The open front unrounded vowel, or 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. It is one of the eight primary cardinal vowels, not directly intended to correspond to a vowel sound of a specific language but rather to serve as a fundamental reference point in a

phonetic Phonetics is a branch of linguistics that studies how humans produce and perceive sounds, or in the case of sign languages, the equivalent aspects of sign. Linguists who specialize in studying the physical properties of speech are phoneticians. ...

measuring system. 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 ...

(IPA) that represents this sound is , and in the IPA vowel chart it is positioned at the lower-left corner. However, the accuracy of the quadrilateral vowel chart is disputed, and the sound has been analyzed acoustically as extra-open at a position where the front/back distinction has lost its significance. There are also differing interpretations of the exact quality of the vowel: the classic sound recording of by Daniel Jones is slightly more front but not quite as open as that by John Wells. In practice, the symbol is often used to represent an open ''central'' unrounded vowel.Keith Johnson
Vowels in the languages of the world
(PDF), p. 9 This is the usual practice, for example, in the historical study of the

English language English is a West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family, with its earliest forms spoken by the inhabitants of early medieval England. It is named after the Angles, one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to the ...

. The loss of separate symbols for open and near-open front vowels is usually considered unproblematic, because the perceptual difference between the two is quite small, and very few languages contrast the two. If there is a need to specify the backness of the vowel as fully front one can use the symbol , which denotes a lowered

near-open front unrounded vowel The near-open front unrounded vowel, or near-low front unrounded vowel, is a type of vowel sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , a lowercase of the ligature. Bo ...

, or with the IPA "advanced" diacritic. The

Hamont-Achel dialect Hamont-Achel dialect ( nl, Hamonts-Achels, li, Haëmets-Achels) or Hamont-Achel Limburgish is the city dialect and variant of Limburgish spoken in the Belgian city of Hamont-Achel alongside the Dutch language (with which it is not mutually i ...

Limburgish Limburgish ( li, Limburgs or ; nl, Limburgs ; german: Limburgisch ; french: Limbourgeois ), also called Limburgan, Limburgian, or Limburgic, is a West Germanic language spoken in the Dutch and Belgian provinces of Limburg and in the neig ...

has been reported to contrast long open front,

central Central is an adjective usually referring to being in the center of some place or (mathematical) object. Central may also refer to: Directions and generalised locations * Central Africa, a region in the centre of Africa continent, also known a ...

and back unrounded vowels. This is extremely unusual.

Features

This subsumes central open (central low) vowels because the tongue does not have as much flexibility in positioning as it does in the mid and close (high) vowels; the difference between an open front vowel and an open back vowel is similar to the difference between a close front and a close central vowel, or a close central and a close back vowel.

Occurrence

Many languages have some form of an unrounded open vowel. For languages that have only a single open vowel, the symbol for this vowel may be used because it is the only open vowel whose symbol is part of the basic

Latin alphabet The Latin alphabet or Roman alphabet is the collection of letters originally used by the ancient Romans to write the Latin language. Largely unaltered with the exception of extensions (such as diacritics), it used to write English and the ...

. Whenever marked as such, the vowel is closer to a central than to a front . However, there may not actually be much of a difference. (See Vowel#Acoustics.)

Notes

References

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External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Open Front Unrounded Vowel Open vowels Front vowels Unrounded vowels