The phrase "a voiceless initial" is correct and usable in written English.
It can be used in linguistic contexts to describe a consonant sound at the beginning of a word that is produced without vocal cord vibration.
Example: "In the word 'soup', the 's' is a voiceless initial."
Alternatives: "voiceless onset" or "voiceless consonant at the start".
with a voiceless initial, and in others (Muya, Qiang) with a voiced initial.
Baxter (2000: 218; following Pulleyblank 1973) attributes the voicing effect to a pre-initial element *ɦ- provisionally reconstructed for words with a cognate with a voiceless initial.
Another form of derivation is the 清濁別意 qīng zhuó bié yì 'derivation by a voicing alternation', an alternation of a voiced and a voiceless initial with functions similar to the derivation by tone change.
The tones of the remaining Tibetan dialects can be accounted for by positing an original and older system of voiced and voiceless initial sounds that eventually resulted in tones.
Dutch has voiced fricatives initially (v-, z-, g-); corresponding words have voiceless initial fricatives in Afrikaans.
Voiced and voiceless initial stops alternate in the same root in many Sino-Tibetan languages, including Chinese, Burmese, and Tibetan (voiced in intransitive, voiceless in transitive verbs).
A voiceless (imperfective)–voiced (perfective) alternation of the root initial possibly caused by a former sonorant nasal prefix (Baxter and Sagart 1998; Karlgren 1933; Mei 梅祖麟 1988; etc).
A root cannot contain two plain voiced plosives, nor can it contain a voiced aspirate and a voiceless plosive, unless the latter occurs in a word-initial cluster after an (e.g. 'to stiffen').
They tend to aspirate both plosives (stops) and fricative consonants very forcibly; thus, two is pronounced with an audible puff of breath after the initial t, and while may be heard with a voiceless /w/.
Truly this is a voiceless poem".
The Domestica investor, however, is a voiceless portfolio investor.
