The close central unrounded vowel, or high central unrounded vowel, is a type of
vowel
A vowel is a Syllable, 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 Vowel ...
sound used in some
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 notation based primarily on the Latin script. It was devised by the International Phonetic Association in the late 19th century as a standardized representation of ...
that represents this sound is , namely the lower-case
letter ''i'' with a horizontal bar. Both the symbol and the sound are commonly referred to as
barred i.
Occasionally, this vowel is transcribed (
centralized ) or (centralized ).
The close central unrounded vowel is the vocalic equivalent of the rare
post-palatal approximant
The voiced palatal approximant, or yod, is a type of consonant used in many spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is . The equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is j, and in the Americanist phonetic no ...
.
Some languages feature the near-close central unrounded vowel (), which is slightly lower. It is most often transcribed in IPA with and , but other transcriptions such as and are also possible. In many British dictionaries, this vowel has been transcribed , which captures its height; in the
American tradition it is more often , which captures its centrality, or ,
which captures both. is also used in a number of other publications, such as ''Accents of English'' by
John C. Wells
John Christopher Wells (born 11 March 1939) is a British phonetician and Esperantist. Wells is a professor emeritus at University College London, where until his retirement in 2006 he held the departmental chair in phonetics.
Career
Wells ea ...
. In the third edition of the ''
Oxford English Dictionary'', represents variation between and .
Features
Occurrence
is uncommon as a
phoneme
In phonology and linguistics, a phoneme () is a unit of sound that can distinguish one word from another in a particular language.
For example, in most dialects of English, with the notable exception of the West Midlands and the north-west ...
in
Indo-European languages
The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, Du ...
, occurring most commonly as an
allophone
In phonology, an allophone (; from the Greek , , 'other' and , , 'voice, sound') is a set of multiple possible spoken soundsor '' phones''or signs used to pronounce a single phoneme in a particular language. For example, in English, (as in '' ...
in some
Slavic languages
The Slavic languages, also known as the Slavonic languages, are Indo-European languages spoken primarily by the Slavic peoples and their descendants. They are thought to descend from a proto-language called Proto-Slavic, spoken during the ...
, such as
Russian
Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including:
*Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries
* Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and p ...
(see
ы). However, it is very common as a separate phoneme in the indigenous languages of the
Americas
The Americas, which are sometimes collectively called America, are a landmass comprising the totality of North and South America. The Americas make up most of the land in Earth's Western Hemisphere and comprise the New World.
Along with t ...
and is often in phonemic contrast with other close vowels such as and both in modern living languages as well as reconstructed
proto-language
In the tree model of historical linguistics, a proto-language is a postulated ancestral language from which a number of attested languages are believed to have descended by evolution, forming a language family. Proto-languages are usually unatte ...
s (such as
Proto-Uto-Aztecan). identify the presence of this vowel phoneme as an
areal feature
In geolinguistics, areal features are elements shared by languages or dialects in a geographic area, particularly when such features are not descended from a proto-language, or, common ancestor language. That is, an areal feature is contrasted to ...
of a
Mesoamerica
Mesoamerica is a historical region and cultural area in southern North America and most of Central America. It extends from approximately central Mexico through Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and northern Costa Rica. With ...
n
Sprachbund
A sprachbund (, lit. "language federation"), also known as a linguistic area, area of linguistic convergence, or diffusion area, is a group of languages that share areal features resulting from geographical proximity and language contact. The lan ...
(although that is not a defining feature of the entire area).
The sound of
Polish
Polish may refer to:
* Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe
* Polish language
* Poles, people from Poland or of Polish descent
* Polish chicken
*Polish brothers (Mark Polish and Michael Polish, born 1970), American twin scree ...
is often represented as , but actually it is a
close-mid advanced central unrounded vowel, more narrowly transcribed . Similarly, European Portuguese unstressed , often represented as , is actually a
near-close near-back unrounded vowel
The close back unrounded vowel, or high 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 . Typographically, it is a turned letter ; gi ...
, more narrowly transcribed using ''ad hoc'' symbols such as (
mid-centralized
In phonetics and phonology, relative articulation is description of the manner and place of articulation of a speech sound relative to some reference point. Typically, the comparison is made with a default, unmarked articulation of the same ph ...
), (
fronted) and (
less rounded i.e. unrounded)
See also
*
Index of phonetics articles
A
* Acoustic phonetics
* Active articulator
* Affricate
* Airstream mechanism
* Alexander John Ellis
* Alexander Melville Bell
* Alfred C. Gimson
* Allophone
* Alveolar approximant ()
* Alveolar click ()
* Alveolar consonant
* Alveolar ejec ...
Notes
References
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External links
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Close Central Unrounded Vowel
Close vowels
Central vowels
Unrounded vowels