Not to be confused with the Armenian letter
ա or the Cyrillic letter
ш.
The close back unrounded vowel, or high back unrounded vowel, is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. Acoustically it is a close back-central unrounded vowel.[1] The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨ɯ⟩. Typographically a turned letter m, given its relation to the sound represented by the letter u it can be considered a u with an extra "bowl". The sound is sometimes referred to as "unrounded u".
The IPA prefers terms "close" and "open" for vowels, hence the name of this article. However, a large number of linguists, perhaps a majority, prefer the terms "high" and "low".
Features
- Its vowel height is close, also known as high, which means the tongue is positioned as close as possible to the roof of the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant.
- 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.
- It is unrounded, which means that the lips are not rounded.
Occurrence
The symbol ⟨ɯ⟩ is sometimes used for Japanese /u/, but that sound is rounded, albeit with labial compression rather than protrusion. It is more accurately described as an exolabial close back vowel.
See also
References
Bibliography
- Asu, Eva Liina; Teras, Pire (2009), "Estonian", Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 39 (3): 367–372, doi:10.1017/s002510030999017x<templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css"></templatestyles>
- Bowerman, Sean (2004), "White South African English: phonology", in Schneider, Edgar W.; Burridge, Kate; Kortmann, Bernd; Mesthrie, Rajend; Upton, Clive (eds.), A handbook of varieties of English, 1: Phonology, Mouton de Gruyter, pp. 931–942, ISBN 3-11-017532-0<templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css"></templatestyles>
- Chirkova, Katia; Chen, Yiya; Kocjančič Antolík, Tanja (2013), "Xumi, Part 2: Upper Xumi, the Variety of the Upper Reaches of the Shuiluo River" (PDF), Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 43 (3): 381–396, doi:10.1017/S0025100313000169<templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css"></templatestyles>
- Göksel, Asli; Kerslake, Celia (2005), Turkish: a comprehensive grammar (PDF), Routledge, ISBN 978-0415114943, archived from the original (PDF) on 26 November 2014<templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css"></templatestyles>
- Ladefoged, Peter (1999), "American English", Handbook of the International Phonetic Association, Cambridge University Press, pp. 41–44<templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css"></templatestyles>
- Lee, Hyun Bok (1999), "Korean", Handbook of the International Phonetic Association:A Guide to the Use of the International Phonetic Alphabet, Cambridge University Press, pp. 120–123, ISBN 0-521-63751-1<templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css"></templatestyles>
- Tingsabadh, M.R. Kalaya; Abramson, Arthur S. (1993), "Thai", Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 23 (1): 24–26, doi:10.1017/S0025100300004746<templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css"></templatestyles>
- Wells, John C. (1982), Accents of English 3: Beyond The British Isles, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0-521-28541-0<templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css"></templatestyles>
- Zimmer, Karl; Orgun, Orhan (1999), "Turkish", Handbook of the International Phonetic Association: A guide to the use of the International Phonetic Alphabet (PDF), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 154–158, ISBN 0-521-65236-7<templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css"></templatestyles>
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— These tables contain phonetic symbols, which may not display correctly in some browsers. [Help] |
— Where symbols appear in pairs, left–right represent the voiceless–voiced consonants. |
— Shaded areas denote pulmonic articulations judged to be impossible or not distinctive. |
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