A central vowel, formerly also known as a mixed vowel, is any in a class of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a central vowel is that the tongue is positioned halfway between a

front vowel A front vowel is a class of vowel sounds used in some spoken languages, its defining characteristic being that the highest point of the tongue is positioned as far forward as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would otherw ...

and a

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 ...

. (In practice, unrounded central vowels tend to be further forward and rounded central vowels further back.)

List

The central vowels that have dedicated symbols 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 ...

are: * close central unrounded vowel * close central protruded vowel *

close-mid central unrounded vowel The close-mid central unrounded vowel, or high-mid central 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 . This is a mirrored letter e and ...

(older publications may use ) * close-mid central rounded vowel (older publications may use ) *

mid central 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 ə, rotated lowercase letter e. While the ''Handbook of th ...

with ambiguous rounding * open-mid central unrounded vowel (older publications may use ) *

open-mid central rounded vowel The open-mid central rounded vowel, or low-mid central rounded vowel, is a vowel sound, used in some spoken languages. The