What is "pre-voicing"

In phonetics, prevoicing is when voicing begins before the onset of a consonant, or when voicing begins with the onset of the consonant but ends before its release. In the extensions to the International Phonetic Alphabet for speech pathology, prevoicing is transcribed with a voicing diacritic ( ̬, U+032C) placed in front of the consonant, as in .

In several Khoisan languages of Southern Africa, such as Taa and !Kung, stops such as ( or ) and ( or ) are sometimes analyzed as being prevoiced and , though the cessation of voicing has also been analyzed as phonetic detail in the transition of a phonemically voiced consonant to its voiceless aspiration or ejection. (See aspirated voiced consonant and voiced ejective.)

Kelabit has a similar set of aspirated voiced consonants. Not all speakers produce the aspiration, resulting in prevoiced (or mixed voiced) (or equivalently , and neighboring Lun Dayeh has (= .