The close-mid central unrounded vowel, or high-mid central unrounded vowel, is a type of
vowel
A vowel is a syllabic speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness and also in quantity (leng ...
sound used in some spoken
language
Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of met ...
s. The symbol in the
International Phonetic Alphabet
The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is an alphabetic system of phonetic transcription, phonetic notation based primarily on the Latin script. It was devised by the International Phonetic Association in the late 19th century as a standa ...
that represents this sound is . This is a mirrored letter e and should not be confused with the
schwa
In linguistics, specifically phonetics and phonology, schwa (, rarely or ; sometimes spelled shwa) is a vowel sound denoted by the IPA symbol , placed in the central position of the vowel chart. In English and some other languages, it rep ...
, which is a turned e. It was added to the IPA in 1993; before that, this vowel was transcribed (Latin small letter e with umlaut, not Cyrillic small letter yo). Certain older sources
[For example .] transcribe this vowel .
The letter may be used with a
lowering diacritic , to denote the
mid central unrounded vowel
The mid central vowel (also known as schwa) is a type of vowel sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , a rotated lowercase letter e.
While the ''Handbook of the I ...
.
Conversely, , the symbol for the mid central vowel may be used with a raising diacritic to denote the close-mid central unrounded vowel, although that is more accurately written with an additional unrounding diacritic to explicitly denote the lack of rounding (the canonical value of IPA is undefined for rounding).
Features
Occurrence
Notes
References
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External links
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{{IPA navigation
Close-mid vowels
Central vowels
Unrounded vowels