Near-open front unrounded vowel

In today's world, Near-open front unrounded vowel has become a topic of great relevance and interest to people of all ages and backgrounds. The importance of Near-open front unrounded vowel has been increasing in recent years, as its influence extends to different aspects of daily life. Both on a personal and professional level, Near-open front unrounded vowel has generated debates, controversies and significant advances. In this article, we will explore in detail the importance of Near-open front unrounded vowel and its impact on today's society, analyzing its different facets and unraveling its relevance in different contexts.

Near-open front unrounded vowel
æ
IPA Number325
Audio sample
Encoding
Entity (decimal)æ
Unicode (hex)U+00E6
X-SAMPA{
Braille⠩ (braille pattern dots-146)

The near-open front unrounded vowel, or near-low front unrounded vowel, is a type of vowel sound. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is æ, a lowercase of the Æ 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 for more information.

In practice, æ 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 ɛ.

Features

  • Its vowel height is near-open, also known as near-low, which means the tongue is positioned similarly to an open vowel, but is slightly more constricted – that is, the tongue is positioned similarly to a low vowel, but slightly higher.
  • Its vowel backness is front, which means the tongue is positioned forward in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant.
  • It is unrounded, which means that the lips are not rounded.

Occurrence

Language Word IPA Meaning Notes
Afrikaans Standard 'perd' 'horse' Allophone of /ɛ/, in some dialects, before /k χ l r/. See Afrikaans phonology
Äiwoo ikuwä 'I go' Distinguished from both and .
Arabic Standard كتاب / 'kitāb' 'book' Allophone of /a/ in the environment of plain labial and coronal consonants as well as /j/ (depending on the speaker's accent). See Arabic phonology
Azerbaijani 'Azərbaycan' 'Azerbaijan'
Bambam 'bätä' 'stem'
Bashkir йәй / yäy 'summer'
Bengali /ek 'one' See Bengali phonology
Bulgarian
Moesian dialects млечен/mlečen 'made from milk' Descendant of Proto-Slavic *ě in places where Standard Bulgarian would have /ɛ/. See Yat.
Rup dialects Descendant of Proto-Slavic *ě in all positions. See Yat.
Teteven dialect мъж/măž 'man' In place of Standard Bulgarian (written as ъ).
Erkech dialect
Catalan Majorcan tesi 'thesis' Main realization of /ɛ/. See Catalan phonology
Valencian
Chechen аьрзу / ärzu 'eagle'
Danish Standard dansk 'Danish' Most often transcribed in IPA with ⟨a⟩ – the way it is realized by certain older or upper-class speakers. See Danish phonology
Dutch pen 'pen' Allophone of /ɛ/ before /n/ and coda /l/. In non-standard accents this allophone is generalized to other positions, where [ɛ] is used in Standard Dutch. See Dutch phonology
English Cultivated New Zealand cat 'cat' Higher in other New Zealand varieties. See New Zealand English phonology
General American See English phonology
Conservative Received Pronunciation Fully open [a] in contemporary RP. See English phonology
Estonian väle 'agile' Near-front. See Estonian phonology
Finnish mäki 'hill' See Finnish phonology
French Parisian bain 'bath' Nasalized; typically transcribed in IPA with ɛ̃. See French phonology
Quebec ver 'worm' Allophone of /ɛ/ before /ʁ/ or in open syllables, and of /a/ in closed syllables. See Quebec French phonology
German Standard Austrian erlauben 'allow' Variant of pretonic [ɛɐ̯]. See Standard German phonology
West Central German accents oder 'or' Used instead of [ɐ]. See Standard German phonology
Northern accents alles 'everything' Lower and often also more back in other accents. See Standard German phonology
Western Swiss accents spät 'late' Open-mid [ɛː] or close-mid [] in other accents; contrasts with the open-mid /ɛː/. See Standard German phonology
Greek Macedonia γάτα/gáta 'cat' See Modern Greek phonology
Thessaly
Thrace
Pontic καλάθια/kaláthia 'baskets'
Hungarian nem 'no' Typically transcribed in IPA with ɛ. See Hungarian phonology
Kanoê 'tobacco'
Kazakh әйел/äiel 'woman' Varies between near-open and open-mid.
Kurdish Sorani (Central) گاڵته/ galte 'joke' Equal to Palewani (Southern) front [a]. See Kurdish phonology
Lakon rävräv 'evening'
Limburgish twelf 'twelve' Front or near-front, depending on the dialect. The example word is from the Maastrichtian dialect, in which the vowel is near-front.
Lithuanian jachtą 'yacht' (accusative) See Lithuanian phonology
Luxembourgish Käpp 'heads' See Luxembourgish phonology
Norwegian Urban East lær 'leather' See Norwegian phonology
Persian هشت/hašt 'eight'
Portuguese Some dialects pedra 'stone' Stressed vowel. In other dialects closer /ɛ/. See Portuguese phonology
Some European speakers também 'also' Stressed vowel, allophone of nasal vowel /ẽ̞/.
Romanian Bukovinian dialect piele 'skin' Corresponds to in standard Romanian. Also identified in some Central Transylvanian sub-dialects. See Romanian phonology
Russian пять / pja 'five' Allophone of /a/ between palatalized consonants. See Russian phonology
Serbo-Croatian Zeta-Raška dialect дан/dan 'day' Regional reflex of Proto-Slavic *ь and *ъ. Sometimes nasalised.
Sinhala ඇය/æya 'she'
Slovak mäso 'meat, flesh' In conversation sometimes pronounced as or . See Slovak phonology
Swedish Central Standard ära 'hono(u)r' Allophone of /ɛː, ɛ/ before /r/. See Swedish phonology
Stockholm läsa 'to read' Realization of /ɛː, ɛ/ for younger speakers. Higher for other speakers
Turkish sen 'you' Allophone of /e/ before syllable-final /m, n, l, r/. In a limited number of words (but not before /r/), it is in free variation with []. See Turkish phonology

