Häälelised

Häälelised are voiced sounds in phonetics, meaning they are produced with vibration of the vocal cords. This distinguishes them from voiceless sounds, which are made without vocal cord vibration. In many languages, consonants exist in voiced and voiceless pairs. For example, in English, 'p' is voiceless, while 'b' is its voiced counterpart. Similarly, 't' is voiceless and 'd' is voiced, and 'k' is voiceless while 'g' is voiced.

The presence or absence of voicing is a crucial feature in distinguishing meaning between words in languages that utilize it, known as minimal pairs. For instance, the English words 'pat' and 'bat' differ only in their initial consonant's voicing. The same principle applies to other voiced sounds like 'v' (voiceless 'f'), 'z' (voiceless 's'), and 'j' (voiceless 'sh').

Vowels are almost universally voiced in spoken languages. The vibration of the vocal cords is an inherent part of vowel production. Therefore, when discussing phonetics, the term "häälelised" specifically refers to the characteristic of sound production involving vocal cord vibration, primarily applicable to consonants and the universal nature of vowels. Understanding voicing is fundamental to phonological analysis and the description of speech sounds.