Close-mid front unrounded vowel
The
close-mid front 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 , and the equivalent
X-SAMPA symbol is
e.
Features
* Its
vowel height is
close-mid, which means the tongue is positioned halfway between
close vowel and a
mid vowel.
* Its
vowel backness is
front, which means the tongue is positioned as far forward as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a
consonant.
* Its
vowel roundedness is
unrounded, which means that the lips are not rounded.
Occurs in
*
Dutch:
één , 'one'
*
English: (
AuE)
bed and
bared ; (
NZE)
bed ** In
RP, this vowel occurs only as the first part of the
diphthong , as in
late ,
play .
** In
CaE, this vowel may occur alone in words like
bait during rapid speech.
*
French:
beauté , 'beauty'
*
German:
Seele , 'soul'
*
Hungarian:
hét , 'week, seven'
*
Vietnamese:
tê , 'numb'
Many languages, such as
Spanish,
Japanese,
Korean, and
Turkish, have a
mid front unrounded vowel, which to speakers is clearly distinct from both the close-mid and open-mid vowels. However, since no language is known to distinguish all three, there is no separate IPA symbol for the mid vowel, and is generally used. If precision is desired, the lowering diacritic can be used: .
Note that just because a language has only one non-close, non-open front vowel, that doesn't mean it's a cardinal mid vowel.
Igbo, for example, has a close-mid , whereas
Bulgarian has an open-mid ; in neither language does this contrast with another open/close-mid vowel.
Occurs in
*
Albanian: k
eq , 'bad'
*
English: in
GA, the first part of the
diphthong , as in
late ,
play .
*
Greek:
επ
έτρ
εψ
ε , 's/he allowed'
*
Italian:
benché , 'though'
*
Japanese: 笑み , 'smile'
*
Romanian:
fete , 'girls'
*
Spanish:
bebé , 'baby'
*
Turkish:
kel , 'bald'
