Open-mid central unrounded vowel

Open-mid central unrounded vowel
Open-mid central unrounded vowel
ɜ
IPA number 326
Encoding
Entity (decimal) ɜ
Unicode (hex) U+025C
X-SAMPA 3
Kirshenbaum V"
Sound

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The open-mid central unrounded vowel, or low-mid central 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 ɜ. Note that the IPA symbol is not the number "3", but a reversed epsilon.

The IPA prefers terms "close" and "open" for vowels, and the name of the article follows this. However, a large number of linguists, perhaps a majority, prefer the terms "high" and "low", and these are the only terms found in introductory textbooks on phonetics such as those by Peter Ladefoged.

Contents

Features

IPA vowel chart
Front Near-​front Central Near-​back Back
Close
Blank vowel trapezoid.svg
iy
ɨʉ
ɯu
ɪʏ
ʊ
eø
ɘɵ
ɤo
ɛœ
ɜɞ
ʌɔ
æ
aɶ
ä
ɑɒ
Near-close
Close-mid
Mid
Open-mid
Near-open
Open
Paired vowels are: unrounded • rounded
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IPA help • IPA key • chart • Loudspeaker.svg chart with audio • view
  • Its vowel height is open-mid, also known as low-mid, which means the tongue is positioned halfway between an open vowel (a low vowel) and a mid vowel.
  • Its vowel backness is central, which means the tongue is positioned halfway between a front vowel and a back vowel.
  • Its vowel roundedness is unrounded, which means that the lips are not rounded.
  • In non-rhotic varieties of English, it is sulcalized, which means the tongue is grooved as in an English [ɹ].

Occurrence

Language Word IPA Meaning Notes
Cherokee /v-tla [ɜʔtɬ͡a˦] 'no' Always nasalized.
English RP[1] bird [bɜːd] 'bird' Sulcalized. Corresponds to a rhotacized form in rhotic dialects.
Ohio[2] bust [bɜst] 'bust' The most common realization of the vowel transcribed as ⟨ʌ⟩ in American English.[1][2]
most of Texas[2]
Paicî [mbʷɜ̄] 'remainder'
West Frisian Hindeloopers pöt [pɜt] 'pot'

Notes

  1. ^ a b Ladefoged (1993: 82)
  2. ^ a b c Thomas (2001:27–28)

Bibliography

  • Ladefoged, Peter. (1993). A course in phonetics (3rd ed.). Fort Worth: Harcourt College Publishers.
  • Roach, Peter (2004), "British English: Received Pronunciation", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 34 (2): 239–245, doi:10.1017/S0025100304001768 
  • Thomas, Erik R. (2001), An acoustic analysis of vowel variation in New World English, Publication of the American Dialect Society, 85, Duke University Press for the American Dialect Society, ISSN 0002-8207 

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