Close-mid front unrounded vowel
| Edit - 2× | Front | N.-front | Central | N.-back | Back |
| Close | |||||
| Near-close | |||||
| Close-mid | |||||
| Mid | |||||
| Open-mid | |||||
| Near-open | |||||
| Open | |||||
represents a rounded vowel.
| IPA – number | 302 |
| IPA – text | e |
| IPA – image |  |
| Entity | e |
| X-SAMPA | e |
| Kirshenbaum | e |
| Sound sample | |
|---|---|
Contents |
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 e, 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 [eːn], "one"
- English: (AuE) bed [bed] and bared [beːd]; (NZE) bed [be̝d]
- Faroese: eg [eː], "I"
- French: beauté [bote], "beauty"
- German: Seele [ˈzeːlə], "soul"
- Hungarian: hét [heːt], "week, seven"
- Norwegian: le [leː], "laugh"
- Polish: dzień [dʑeɲ], "day"
- Russian: шея [ˈʂejə], "neck"
- Vietnamese: tê [tē], "numb"
Mid front unrounded vowel
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 [e] is generally used. If precision is desired, the lowering diacritic can be used: [e̞].
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 [e], whereas Bulgarian has an open-mid [ɛ]; in neither language does this contrast with another open/close-mid vowel.
Occurs in
- Albanian: keq [kec], "bad"
- Croatian: deset [deset], "ten"
- English: in GA, the first part of the diphthong [eɪ], as in late [leɪt]
- Greek: επέτρεψε [eˈpetrepse], "s/he allowed"
- Italian: benché [beŋˈke*], "though"; pesca (pésca) ['peska], "fishing" (as opposed to pesca, or pèsca, ['pɛska], "peach")
- Japanese: 笑み [emi], "smile"
- Romanian: fete [ˈfete], "girls"
- Russian: человек [ʨɪlʌˈvʲek],
- Spanish: bebé [beˈβe], "baby"
- Turkish: kel [kel], "bald"
(In the preceding transcriptions the lowering diacritic has been omitted, for the sake of simplicity: thus, [kec] is to be interpreted as [ke̞c].)
Reference
- Roca, Iggy & Johnson, Wyn (1999). Course in Phonology. Blackwell Publishing.
Categories
Vowels