Unvoiced describes sounds made without vibrating your vocal cords, the small bands of tissue in your throat that create the buzz in your voice.

Try this: Put your fingers gently on the front of your throat and say “zzzzz” like a bee. Feel that vibration? Now say “ssss” like a snake. No vibration, right? That's because Z is a voiced sound and S is unvoiced. They're made the same way with your tongue and lips, but one uses your vocal cords and one doesn't.

In English, many consonant pairs work this way: P and B, T and D, F and V, K and G, S and Z. The first sound in each pair is unvoiced; the second is voiced. When you whisper, you're making all your sounds unvoiced, which is why whispers sound so different from normal speech.

Understanding voiced and unvoiced sounds helps people study languages, improve pronunciation when learning new languages, and even understand why certain speech patterns develop. Linguists (scientists who study language) use these distinctions to explain why languages sound the way they do and how they change over time.