Voicing

Try this experiment:

Put your index and middle fingers on your throat and say just the k- sound of the word “kiss.”

Now say the just the g- sound of the word “guess.”

Feel the vibration of your vocal cords with the g-? That vibration that you felt is called voicing. We say that k is an unvoiced consonant (no vibration) and g is a voiced consonant (buzzzz).

The Greek letter θ is unvoiced, like the th in thick.

The Greek letter δ is voiced, like the th in these.

In English and in Greek, consonants come in voiced/unvoiced pairs. Here are some of those pairs; use the “fingers on throat” test to see that this table is correct.

Unvoiced	Voiced
Greek
φ	β
θ	δ
σ	ζ
English
p	b
k	g
t	d

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