The open-mid back unrounded vowel or low-mid back unrounded vowel
is a type 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 ...
sound, 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 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 ...
that represents this sound is , graphically a rotated lowercase "v" (called a
turned V but created as a small-capital without the crossbar, even though some vendors display it as a real turned
v). Both the symbol and the sound are commonly referred to as a "wedge", "
caret
Caret () is the name used familiarly for the character provided on most QWERTY keyboards by typing . The symbol has a variety of uses in programming and mathematics. The name "caret" arose from its visual similarity to the original proofre ...
" or "hat". In transcriptions for
English, this symbol is commonly used for the
near-open central unrounded vowel and in transcriptions for
Danish, it is used for the
open back rounded vowel.
Features
Occurrence
Before
World War II
World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
, the of
Received Pronunciation
Received Pronunciation (RP) is the Accent (sociolinguistics), accent of British English regarded as the Standard language, standard one, carrying the highest Prestige (sociolinguistics), social prestige, since as late as the beginning of the 2 ...
was phonetically close to a back vowel , which has since shifted forward towards (a near-open central unrounded vowel).
Daniel Jones reported his speech (southern British) as having an advanced back vowel between his central and back ; however, he also reported that other southern speakers had a lower and even more advanced vowel that approached cardinal . In
American English
American English, sometimes called United States English or U.S. English, is the set of variety (linguistics), varieties of the English language native to the United States. English is the Languages of the United States, most widely spoken lang ...
varieties, such as in the West, the Midwest, and the urban South, the typical phonetic realization of the phoneme is an open-mid central . Truly backed variants of that are phonetically can occur in
Inland Northern American English, Newfoundland English,
Philadelphia English, some of
African-American English, and (old-fashioned) white
Southern American English
Southern American English or Southern U.S. English is a regional dialect or collection of dialects of American English spoken throughout the Southern United States, primarily by White Southerners and increasingly concentrated in more rural areas ...
in coastal plain and Piedmont areas. However, the letter is still commonly used to indicate this phoneme, even in the more common varieties with central variants or . That may be because of both tradition and some other dialects retaining the older pronunciation.
Notes
References
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Open-Mid Back Unrounded Vowel
Open-mid vowels
Back vowels
Unrounded vowels