The open-mid back unrounded vowel or low-mid back unrounded vowel,
is a type of
vowel sound, used in some
spoken languages. 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 , graphically a rotated lowercase "v" (called a
turned V but created as a small-capital without the crossbar), even though some vendors display it as a real turned
v. Both the symbol and the sound are commonly referred to as a "wedge", "
caret" or "hat". In transcriptions for
English, this symbol is commonly used for the
near-open central unrounded vowel
The near-open central vowel, or near-low central 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 rotated lowercase double-barrelled letter a.
...
and in transcriptions for
Danish
Danish may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to the country of Denmark
People
* A national or citizen of Denmark, also called a "Dane," see Demographics of Denmark
* Culture of Denmark
* Danish people or Danes, people with a Danish ance ...
, it is used for the (somewhat mid-centralized)
open back rounded vowel.
Features
Occurrence
Before
World War II, the of
Received Pronunciation
Received Pronunciation (RP) is the Accent (sociolinguistics), accent traditionally regarded as the Standard language, standard and most Prestige (sociolinguistics), prestigious form of spoken British English. For over a century, there has been ...
was phonetically close to a back vowel , which has since shifted forward towards (a near-open central unrounded vowel).
Daniel Jones reported his speech (southern British) as having an advanced back vowel between his central and back ; however, he also reported that other southern speakers had a lower and even more advanced vowel that approached cardinal . In
American English
American English, sometimes called United States English or U.S. English, is the set of variety (linguistics), varieties of the English language native to the United States. English is the Languages of the United States, most widely spoken lan ...
varieties, such as in the West, the Midwest, and the urban South, the typical phonetic realization of the phoneme is an open-mid central . Truly backed variants of that are phonetically can occur in
Inland Northern American English, Newfoundland English,
Philadelphia English, some of
African-American English, and (old-fashioned) white
Southern American English in coastal plain and Piedmont areas. However, the letter is still commonly used to indicate this phoneme, even in the more common varieties with central variants or . That may be because of both tradition and some other dialects retaining the older pronunciation.
Notes
References
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External links
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Open-Mid Back Unrounded Vowel
Open-mid vowels
Back vowels
Unrounded vowels