See also

Notes

  1. ^ While the International Phonetic Association prefers the terms "close" and "open" for vowel height, many linguists use "high" and "low".
  2. ^ a b Grønnum (1998:100)
  3. ^ Basbøll (2005:46)
  4. ^ Donaldson (1993:3)
  5. ^ Holes (2004:60)
  6. ^ Campbell (1991:5)
  7. ^ Berta (1998:183)
  8. ^ "Bengali romanization table" (PDF). Bahai Studies. Bahai Studies. Retrieved 30 October 2020.
  9. ^ a b Rafel (1999:14)
  10. ^ Basbøll (2005:45)
  11. ^ Basbøll (2005:32)
  12. ^ Collins & Mees (2003:92, 129)
  13. ^ Collins & Mees (2003:92, 128–129, 131)
  14. ^ Gordon & Maclagan (2004:609)
  15. ^ Wells (1982:486)
  16. ^ a b Cruttenden (2014:119–120)
  17. ^ a b Asu & Teras (2009:368)
  18. ^ Suomi, Toivanen & Ylitalo (2008:21)
  19. ^ Collins & Mees (2013:226)
  20. ^ a b Walker (1984:75)
  21. ^ a b Moosmüller, Schmid & Brandstätter (2015:342)
  22. ^ a b Dudenredaktion, Kleiner & Knöbl (2015:40)
  23. ^ a b Dudenredaktion, Kleiner & Knöbl (2015:64)
  24. ^ Dudenredaktion, Kleiner & Knöbl (2015:65)
  25. ^ Dudenredaktion, Kleiner & Knöbl (2015:34, 64–65)
  26. ^ a b c Newton (1972:11)
  27. ^ Revithiadou & Spyropoulos (2009:41)
  28. ^ Szende (1994:92)
  29. ^ Bacelar (2004:60)
  30. ^ François (2005:466)
  31. ^ a b Gussenhoven & Aarts (1999:159)
  32. ^ a b Peters (2006:119)
  33. ^ a b Verhoeven (2007:221)
  34. ^ Gilles & Trouvain (2013:70)
  35. ^ Vanvik (1979:13)
  36. ^ Popperwell (2010:16, 21–22)
  37. ^ Majidi & Ternes (1991)
  38. ^ Campbell (1995)
  39. ^ Portuguese: A Linguistic Introduction – by Milton M. Azevedo Page 186.
  40. ^ Lista das marcas dialetais e outros fenómenos de variação (fonética e fonológica) identificados nas amostras do Arquivo Dialetal do CLUP (in Portuguese)
  41. ^ a b Pop (1938), p. 29.
  42. ^ Jones & Ward (1969:50)
  43. ^ Yanushevskaya & Bunčić (2015:224–225)
  44. ^ a b Okuka 2008, p. 171.
  45. ^ Perera & Jones (1919:5)
  46. ^ Eliasson (1986:273)
  47. ^ Thorén & Petterson (1992:15)
  48. ^ a b Riad (2014:38)
  49. ^ a b Göksel & Kerslake (2005:10)

References

External links