Open front rounded vowel
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Edit - 2× | Front | N.-front | Central | N.-back | Back |
Close | |||||
Near-close | |||||
Close-mid | |||||
Mid | |||||
Open-mid | |||||
Near-open | |||||
Open |
represents a rounded vowel.
IPA – number | 312 |
IPA – text | ɶ |
IPA – image | |
Entity | ɶ |
X-SAMPA | & |
Kirshenbaum | a. |
Sound sample |
---|
The open front rounded vowel is a type of vowel sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ɶ, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is &. The symbol ɶ is a small capital OE ligature. Note that œ, the lowercase version of the ligature, is used for the open-mid front rounded vowel.
[edit] Features
- Its vowel height is open, which means the tongue is positioned as far as possible from the roof of the mouth.
- Its vowel backness is front, which means the tongue is positioned as far forward as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant.
- Its vowel roundedness is rounded, which means that the lips are rounded.
[edit] Occurs in
[ɶ] is not confirmed to exist as a phoneme in any language. Quite oddly, it's most well known by English speakers as the sound Darth Vader makes when he exhales[citation needed]. A phoneme generally transcribed by this symbol is reported from the Amstetten dialect of Bavarian German. It is the rounded equivalent of /æ/, not of open /a/, and so would be more narrowly transcribed as [œ̞]:
- Austrian German (slang): Seil [sɶː] or [sœ̞ː], "rope"
- Canadian French: Veux [vɶː], "I/You (singular) want"
However, the vowel formants place Amstetten /æ/ and /œ/ one third of the way between /a/ and /i/, matching the IPA definition for open-mid vowels.