Near-close near-front unrounded vowel

Near-close near-front unrounded vowel
ɪ
IPA number	319
Encoding
Entity (decimal)	ɪ
Unicode (hex)	U+026A
X-SAMPA	I
Kirshenbaum	I
Braille
Image

Near-close front unrounded vowel
ɪ̟

The near-close near-front unrounded vowel, or near-high near-front 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 ⟨ɪ⟩, i.e. a small capital letter i.

The IPA prefers the terms "close" and "open" for classifying vowels. Some linguists use the terms "high" and "low," respectively, instead of "close" and "open."

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 near-close, also known as near-high, which means the tongue is not quite so constricted as a close vowel (high vowel).
• Its vowel backness is near-front. also known as front-central or centralized front, which means the tongue is positioned almost as far forward as a front vowel.
• It is unrounded, which means that the lips are not rounded.

Occurrence

In the following transcriptions, a fully front vowel is represented by the "advanced" diacritic [ɪ̟].

Language		Word	IPA	Meaning	Notes
Assyrian Neo-Aramaic		sitwa	[sɪtwɐ]	'winter'	Used mostly in the Tyari dialects. [ə] is used predominantly in other dialects.
Chinese	Yue	冰/bing1	[pɪŋ˥]	'ice'	See Cantonese phonology
	Wu	一/ih	[iɪʔ˥]	'one'
Czech	Bohemian	byli	[ˈbɪlɪ]	'they were'	Also described as close-mid front [e]; corresponds to close front [i] in Moravian Czech. See Czech phonology
Danish	Standard	hel	[ˈhɪ̟ːˀl]	'whole'	Fully front. Most often, it is transcribed ⟨e(ː)⟩ - the way it is pronounced in the conservative variety. See Danish phonology
Dutch	Orsmaal-Gussenhoven dialect	blik	[blɪ̟k]	'plate'	Somewhat fronted. See Orsmaal-Gussenhoven dialect phonology
	Rotterdam	bit	[bɪ̟t]	'bit'	Somewhat fronted; corresponds to [ɘ̟] in standard Dutch. See Dutch phonology
	The Hague
English	Most dialects	bit	[bɪt]	'bit'	See English phonology
	Australian		[bɪ̟t]		Fully front and somewhat raised, tenser than in most other dialects. See Australian English phonology
	New Zealand	bed	[bɪd]	'bed'	Some speakers. For others it's more open [e], or even [ɛ], in case of South African English.
	South African
French	Quebec	petite	[pət͡sɪt]	'small'	Allophone of /i/ in closed syllables. See Quebec French phonology
German	Southern Bernese	[ˈɣ̊lɪːd̥]		'cloth'	Corresponds to [ɛi̯] in the city of Bern. See Bernese German phonology
	Standard	bitte	[ˈbɪtʰə]	'please'	May be somewhat lowered. See German phonology
Hindustani		कि	[kɪ]	'that' (subject/object of a relative clause)	See Hindustani phonology
Irish		duine	[dˠɪnʲə]	'person'	See Irish phonology
Kaingang		[ɸɪˈɾi]		'rattlesnake'	Atonic allophone of /i/ and /e/.
Limburgish	Hamont dialect	noorderweend	[ˈnoːʀdəʀβ̞ɪːnt]	'north wind'	Standard Dutch-influenced pronunciation; may be realized as [eː]. See Hamont dialect phonology
	Hasselt dialect	mìs	[mɪs]	'wrong'
	Weert dialect	zeen	[zɪːn]	'to be'	Allophone of /eə/ before nasals.
Lithuanian		viltis	[vʲɪlʲˈtʲɪs]	'hope'
Luxembourgish		Been	[bɪ̟ːn]	'leg'	Fully front; typically transcribed in IPA as ⟨eː⟩. Also described as close-mid [eː]. See Luxembourgish phonology
Mongolian		?	[xɪɾɘ̆]	'hillside'
Norwegian		litt	[lɪt]	'a little'	May be fully front. See Norwegian phonology
Plautdietsch		winta	[ˈvɪntə]	'winter'
Portuguese	Brazilian	Filipe	[fɪˈlipɪ̥]	'Filipe'	Corresponds to [i ~ e̞] in Brazil, and /ɨ/ and unstressed /i/ in other national variants. See Portuguese phonology
Punjabi		ਨਿੰਬੂ	[nɪmbu]	'lemon'
Romanian	Banat dialect	râu	[rɪw]	'river'	Corresponds to [ɨ] in standard Romanian. See Romanian phonology
Russian		дерево	[ˈdʲerʲɪvə]	'tree'	Occurs only in unstressed syllables. See Russian phonology
Scottish Gaelic		thig	[hɪk]	'come'	See Scottish Gaelic phonology
Sema		pi	[pì̞]	'to say'	Fully front; also described as close [i].
Shiwiar					Allophone of /i/.
Sicilian		arrìriri	[aˈrɪɾiɾi]	'smile'
Slovak		rýchly	[ˈrɪːxlɪ]	'fast'	Backness varies between front and near-front. See Slovak phonology
Spanish	Eastern Andalusian	mis	[mɪ̟ː]	'my' (pl.)	Fully front. It corresponds to [i] in other dialects, but in these dialects they're distinct. See Spanish phonology
	Murcian
Swedish	Central Standard	sill	[s̪ɪ̟l̪ː]	'herring'	Fully front and lowered, more like [e̝]. See Swedish phonology
Turkish		müşteri	[my̠ʃt̪e̞ˈɾɪ]	'customer'	Allophone of /i/ described variously as "word-final" and "occurring in final open syllable of a phrase". See Turkish phonology
Ukrainian		ходити	[xoˈdɪtɪ]	'to walk'	See Ukrainian phonology
Upper Sorbian		być	[bɪt͡ʃ]	'to be'	Allophone of /i/ after hard consonants. See Upper Sorbian phonology
Vietnamese		chị	[cɪj˧ˀ˨]	'elder sister'	See Vietnamese phonology
West Frisian	Hindeloopers	beast	[bɪːst]	'animal'	See West Frisian phonology
Yoruba					Fully front; typically transcribed in IPA as ⟨ĩ⟩. It is nasalized, and may be close [ĩ] instead.

Icelandic ⟨i⟩ is often transcribed as /ɪ/, but it is actually close-mid [e].

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