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Slack voice (orlax voice) is the pronunciation ofconsonant orvowels with aglottal opening slightly wider than that occurring inmodal voice. Such sounds are often referred to informally aslenis or half-voiced in the case of consonants. In someChinese varieties, such asWu, and in a fewAustronesian languages, the 'intermediate'phonation of slackstops confuses listeners of languages without these distinctions, so that different transcription systems may use⟨p⟩ or⟨b⟩ for the same consonant. InXhosa, slack-voiced consonants have usually been transcribed asbreathy voice. Although the IPA has no dedicated diacritic for slack voice, thevoiceless diacritic (the under-ring) may be used with a voiced consonant letter, though this convention is also used for partially voiced consonants in languages such as English.^[1]

Wu Chinese "muddy" consonants are slack voice word-initially, the primary effect of which is a slightly breathy quality of the following vowel.^[1]

Javanese contrasts slack andstiff voiced bilabial, dental, retroflex, and velar stops.^[1]

Parauk contrasts slack voicing in its vowels. The contrast is between "slightly stiff" and "slightly breathy" vowels; the first are between modal and stiff voice, while the latter are captured by slack voice.^[1]

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