Open-mid front unrounded vowel

Open-mid front unrounded vowel
ɛ
IPA Number	303
Encoding
Entity (decimal)	ɛ
Unicode (hex)	U+025B
X-SAMPA	E
Braille
Image

The open-mid front unrounded vowel, or low-mid 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 a Latinized variant of the Greek lowercase epsilon, ⟨ɛ⟩.

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 open-mid, also known as low-mid, which means the tongue is positioned halfway between an open vowel (a low vowel) and a mid vowel.
• 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
Akan		pɛ	[pʰɛ]	'to like'
Albanian		tre	[tɾɛ]	'three'
Arabic		كريب	[kɾɛp]	'crêpe'	Only in loanwords and used by a small number of speakers, depending on country of origin. See Arabic phonology.
Armenian	Eastern	էջ	[ɛd͡ʒ]	'page'
Assyrian Neo-Aramaic		mes	[mɛːs]	'table'	Used predominantly in the Tyari, Barwari and Chaldean Neo-Aramaic dialects. Corresponds to [i] in other varieties.
Bavarian	Amstetten dialect				May be transcribed in IPA as ⟨æ⟩.
Catalan		mel	[mɛɫ]	'honey'	See Catalan phonology
Chinese	Cantonese	蛇/se4	[sɛː˩]	'snake'	See Cantonese phonology
	Mandarin	斜/xié	[ɕjɛ˧˥]	'tilted'	See Mandarin phonology
	Wu	/顏 ngae	[ŋɛ˥˨]	'face'
Czech		led	[lɛt]	'ice'	In Bohemian Czech, this vowel varies between open-mid front [ɛ], open-mid near-front [ɛ̠] and mid near-front [ɛ̝̈]. See Czech phonology
Danish	Standard	frisk	[ˈfʁ̞ɛsɡ̊]	'fresh'	Most often transcribed in IPA as ⟨æ⟩. See Danish phonology
Dutch	Standard	bed	<phonos file="Nl-bed.ogg">[bɛt]</phonos>	'bed'	See Dutch phonology
	The Hague	jij	<phonos file="Gents-jij.ogg">[jɛ̞ː]</phonos>	'you'	Corresponds to [ɛi] in standard Dutch.
English	General American	bed	<phonos file="En-us-bed.ogg">[bɛd]</phonos>	'bed'
	Northern English				May be somewhat lowered.
	Received Pronunciation				Older RP speakers pronounce a closer vowel [e̞]. See English phonology
	Scottish
	Cockney	fat	[fɛt]	'fat'
	Singaporean
	New Zealand
	Some Broad South African speakers				Other speakers realize this vowel as [æ] or [a].
	Belfast	days	[dɛːz]	'days'	Pronounced [iə] in closed syllables; corresponds to [eɪ] in RP.
	Zulu	mate	[mɛt]	'mate'	Speakers exhibit a met-mate merger.
Estonian		sule	[ˈsulɛˑ]	'feather (gen. sg.)'	Common word-final allophone of /e/. See Estonian phonology
Faroese		elska	[ɛlska]	'love'
French		bête	<phonos file="Fr-bête.ogg">[bɛt̪]</phonos>	'beast'	See French phonology
Galician		pé	[pɛ]	'foot'
Georgian		გედი	[ɡɛdɪ]	'swan'
German	Standard	Bett	<phonos file="De-Bett.ogg">[bɛt]</phonos>	'bed'	Also described as mid near-front [ɛ̝̈]. See Standard German phonology
Hindustani		شَہَر / शहर	[ʃɛɦɛr]	'city'	See Hindustani phonology
Hungarian		nem	[nɛm]	'no'	See Hungarian phonology
Icelandic		kenna	[ˈcʰɛnːa]	'to teach'	Often diphthongized to [eɛ] when long. See Icelandic phonology
Italian		bene	<phonos file="It-bene.ogg">[ˈbɛːne]</phonos>	'good'	See Italian phonology
Kaingang		[ˈᵐbɾɛ]		'with'
Korean		태도	[tʰɛː.do]	'attitude'	Currently merging with [e] in Seoul dialects. See Korean phonology
Limburgish		crème	[kʀ̝ɛːm]	'cream'	The example word is from the Maastrichtian dialect.
Lithuanian		mane	[mɐˈnʲɛ]	'me' (acc.)
Luxembourgish		Stär	[ʃtɛːɐ̯]	'star'	Allophone of /eː/ before /ʀ/. See Luxembourgish phonology
Macedonian		елен	[ˈɛl̪ɛn̪]	'deer'	See Macedonian phonology
Ngwe	Njoagwi dialect	[lɛ̀rɛ́]		'eye'
North Frisian		tech	[tɛx]	'closed'
Polish		ten	<phonos file="Pl-ten.ogg">[t̪ɛn̪]</phonos>	'this one' (masc. nom.)	See Polish phonology
Portuguese	Most dialects	meleca	[mɛˈl̪ɛ̞kə]	'goo'	Stressed vowel might be lower [æ]. The presence and use of other unstressed ⟨e⟩ allophones, such as [e̞ e ɪ i ɨ], varies according to dialect.
	Some speakers	tempo	[ˈt̪ɛ̃pu]	'time'	Stressed vowel, allophone of nasal vowel /ẽ̞/. See Portuguese phonology
Romanian	Transylvanian dialects	vede	[ˈvɛɟe]	'(he) sees'	Corresponds to mid [e̞] in standard Romanian. See Romanian phonology
Russian		это	<phonos file="Ru-это.ogg">[ˈɛt̪ə]</phonos>	'this'	See Russian phonology
Scottish Gaelic		aig	[ɛk]	'at'	See Scottish Gaelic phonology
Seri		me	[mɛ]	'you'
Shiwiar					Allophone of /a/.
Slovak		behať	[ˈbɛɦäc̟]	'to run'	Rare realization of /e/; most commonly realized as mid [e̞]. See Slovak phonology
Spanish	Eastern Andalusian	las madres	[læ̞ː ˈmæ̞ːð̞ɾɛː]	'the mothers'	Corresponds to [e̞] in other dialects, but in these dialects they're distinct. See Spanish phonology
	Murcian
Swedish	Central Standard	ät	[ɛ̠ːt̪]	'eat' (imp.)	Somewhat retracted. See Swedish phonology
Turkish		ülke'''	[y̠l̠ˈcɛ]	'country'	Allophone of /e/ described variously as "word-final" and "occurring in final open syllable of a phrase". See Turkish phonology
Ukrainian		береза	<phonos file="Uk-береза.ogg">[bɛˈrɛz̪ɐ]</phonos>	'birch'	See Ukrainian phonology
Vietnamese		e	[ɛ]	'to fear'	See Vietnamese phonology
West Frisian		têd	[tɛːt]	'languid'
Yoruba		ẹsẹ̀	[ɛ̄sɛ]	'leg'

The vowel transcribed /ɛ/ in Standard Eastern Norwegian is actually mid.

See also

• Index of phonetics articles