Slack voice

Slack voice (or lax voice) is the pronunciation of consonant or vowels with a glottal opening slightly wider than that occurring in modal voice. Such sounds are often referred to informally as lenis or half-voiced in the case of consonants. In some Chinese varieties, such as Wu, and in a few Austronesian languages, the 'intermediate' phonation of slack stops confuses listeners of languages without these distinctions, so that different transcription systems may use Template:Angbr or Template:Angbr for the same consonant. In Xhosa, slack-voiced consonants have usually been transcribed as breathy voice. Although the IPA has no dedicated diacritic for slack voice, the voiceless diacritic (the under-ring) may be used with a voiced consonant letter, though this convention is also used for partially voiced consonants in languages such as English.<ref name="SOWL96">Template:SOWL</ref>

Wu Chinese "muddy" consonants are slack voice word-initially, the primary effect of which is a slightly breathy quality of the following vowel.<ref name="SOWL96"/>

	Bilabial			Alveolar			Velar
	IPA	Wu	gloss	IPA	Wu	gloss	IPA	Wu	gloss
slack voice	main}}	lang}}	Template:Gloss	main}}	lang}}	Template:Gloss	main}}	lang}}	Template:Gloss
tenuis	main}}	lang}}	Template:Gloss	main}}	lang}}	Template:Gloss	main}}	lang}}	Template:Gloss
aspirated	main}}	lang}}	Template:Gloss	main}}	lang}}	Template:Gloss	main}}	lang}}	Template:Gloss

Javanese contrasts slack and stiff voiced bilabial, dental, retroflex, and velar stops.<ref name="SOWL96"/>

	Bilabial		Dental Stop		Dental Affricate		Retroflex		Velar
phonation	IPA	gloss	IPA	gloss	IPA	gloss	IPA	gloss	IPA	gloss
stiff voice	main}}	Template:Gloss	main}}	Template:Gloss	main}}	Template:Gloss	main}}	Template:Gloss	main}}	Template:Gloss
slack voice	main}}	Template:Gloss	main}}	Template:Gloss	main}}	Template:Gloss	main}}	Template:Gloss	main}}	Template:Gloss

Parauk contrasts slack voicing in its vowels. The contrast is between "slightly stiff" and "slightly breathy" vowels; the first are between modal and stiff voice, while the latter are captured by slack voice.<ref name="SOWL96"/>