The term stiff voice describes the pronunciation of consonants or vowels with a glottal opening narrower, and 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 ...

stiffer, than occurs in

modal voice Modal voice is the vocal register used most frequently in speech and singing in most languages. It is also the term used in linguistics for the most common phonation of vowels. The term "modal" refers to the resonant mode of vocal folds; that ...

. Although there is no specific IPA

diacritic A diacritic (also diacritical mark, diacritical point, diacritical sign, or accent) is a glyph added to a letter or to a basic glyph. The term derives from the Ancient Greek (, "distinguishing"), from (, "to distinguish"). The word ''diacrit ...

for stiff voice, the voicing diacritic (a subscript wedge) may be used in conjunction with the symbol for a

voiced consonant Voice or voicing is a term used in phonetics and phonology to characterize speech sounds (usually consonants). Speech sounds can be described as either voiceless (otherwise known as ''unvoiced'') or voiced. The term, however, is used to refe ...

. In Bru, for example, stiff-voiced vowels have tenseness in the glottis and pharynx without going so far as to be

creaky voice In linguistics, creaky voice (sometimes called laryngealisation, pulse phonation, vocal fry, or glottal fry) refers to a low, scratchy sound that occupies the vocal range below the common vocal register. It is a special kind of phonation in which ...

d, whereas slack-voiced vowels are lax in the glottis without going so far as to be

breathy voice Breathy voice (also called murmured voice, whispery voice, soughing and susurration) is a phonation in which the vocal folds vibrate, as they do in normal (modal) voicing, but are adjusted to let more air escape which produces a sighing-like s ...

. One language with stiff voice is Thai: Javanese contrasts stiff and slack voiced bilabial, dental, retroflex, and velar stops.

Mpi MPI or Mpi may refer to: Science and technology Biology and medicine * Magnetic particle imaging, a tomographic technique * Myocardial perfusion imaging, a medical procedure that illustrates heart function * Mannose phosphate isomerase, an enzyme ...

( Loloish) contrasts modals and stiff voice in its vowels. This is not

register Register or registration may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Music * Register (music), the relative "height" or range of a note, melody, part, instrument, etc. * ''Register'', a 2017 album by Travis Miller * Registration (organ), ...

: for each of the six Mpi tones, a word may have either a modal or stiff-voiced vowel. For example, low tone contrasts and .

References

Phonation {{phonetics-stub