Vowels beside dots are: unrounded • rounded

The (near) open front rounded vowel, or (near) low front rounded vowel,^[1] is a type of vowel sound, not confirmed to be phonemic in any spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨ɶ⟩, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is &. The letter ⟨ɶ⟩ is a small caps rendition of ⟨Œ⟩. ⟨œ⟩, the lowercase version of the ligature, is used for the open-mid front rounded vowel.

While the IPA chart lists it as a fully open vowel, the rounded equivalent of [a], Ladefoged^[2] characterizes it as near-open, the rounded equivalent of [æ].

A phoneme generally transcribed by this symbol is reported from the Bavarian dialect of Amstetten. However, phonetically it is open-mid, i.e. [œ].^[3]

It occurs allophonically in Weert Limburgish^[4] as well as in some speakers of Danish^[5] and Swedish.^[6] In certain transcriptions of Danish ⟨ɶ⟩ is used to denote an open-mid front rounded vowel [œ].^[5]

Riad (2014) reports that [ɶː] in Stockholm Swedish is sometimes difficult to distinguish from [ɒː] (which is the main realization of the /ɑː/ phoneme), which is a sign that these vowels are phonetically very close.^[6]