Breathy voice (also called murmured voice, whispery voice, soughing and susurration) is a

phonation The term phonation has slightly different meanings depending on the subfield of phonetics. Among some phoneticians, ''phonation'' is the process by which the vocal folds produce certain sounds through quasi-periodic vibration. This is the defi ...

in which the

vocal folds In humans, the vocal cords, also known as vocal folds, are folds of throat tissues that are key in creating sounds through Speech, vocalization. The length of the vocal cords affects the pitch of voice, similar to a violin string. Open when brea ...

vibrate, as they do in normal (modal) voicing, but are adjusted to let more air escape which produces a sighing-like sound. A simple breathy phonation, (not actually a

fricative consonant A fricative is a consonant produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate in ...

, as a literal reading of the IPA chart would suggest), can sometimes be heard as an

allophone In phonology, an allophone (; from the Greek , , 'other' and , , 'voice, sound') is one of multiple possible spoken soundsor '' phones''used to pronounce a single phoneme in a particular language. For example, in English, the voiceless plos ...

of English between vowels, such as in the word ''behind'', for some speakers. In the context of the

Indo-Aryan languages The Indo-Aryan languages, or sometimes Indic languages, are a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages in the Indo-European languages, Indo-European language family. As of 2024, there are more than 1.5 billion speakers, primarily concentrated east ...

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; stem form ; nominal singular , ,) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in northwest South Asia after its predecessor languages had Trans-cultural ...

and

Hindi Modern Standard Hindi (, ), commonly referred to as Hindi, is the Standard language, standardised variety of the Hindustani language written in the Devanagari script. It is an official language of India, official language of the Government ...

and comparative

Indo-European studies Indo-European studies () is a field of linguistics and an interdisciplinary field of study dealing with Indo-European languages, both current and extinct. The goal of those engaged in these studies is to amass information about the hypothetical p ...

, breathy consonants are often called ''voiced aspirated'', as in the Hindi and Sanskrit stops normally denoted ''bh, dh, ḍh, jh,'' and ''gh'' and the reconstructed

Proto-Indo-European Proto-Indo-European (PIE) is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European language family. No direct record of Proto-Indo-European exists; its proposed features have been derived by linguistic reconstruction from documented Indo-Euro ...

phonemes ''bʰ,dʰ,ǵʰ,gʰ,gʷʰ''. , as breathy voice is a different type of phonation from aspiration. However, breathy and aspirated stops are acoustically similar in that in both cases there is a delay in the onset of full voicing. In the history of several languages, like

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

and some

varieties of Chinese There are hundreds of local Chinese language varieties forming a branch of the Sino-Tibetan languages, Sino-Tibetan language family, many of which are not Mutual intelligibility, mutually intelligible. Variation is particularly strong in the m ...

, breathy stops have developed into aspirated stops.

Classification and terminology

The IPA uses the term "breathy voice", but VoQS uses the term "whispery voice". Both accept the term "murmur", popularised by Ladefoged.

Transcription

A stop with breathy release or a breathy nasal is transcribed in the

IPA IPA commonly refers to: * International Phonetic Alphabet, a system of phonetic notation ** International Phonetic Association, the organization behind the alphabet * India pale ale, a style of beer * Isopropyl alcohol, a chemical compound IPA ...

as etc. or as etc. Breathy vowels are most often written etc. Indication of breathy voice by using subscript diaeresis was approved in or before June 1976 by members of the council of

International Phonetic Association The International Phonetic Association (IPA; , API) is an organization that promotes the scientific study of phonetics and the various practical applications of that science. The IPA's major contribution to phonetics is the International Phoneti ...

. In VoQS, the notation is used for whispery voice (or murmur), and is used for breathy voice. Some authors, such as Laver, suggest the alternative transcription (rather than IPA ) as the correct analysis of

Gujarati Gujarati may refer to: * something of, from, or related to Gujarat, a state of India * Gujarati people, the major ethnic group of Gujarat * Gujarati language, the Indo-Aryan language spoken by them * Gujarati languages, the Western Indo-Aryan sub- ...

, but it could be confused with the replacement of modal voicing in voiced segments with

whispered is a series of light novels written by Shoji Gatoh and illustrated by Shikidouji. The series follows Sousuke Sagara, a member of the covert anti-terrorist private military organization known as Mithril, tasked with protecti ...

phonation, conventionally transcribed with the diacritic .

Methods of production

The distinction between the latter two of these realizations, vocal folds somewhat separated along their length (''breathy voice'') and vocal folds together with the arytenoids making an opening (''whispery voice''), is phonetically relevant in White Hmong (''Hmong Daw'').

Phonological property

In some Bantu languages, historically breathy stops have been phonetically devoiced, but the four-way contrast in the system has been retained. In

Portuguese Portuguese may refer to: * anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal ** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods ** Portuguese language, a Romance language *** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language ** Portu ...

, vowels after the

stressed syllable In linguistics, and particularly phonology, stress or accent is the relative emphasis or prominence given to a certain syllable in a word or to a certain word in a phrase or sentence. That emphasis is typically caused by such properties as i ...

can be pronounced with breathy voice.

is unusual in contrasting breathy vowels and consonants: 'twelve', 'outside', 'burden'. Tsumkwe Juǀʼhoan makes the following rare distinctions : fall, land (of a bird etc.); walk; herb species; and /n, ʱoaᵑ/ greedy person; /n, oaʱᵑ/ cat.Dickens, Patick (1994) English–Juǀʼhoan Juǀʼhoan–English dictionary , 9783927620551

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Breathy Voice Phonation

Classification and terminology

Transcription

Methods of production

Phonological property

See also

References