The term slack voice (or lax voice) describes the pronunciation of consonants with a glottal opening slightly wider than that occurring in "normal" (modal) voice. Such sounds are often referred to informally as lenis or half-voiced. In some Chinese languages ("dialects") and in many Austronesian languages, the 'intermediate' phonation of slack stops confuses Western listeners, so that different transcription systems may use /p/ or /b/ for the same consonant. Although the IPA has no dedicated diacritic for slack voice, the voiceless diacritic (the under-ring) may be used. Chinese (written) language (pinyin: zhōngw n) written in Chinese characters The Chinese language (汉语/漢語, 华语/華語, or 中文; Pinyin: H nyǔ, Hu yǔ, or Zhōngw n) is a member of the Sino-Tibetan family of languages. ... The Austronesian languages are a family of languages widely dispersed throughout the islands of Southeast Asia and the Pacific, with a few members spoken on continental Asia. ... In phonetics, phonation is the use of the laryngeal system to generate an audible source of acoustic energy, i. ...
Javanese contrasts slack and stiff voiced bilabial, dental, retroflex, and velar stops: The Javanese language is the spoken language of the people in the central and eastern part of the island of Java, in Indonesia. ... The term stiff voice describes the pronunciation of consonants with a glottal opening narrower, and the vocal cords stiffer, than what occurs in normal (modal) voice. ...
Javanese
translation
stiff voice
[d̬amu]
guest
slack voice
[d̥amu]
blow
The Shanghainese "muddy" consonants are also slack voice, the primary effect of which is a slightly breathy quality of the following vowel: Wu (吳方言 pinyin wú fāng yán; 吳語 pinyin wú yǔ) is one of the major divisions of the Chinese language. ...
A tenuis consonant is one which is unvoiced and unaspirated. ... In phonetics, aspiration is the strong burst of air that accompanies the release of some obstruents. ...
Creaky voice (also called laryngealisation or vocal fry, especially in the US), is a special kind of phonation in which the arytenoid cartilages in the larynx are drawn together; as a result, the vocal folds are compressed rather tightly, becoming relatively slack and compact, and forming a large, irregularly vibrating mass.
Creaky voice is one possible realisation of the Danish stød.
Creaky voice manifests itself in the idiolects of some American English speakers, particularly at the beginnings of sentences that the speaker wishes to "soft-pedal".