Close front unrounded vowel

Close front unrounded vowel
i
IPA number	301
Encoding
Entity (decimal)	i
Unicode (hex)	U+0069
X-SAMPA	i
Kirshenbaum	i
Braille
Sound
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The close front unrounded vowel, or high front unrounded vowel, is a type of vowel sound that occurs in most spoken languages, represented in the International Phonetic Alphabet by the symbol i. It is similar to the vowel sound in the English word meet—and often called long-e in American English—although in English this sound has additional length (usually being represented as /iː/) and is not normally pronounced as a pure vowel (it is a slight diphthong) – a purer [i] sound is heard in many other languages, such as French, in words like chic.

The close front unrounded vowel is the vocalic equivalent of the palatal approximant [j]. The two are almost identical featurally. They alternate with each other in certain languages, such as French, and in the diphthongs of some languages, [i̯] with the non-syllabic diacritic and [j] are used in different transcription systems to represent the same sound.

Languages that use the Latin script commonly use the letter ⟨i⟩ to represent this sound, though there are some exceptions: in English orthography that letter is usually associated with /aɪ/ (as in bite) or /ɪ/ (as in bit), and /iː/ is more commonly represented by ⟨e⟩, ⟨ea⟩, ⟨ee⟩, ⟨ie⟩ or ⟨ei⟩, as in the words scene, bean, meet, niece, conceive; (see Great Vowel Shift). Irish orthography reflects both etymology and whether preceding consonants are broad or slender, so such combinations as ⟨aí⟩, ⟨ei⟩, and ⟨aío⟩ all represent /iː/.

Features

IPA vowel chart
Front Near-​front Central Near-​back Back Close •iy •ɨʉ •ɯu •ɪʏ •ɪ̈ʊ̈ •ɯ̽ʊ •eø •ɘɵ •ɤo •e̞ø̞ •əɵ̞ •ɤ̞o̞ •ɛœ •ɜɞ •ʌɔ •æ •ɐɞ̞ •aɶ •äɒ̈ •ɑɒ Near-close Close-mid Mid Open-mid Near-open Open
Paired vowels are: unrounded • rounded
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• 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 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. Note that rounded front vowels are often centralized, which means that often they are in fact near-front.
• It is unrounded, which means that the lips are not rounded.

Occurrence

Language		Word	IPA	Meaning	Notes
Arabic	Standard	دين	[d̪iːn]	'religion'	See Arabic phonology
Armenian	Eastern	իմ	[im]	'my'
Bavarian	Amstetten dialect
Catalan		sis	[ˈs̠is̠]	'six'	See Catalan phonology
Chinese	Mandarin	七/qī	[tɕʰi˥]	'seven'	See Standard Chinese phonology
Czech	Moravian	byli	[ˈbili]	'they were'	Corresponds to [e] (also described as [ɪ]) in Bohemian Czech. See Czech phonology
	Standard	bílý	[ˈbiːliː]	'white'	See Czech phonology
Danish	Standard	mile	[ˈmiːlə]	'dune'	See Danish phonology
Dutch		biet	[bit]	'beet'	See Dutch phonology
English		free	[fɹiː]	'free'	Depending on dialect, can be pronounced as a diphthong. See English phonology
Estonian		tiik	[tiːk]	'pond'	See Estonian phonology
Finnish		viisi	[ˈviːsi]	'five'	See Finnish phonology
French		fini	[fini]	'finished'	See French phonology
Georgian		სამი	[ˈsɑmi]	'three'
German	Standard	Ziel	[t͡siːl]	'goal'	See German phonology
Hindustani		बच्ची	[bət͡ʃiː]	'girl'	See Hindustani phonology
Hungarian		ív	[iːv]	'arch'	See Hungarian phonology
Icelandic		fínt	[fin̥t]	'fine'	See Icelandic phonology
Italian		bile	[ˈbiːle]	'rage'	See Italian phonology
Japanese		銀/gin	[ɡʲiɴ]	'silver'	See Japanese phonology
Kaingang		[ˈndukːi]		'in the belly'
Limburgish		bies	[bis]	'animal'	The example word is from the Maastrichtian dialect.
Luxembourgish		Kiischt	[kʰiːʃt]	'cherry'	See Luxembourgish phonology
Polish		miś	[ˈmʲiɕ]	'teddy bear'	See Polish phonology
Portuguese		fino	[ˈfinu]	'thin'	Also occurs as an unstressed allophone of other vowels. May be represented by ⟨y⟩. See Portuguese phonology
Russian		лист	[lʲis̪t̪]	'leaf'	Only occurs word-initially or after palatalized consonants. See Russian phonology
Sema		pi	[pì]	'to say'	Also described as near-close front [i̞].
Shiwiar
Sioux	Lakota	ǧí	[ʀí]	'it's brown'
Slovak		rýchly	[ˈriːxli]	'fast'	Backness varies between front and near-front; most commonly, it is realized as near-close [ɪ] instead. See Slovak phonology
Spanish		tipo	[ˈt̪ipo̞]	'type'	May also be represented by ⟨y⟩. See Spanish phonology
Thai		กริช	[krìt]	'dagger'
Turkish		ip	[ip]	'rope'	See Turkish phonology
Yoruba
Zapotec	Tilquiapan	diza	[d̪iza]	'Zapotec'

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