Voiced

Voiced is a term used in phonetics and phonology to describe a sound produced with vibration of the vocal cords. When the vocal folds vibrate during articulation, the sound is considered voiced; when the folds do not vibrate, the sound is voiceless. This distinction is a primary feature in many languages for differentiating consonants and, to a lesser extent, vowels.

In practice, voiced and voiceless contrasts are most familiar with stop consonants. For example, the English pairs /b/ (voiced) and /p/ (voiceless), /d/ (voiced) and /t/ (voiceless), and /g/ (voiced) and /k/ (voiceless) show how voicing changes the quality of the sound. Other pairs include /z/ (voiced) and /s/ (voiceless), /v/ (voiced) and /f/ (voiceless). Vowels are typically voiced in ordinary speech, since their production relies on continuous vocal cord vibration.

Voicing can be studied acoustically using measures such as voice onset time (VOT) for stops, and it is visible in spectrograms as periodic energy corresponding to vocal fold vibration. Some languages use phonemic voicing contrasts across a wide range of segments, including fricatives and nasals, while others rely on devoicing of final consonants in syllable-final positions.

Beyond simple presence or absence of vibration, voicing interacts with phonation types such as modal voice, creaky voice, and breathy voice, contributing to differences in timbre and phonological meaning in various languages.