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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"/>