Some languages possess a voiceless alveolar trill, which differs only in the vibrations of the vocal cord. This is rare, and usually occurs alongside the voiced version as a similar phoneme or an allophone. It is postulated to have occurred in Ancient Greek, where it was spelled ⟨ῥ⟩; this sound has since merged with in Modern Greek.
Read more about this topic: Alveolar Trill
Famous quotes containing the word voiceless:
“We have heard all of our lives how, after the Civil War was over, the South went back to straighten itself out and make a living again. It was for many years a voiceless part of the government. The balance of power moved away from it—to the north and the east. The problems of the north and the east became the big problem of the country and nobody paid much attention to the economic unbalance the South had left as its only choice.”
—Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)