The near-open front unrounded vowel, or near-low front unrounded vowel, is a type of
vowel
A vowel is a syllabic speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness and also in quantity (len ...
sound, used in some
spoken language
Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of ...
s. The symbol in the
International Phonetic Alphabet
The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is an alphabetic system of phonetic notation based primarily on the Latin script. It was devised by the International Phonetic Association in the late 19th century as a standardized representation ...
that represents this sound is , a lowercase of the
ligature. Both the symbol and the sound are commonly referred to as "ash".
The rounded counterpart of , the near-open front rounded vowel (for which the IPA provides no separate symbol) has been reported to occur allophonically in
Danish;
see
open front rounded vowel
The (near) open front rounded vowel, or (near) low front rounded vowel, is a type of vowel sound that has not been confirmed to be phonemic in any spoken language. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ...
for more information.
In practice, is sometimes used to represent the
open front unrounded vowel; see the introduction to that page for more information.
In IPA transcriptions of
Hungarian and
Valencian, this vowel is typically written with .
Features
Occurrence
See also
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Index of phonetics articles
Notes
References
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External links
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{{IPA navigation
Near-open vowels
Front vowels
Unrounded vowels