 In these languages, voiced obstruents in the syllable coda or at the end of a word become voiceless.Initial voicing is a process of historical sound change where voiceless consonants become voiced at the beginning of a word.For example, modern German , Yiddish , and Dutch (all "say") all begin with , which derives from in an earlier stage of Germanic, as still attested in English "say", Swedish , and Icelandic .