Voiceless

Voicelessness or unvoiced is a term used in phonetics and linguistic sub-discipline means that the articulation of a sound, the vocal folds are not involved. For unvoiced articulate sounds these are so far apart that the coming of the lung air flow can flow freely through the glottis and thus no sound is produced. In contrast, a sound with a particular tone color is formed in voiced sounds by the vocal folds. Voiced sounds, especially sonorants are influenced by this sound, while unvoiced sounds prevail.

Voiceless sounds are usually consonants. The Germans are the

• The voiceless series of fricatives ( fricatives ), that is [ f], [ s], [ ʃ ], [ ç ], [ x ], [ χ ] and [ h]
• And the voiceless series of plosives ( plosives ), which are [ p ], [ t] [k ] and [ ʔ ].

However, there are individual cases, such as the Greek, where word-final vowels may lose their voicing and are then articulated voiceless.

The question of whether sound or unvoiced voiced articulates a, can be answered with a simple test. When you hold the hand to the larynx when speaking in voicing is a vibration to feel ( for example, while speaking of M -au of the word mouse). Also, if you zuhält the ears, a booming noise audible. In both voicelessness is not the case.

In the pictorial representation of sounds ( spectrogram ), as is common in acoustics and phonetics, shows the absence of a periodic component to an unvoiced sound. This is the so-called Voice Onset Time ( VOT abbreviated ) is important. The VOT is the time interval between the application of the noise (by releasing the shutter when the shutter - and fricatives ) and the onset of vocal fold vibration, so the use of a sound. Sets the tuning pitch for the sound use one, it is a positive VOT value and the volume is estimated to be voiceless.

• Phonetics