A retracted vowel is a

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 in which the body or root of the tongue is pulled backward and downward into the pharynx. The most retracted cardinal vowels are , which are so far back that the

epiglottis The epiglottis is a leaf-shaped flap in the throat that prevents food and water from entering the trachea and the lungs. It stays open during breathing, allowing air into the larynx. During swallowing, it closes to prevent aspiration of food int ...

may press against the back pharyngeal wall, and . Raised or

front Front may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Films * ''The Front'' (1943 film), a 1943 Soviet drama film * ''The Front'', 1976 film Music * The Front (band), an American rock band signed to Columbia Records and active in the 1980s and e ...

vowels may be partially retracted, for example by an adjacent

uvular consonant Uvulars are consonants articulated with the back of the tongue against or near the uvula, that is, further back in the mouth than velar consonants. Uvulars may be stops, fricatives, nasals, trills, or approximants, though the IPA does not provi ...

or by vowel harmony based on

retracted tongue root In phonetics, advanced tongue root (ATR) and retracted tongue root (RTR) are contrasting states of the root of the tongue during the pronunciation of vowels in some languages, especially in Western and Eastern Africa, but also in Kazakh and Mong ...

. In both cases, , for example, may be retracted to . Retracted vowels and

raised vowel A raised vowel is a vowel sound in which the body of the tongue is raised upward and backward toward the dorsum (soft palate). The most raised cardinal vowels are ; also quite raised are , and . Raised vowels and retracted vowels constitute ...

s constitute the traditional, but articulatorily inaccurate, category of

back vowel A back vowel is any in a class of vowel sound used in spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a back vowel is that the highest point of the tongue is positioned relatively back in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be c ...

References

*{{Cite document, url=https://www.mcgill.ca/mcgwpl/files/mcgwpl/moisik2012.pdf, title=The Epilaryngeal Articulator: A New Conceptual Tool for Understanding Lingual-Laryngeal Contrasts, last1=Moisik, first1=Scott, journal=, volume=, pages=, via=, last2=Czaykowska-Higgins, first2=Ewa, last3=Esling, first3=John H., year=2012 Vowels