A mid vowel (or a true-mid vowel) is any in a class of
vowel
A vowel is a speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract, forming the nucleus of a syllable. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness a ...
sounds used in some spoken
language
Language is a structured system of communication that consists of grammar and vocabulary. It is the primary means by which humans convey meaning, both in spoken and signed language, signed forms, and may also be conveyed through writing syste ...
s. The defining characteristic of a mid vowel is that the tongue is positioned approximately midway between an
open vowel
An open vowel is a vowel sound in which the tongue is positioned approximately as far as possible from the roof of the mouth. Open vowels are sometimes also called low vowels (in U.S. terminology ) in reference to the low position of the tongue ...
and a
close vowel.
Other names for a mid vowel are lowered close-mid vowel and raised open-mid vowel, though the former phrase may also be used to describe a vowel that is as low as
open-mid; likewise, the latter phrase may also be used to describe a vowel that is as high as
close-mid.
Vowels
The only mid vowel with a dedicated 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 standard written representation ...
is the
mid central vowel with ambiguous rounding .
The IPA divides the vowel space into thirds, with the
close-mid vowels such as or and the
open-mid vowels such as or equidistant in
formant space between open or and close or . Thus a true mid front unrounded vowel can be transcribed as either a lowered (with a
lowering diacritic) or as a raised (with a
raising diacritic).
Typical truly mid vowels are thus:
*
mid front unrounded vowel or
*
mid front rounded vowel or
*
mid central unrounded vowel or (most commonly written )
*
mid central protruded vowel or (most commonly written as if it were
close-mid)
*
mid central compressed vowel
*
mid back unrounded vowel or
*
mid back rounded vowel or
Languages
Few languages contrast all three heights of mid vowel, because it is rare for a language to distinguish more than four heights of true front or back vowels.
The
Kensiu language spoken in Malaysia and Thailand is highly unusual in that it phonemically contrasts true-mid vowels with close-mid and open-mid vowels without differences in other parameters such as backness or roundedness.
References
{{IPA navigation
Vowels by height