at all.
InSoutheast Asia, when stops occur at the end of a word, they are voiceless because the glottis is closed, not open, so they are said to be unphonated (have no phonation) by some phoneticians, who considered "breathed" voicelessness to be a phonation.[2]
Yidiny consonants have no underlyingly voiceless consonants.[3]