Whispered Speech

A mode of speech production in which the vocal folds do not vibrate periodically; sound is generated by turbulent airflow through a narrow glottal opening. Whispered speech lacks a fundamental frequency and carries lower acoustic energy, which makes it harder for humans and for automatic speech recognition systems to interpret. People may rely on whispering by necessity (impaired vocal folds, partial laryngectomy, surgical recovery) or by choice (privacy, shared spaces, not disturbing others). Whisper-to-speech conversion systems aim to restore fluent voiced output for accessible and private voice interaction.