Close-mid back rounded vowel

Close-mid back rounded vowel
o
IPA Number	307
Encoding
Entity (decimal)	o
Unicode (hex)	U+006F
X-SAMPA	o
Braille

The close-mid back rounded vowel, or high-mid back 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 ⟨o⟩.

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".

Features

IPA vowel chart
Front Near-​front Central Near-​back Back Close •[[|i]][[|y]] •[[|ɨ]][[|ʉ]] •[[|ɯ]][[|u]] •[[|ɪ]][[|ʏ]] •[[|ɪ̈]][[|ʊ̈]] •[[|ɯ̽]][[|ʊ]] •[[|e]][[|ø]] •[[|ɘ]][[|ɵ]] •[[|ɤ]][[|o]] •[[|e̞]][[|ø̞]] •[[|ə]][[|ɵ̞]] •[[|ɤ̞]][[|o̞]] •[[|ɛ]][[|œ]] •[[|ɜ]][[|ɞ]] •[[|ʌ]][[|ɔ]] •[[|æ]] •[[|ɐ]][[|ɞ̞]] •[[|a]][[|ɶ]] •[[|ä]][[|ɒ̈]] •[[|ɑ]][[|ɒ]] Near-close Close-mid Mid Open-mid Near-open Open
Paired vowels are: unrounded • rounded
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• Its vowel height is close-mid, also known as high-mid, which means the tongue is positioned halfway between a close vowel (a high vowel) and a mid vowel.
• Its vowel backness is back, which means the tongue is positioned as far back as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Note that unrounded back vowels tend to be centralized, which means that often they are in fact near-back.
• Its roundedness is protruded, which means that the corners of the lips are drawn together, and the inner surfaces exposed.

Occurrence

Language		Word	IPA	Meaning	Notes
Afrikaans	Standard	Botha	[ˈböˑtɐ]	'Botha'	Near-back. Allophone of /oə/ in less stressed words, in stressed syllables of polysyllabic words and in word-finally when unstressed. In the second case, it is in free variation with the diphthongal realization [öə̯ ~ ö̯ə ~ öə]. See Afrikaans phonology
Arabic	Egyptian	بؤ	[boʔ]	'mouth'	See Egyptian Arabic phonology
Assyrian Neo-Aramaic		hoga	[hoːga]	'steam'
Bavarian	Amstetten dialect
Bulgarian		уста	[os̪ˈt̪a]	'mouth'	See Bulgarian language
Catalan		sóc	[sok]	'I am'	See Catalan phonology
Chinese	Cantonese	高/gou1	[kou]	'tall'	See Cantonese phonology
	Wu	花	[ho]	'flower'
Czech	Bohemian	oko	[ˈoko]	'eye'	Backness varies between back and near-back; may be realized as mid [o̞] instead. See Czech phonology
Danish	Standard	kone	[ˈkʰoːnə]	'wife'	See Danish phonology
Dutch	Standard Belgian	kool	<phonos file="Nl-kool.ogg">[koːɫ]</phonos>	'cabbage'	In the Netherlands often diphthongized to [oʊ]. See Dutch phonology
	Northeastern
	Standard Netherlandic
	Leuven	maken	[ˈmoːkə]	'make'	Corresponds to /aː/ in standard Dutch.
English	Australian	yawn	[joːn]	'yawn'	See Australian English phonology
	Cockney				In non-final position it can also be a diphthong like [oʊ] or [ɔo]. Word finally it's [ɔː]~[ɔə]~[ɔwə].
	New Zealand
	South African				General and Broad varieties. Cultivated SAE has a more open vowel.
	General Indian	go	[ɡoː]	'go'
	General Pakistani				Varies between [oː~əʊ~ʊ].
	Multicultural London
	Scottish
	Singaporean
Faroese		tosa	[ˈtoːsa]	'speak'
French		réseau	<phonos file="Fr-Réseau-fr-Paris.ogg">[ʁeˈzo]</phonos>	'net'	See French phonology
German	Standard	oder	<phonos file="De-oder.ogg">[ˈʔoːdɐ]</phonos>	'or'	See German phonology
Hindustani		दो/دو	<phonos file="Hi-दो.ogg">[d̪oː]</phonos>	'two'	See Hindustani phonology
Hungarian		kór	[koːr]	'disease'	See Hungarian phonology
Italian		foro	[ˈfoːro]	'hole'	See Italian phonology
Kaingang		[pɪˈpo]		'toad'
Korean		보수/bosu	[ˈpoːsu]	'salary'	See Korean phonology
Limburgish	Most dialects	hoof	[ɦoːf]	'garden'	The example word is from the Maastrichtian dialect.
	Rural Weerts	koke	[ˈkoːkə]	'to cook'	Corresponds to /uə/ in the city dialect. The vowel transcribed /oː/ in the city dialect is actually a centering diphthong /oə/.
Luxembourgish		Sonn	[zon]	'sun'	Sometimes realized as open-mid [ɔ]. See Luxembourgish phonology
Marathi		गोड	[ɡoɖ]	'sweet'	See Marathi phonology
Norwegian	Stavangersk	lov	[lo̟ːʋ]	'law'	Somewhat fronted. See Norwegian phonology
Polish		jojo	[ˈjojɔ]	'yo-yo'	Allophone of /ɔ/ between palatal or palatalized consonants. See Polish phonology
Portuguese		dois	[d̪ojʃ]	'two'	See Portuguese phonology
Punjabi		ਹੋਰ	<phonos file="Pu-ਹੋਰ.ogg">[ɦoːɾ]</phonos>	'more'
Shiwiar					Allophone of /a/.
Silesian		Ślůnsk	[ˈɕlonsk]	'Silesia'
Slovak	Some speakers	telefón	[ˈt̻e̞le̞foːn]	'telephone'	Realization of /oː/ reported to occur in dialects spoken near the river Ipeľ, as well as - under Hungarian influence - in some other speakers. Corresponds to mid [o̞ː] in standard Slovak. See Slovak phonology
Swedish		åka	<phonos file="sv-åka.ogg">[ˈoːka]</phonos>	'travel'	See Swedish phonology
Ukrainian		мотузка	[moˈtuzkɑ]	'rope'	Unstressed allophone of /ɔ/ before stressed syllables with /u/. See Ukrainian phonology
Uzbek		Oʻzbek	[ozˈbek]	'Uzbek'
Vietnamese		tô	[toː]	'bowl'	See Vietnamese phonology
West Frisian		bok	[bok]	'billy-goat'	See West Frisian phonology
Yoruba