Near-open vowel

From Infogalactic: the planetary knowledge core
Jump to: navigation, search

Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.

A near-open vowel or a near-low vowel is any in a class of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a near-open vowel is that the tongue is positioned similarly to an open vowel, but slightly more constricted. Near-open vowels are sometimes described as lax variants of the fully open vowels.[citation needed]

Partial list

The near-open vowels with dedicated symbols in the International Phonetic Alphabet are:

Other near-open vowels can be indicated with diacritics of relative articulation applied to letters for neighboring vowels, such as ⟨ɒ̽⟩ and ⟨ɑ̽⟩ for near-open near-back rounded and unrounded vowels.