Close central unrounded vowel
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| Edit - 2× | Front | Near-front | Central | Near-back | Back |
| Close | |||||
| Near‑close | |||||
| Close‑mid | |||||
| Mid | |||||
| Open‑mid | |||||
| Near‑open | |||||
| Open | |||||
represents a rounded vowel.
| IPA – number | 317 |
| IPA – text | ɨ |
| IPA – image |  |
| Entity | ɨ |
| X-SAMPA | 1 |
| Kirshenbaum | i" |
| Sound sample | |
|---|---|
The close central 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 ɨ, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is 1. The IPA symbol is the letter i with a horizontal bar. Both the symbol and the sound are commonly referred to as "barred-i".
- Its vowel height is close, 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 central, which means the tongue is positioned halfway between a front vowel and a back vowel.
- Its vowel roundedness is unrounded, which means that the lips are spread.
/ɨ/ is a rare phoneme in most Indo-European languages. However, it is very common as a separate phoneme in the indigenous languages of the Americas and is often in phonemic contrast with other close vowels such as /i/ and /u/ both in modern living languages as well as reconstructed proto-languages (e.g. proto-Uto-Aztecan). Campbell et al. (1986) identify the presence of this vowel phoneme as an areal feature of a Mesoamerican Sprachbund (although this is not a defining feature of the entire area).
| Language | Word | IPA | Meaning | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Amharic | ሥር | [sɨr] | 'root | Often transcribed as <ə> |
| Angor | hüf |
[xɨβə] | 'hot' | |
| English (some dialects) | roses | [ˈɹoʊzɨz] | 'roses' | Reduced vowel, other dialects have [ɪ] in this place. See English phonology. |
| Guaraní | yvy | [ɨʋɨ] | 'earth' | |
| Mapudungan | trukür | [tʴuˈkɨɹ] | 'fog' | See Mapudungun phonology |
| Polish | wy | [vɨ] | 'you' (plural) | See Polish phonology |
| Romanian | înspre | [ɨnspre] | 'toward' | See Romanian phonology |
| Russian | вы | [vɨ] | 'you' (plural) | Only occurs word-initially or after unpalatalized consonants. See Russian phonology |
| Sirionó | [eˈsɨ] | 'dry wood' | ||
| Tupi | yby | [ɨβɨ] | 'earth' | |
| Võro | sysar | [sɨsarʲ] | 'sister' | |
| Welsh | Cymru | [ˈkəmrɨ] | 'Wales' | Occurs, both long and short, only in Northern dialects |
- Campbell, Lyle; Kaufman, Terrence; & Smith-Stark, Thomas C. (1986). Meso-America as a linguistic area. Language, 62 (3), 530-570.
- Firestone, Homer L. (1965). Description and classification of Sirionó: A Tupí-Guaraní language. Janua linguarum, Series Practica (No. 16). London: Mouton & Co.
- Gómez, Paula. (1999). Huichol de San Andrés Cohamiata, Jalisco. Archivo de lenguas indígenas de México. México: El Colegio de México, Centro de Estudios.
- Koehn, Edward; & Koehn, Sally. (1986). Apalai. In D. C. Derbyshire & G. K. Pullum (Eds.), Handbook of Amazonian linguistics (Vol. 1, pp. 33-127). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
- Payne, Doris L.; & Payne, Thomas E. (1990). Yagua. In D. C. Derbyshire & G. K. Pullum (Eds.), Handbook of Amazonian linguistics (Vol. 2, pp. 252-474). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.