Open back unrounded vowel

Open back unrounded vowel
ɑ
IPA Number	305
Encoding
Entity (decimal)	ɑ
Unicode (hex)	U+0251
X-SAMPA	A
Braille
Image

The open back unrounded vowel, or low back 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 ⟨ɑ⟩, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is A. The letter ⟨ɑ⟩ is called script a because it lacks the extra hook on top of a printed letter a, which corresponds to a different vowel, the open front unrounded vowel. Script a, which has its linear stroke on the bottom right, should not be confused with turned script a, ɒ, which has its linear stroke on the top left and corresponds to a rounded version of this vowel, the open back rounded vowel.

The Hamont dialect of Limburgish has been reported to contrast long open front, central and back unrounded vowels, which is extremely unusual.

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, also known as low, which means the tongue is positioned as far as possible from the roof of the mouth – that is, as low as possible in the mouth.
• 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

Language		Word	IPA	Meaning	Notes
Afrikaans	Standard	daar	[dɑːr]	'there'	See Afrikaans phonology
Angor		ape	[ɑpe]	'father'
Arabic	Standard	طويل	[tˤɑˈwiːl]	'tall'	Allophone of long and short /a/ near emphatic consonants, depending on the speaker's accent. See Arabic phonology
Armenian	Eastern	հաց	[hɑt͡sʰ]	'bread'
Assyrian Neo-Aramaic	Tyari dialects	baba	[bɑːba]	'father'	Corresponds to [a ~ ä] in other varieties.
Catalan	Many dialects	pal	[ˈpɑɫ]	'stick'	Allophone of /a/ in contact with velar consonants. See Catalan phonology
	Some dialects	mà	[ˈmɑ]	'hand'	More central ([ɑ̟], [ä]) in other dialects; fully front [a] in Majorcan Catalan.
	Some Valencian and Majorcan speakers	lloc	[ˈl̠ʲɑk]	'place'	Unrounded allophone of /ɔ/ in some accents.
	Some southern Valencian speakers	bou	[ˈbɑ̟w]	'bull'	Pronunciation of the vowel /ɔ/ before [w].
Chinese	Mandarin	棒/bàng	<phonos file="Zh-bàng.ogg">[pɑŋ˥˩]</phonos>	'stick'	Allophone of /a/ before /ŋ/. See Standard Chinese phonology
Danish	Conservative	barn	[ˈb̥ɑːˀn]	'child'	Described variously as open near-back and near-open back. Realized as open central [ä] in contemporary Standard Danish. See Danish phonology
Dutch	Amsterdam	aap	[ɑːp]	'monkey'	Corresponds to [aː ~ äː] in standard Dutch.
	Antwerp
	Utrecht
	Southern Randstad	bad	[bɑt]	'bath'	Backness varies among dialects; in the southern Randstad and standard Netherlandic Dutch it is fully back. In addition to being fully back, it is raised to [ɑ̝] in Leiden and Rotterdam, sometimes with lip rounding [ɒ̝]. In standard Belgian Dutch it is raised and fronted to [ɑ̝̈]. See Dutch phonology
	Standard
	The Hague	nauw	[nɑː]	'narrow'	Corresponds to [ʌu] in standard Dutch.
English	Cardiff	hot	[hɑ̝̈t]	'hot'	Somewhat raised and fronted.
	Norfolk
	General American		[hɑt]		May be more front [ɑ̟ ~ ä], especially in accents without the cot-caught merger. See English phonology
	Cockney	bath	[bɑːθ]	'bath'	Fully back. It can be more front [ɑ̟ː] instead.
	General South African				Fully back. Broad varieties usually produce a rounded vowel [ɒː ~ ɔː] instead, while Cultivated SAE prefers a more front vowel [ɑ̟ː ~ äː].
	Cultivated South African		[bɑ̟ːθ]		Typically more front than cardinal [ɑ]. It may be as front as [äː] in some Cultivated South African and southern English speakers. See English phonology
	Received Pronunciation
	Non-local Dublin	back	[bɑq]	'back'	Allophone of /æ/ before velars for some speakers.
Estonian		vale	[ˈvɑ̝lɛˑ]	'wrong'	Near-open. See Estonian phonology
Finnish		kana	[ˈkɑ̝nɑ̝]	'hen'	Near-open, also described as open central [ä]. See Finnish phonology
French	Conservative Parisian	pas	[pɑ]	'not'	Contrasts with [a], but many speakers have only one open vowel [ä]. See French phonology
	Quebec	pâte	[pɑːt]	'paste'	See Quebec French phonology
Georgian		გუდა	[ɡudɑ]	'leather bag'
German	Some dialects	Tag	[tʰɑːk]	'day'	In other dialects it is more front. See German phonology.
	Zurich dialect	mane	[ˈmɑːnə]	'remind'	Allophone of /ɒ/, in free variation with [ɒ].
Inuit	West Greenlandic				Allophone of /a/ before and especially between uvulars. See Inuit phonology
Kaingang		[ˈᵑɡɑ]		'terra'	Varies between back [ɑ] and central [ɐ].
Limburgish		bats	[bɑts]	'buttock'	Backness varies from fully back [ɑ] to almost central [ɑ̟], depending on the dialect. The example word is from the Maastrichtian dialect.
Luxembourgish		Kapp	[kʰɑp]	'head'	Described variously as open near-back and near-open back. See Luxembourgish phonology
Malay	Kedah dialect	mata	[matɑ]	'eye'	See Malay phonology
Navajo		ashkii	[ɑʃkɪː]	'boy'	See Navajo phonology
Norwegian	Fredrikstad	hat	[hɑːt]	'hate'	See Norwegian phonology
	Stavangersk
	Trondheimsk
Plautdietsch		Gott	[ɡɑ̽t]	'God'
Russian		палка	[ˈpɑɫkə]	'stick'	Occurs only both before /ɫ/ and after an unpalatalized consonant. See Russian phonology
Sema		amqa	[à̠mqɑ̀]	'lower back'	Possible allophone of /a/ after uvular stops.
Slovak		a	[ɑ̟]	'and'	Near-back; possible realization of /a/. See Slovak phonology
Swedish	Some dialects	jаg	[jɑːɡ]	'I'	Weakly rounded [ɒ̜ː] in Central Standard Swedish. See Swedish phonology
Turkish		at	[ɑt̪]	'horse'	Also described as central [ä]. See Turkish phonology
Ukrainian		мати	[ˈmɑtɪ]	'mother'	See Ukrainian phonology
West Frisian		lang	[ɫɑŋ]	'long'

See also

• Index of phonetics articles