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Open front rounded vowel
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| 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 | 312 |
| IPA – text | ɶ |
| IPA – image |  |
| Entity | ɶ |
| X-SAMPA | & |
| Kirshenbaum | a. |
| Sound sample | |
The open front rounded vowel is a type of vowel sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ɶ, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is &. The symbol ɶ is a small capital Œ. Note that œ, the lowercase version of the ligature, is used for the open-mid front rounded vowel.
- Its vowel height is open, which means the tongue is positioned as far as possible from the roof of the mouth.
- 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.
- Its vowel roundedness is rounded, which means that the lips are rounded.
[ɶ] is not confirmed to exist as a phoneme in any language. A phoneme generally transcribed by this symbol is reported from the Amstetten dialect of Bavarian German. It is the rounded equivalent of /æ/, not of open /a/, and so would be more narrowly transcribed as [œ̞] or [ɶ̝]. However, the vowel formants place Amstetten /æ/ and /œ/ one third of the way between /a/ and /i/, matching the IPA definition for open-mid vowels.
| Language | Word | IPA | Meaning | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Danish | bønne | [bɶnɶ] | 'bean' | See Danish phonology | |
| German | Amstetten dialect | Seil | [sɶ̝ː] | 'rope' | See German phonology |
| Swedish | hört | [hɶ̝ːʈ] | 'heard' (supine) | See Swedish phonology | |
It appears in Acadian French as an allophone of /œ/ when preceding /ʁ/. (And actually the allophone of /ʁ/ used in Acadian French at the end of a word like that is an approximant [ʁ̞].)