The mid front rounded vowel is a type of vowel sound, used in some spoken languages.
| Mid front rounded vowel | |
|---|---|
| ?? | |
| ?? | |
| IPA number | 310 430 |
| Audio sample | |
| Encoding | |
| Entity (decimal) | ø?̞ |
| Unicode (hex) | U+00F8?U+031E |
| X-SAMPA | 2_o or 9_r |
| Braille |    |
| IPA: Vowels | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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Legend: unrounded ? rounded |
Although there is no dedicated symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents the "exact" mid front rounded vowel between close-mid [?] and open-mid [?], ??? is generally used. If precision is desired, diacritics can be used, such as ???? or ????.
Mid front compressed vowel
editThe mid front compressed vowel is typically transcribed in IPA simply as ???? or ????. This article uses the first symbol for simplicity. There is no dedicated diacritic for compression in the IPA. However, the compression of the lips can be shown with the letter ?β?? as ?e??β?? / ????β?? (simultaneous [e?] / [??] and labial compression) or ?e??? / ????? ([e?] / [??] modified with labial compression). The spread-lip diacritic ? ?? may also be used with a rounded vowel letters ????? / ????? as an ad hoc symbol, though technically 'spread' means unrounded.
Features
edit- Its vowel height is mid, which means the tongue is positioned halfway between a close vowel and an open vowel.
- Its vowel backness is front, which means the tongue is positioned forward in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Rounded front vowels are often centralized, which means that often they are in fact near-front.
- Its roundedness is compressed, which means that the margins of the lips are tense and drawn together in such a way that the inner surfaces are not exposed.
Occurrence
editBecause front rounded vowels are assumed to have compression, and few descriptions cover the distinction, some of the following may actually have protrusion.
| Language | Word | IPA | Meaning | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Breton[1] | [example needed] | Possible realization of unstressed /?/; can be open-mid [?] or close-mid [?] instead.[1] | |||
| Catalan | Northern[2] | fulles | [?f??j?s] | 'leaves' | Found in Occitan and French loanwords and interferences. See Catalan phonology |
| Danish | Standard[3] | h?ne | [?h???n?] | 'hen' | Also described as close-mid [??];[4] typically transcribed in IPA with ???? See Danish phonology |
| Dutch | Orsmaal-Gussenhoven dialect[5] | mùl | [m???] | 'well' | Typically transcribed in IPA with ???. |
| English | Cockney[6] | bird | [b???d] | 'bird' | Occasional realization of /??/; can be unrounded [????] or, more often, unrounded central [???] instead.[6] May be transcribed in IPA with ???? or ????. |
| General New Zealand[7][8] | May be open-mid [??] instead. In broader varieties, it is close-mid or higher.[7][8][9] Typically transcribed in IPA with ????. See New Zealand English phonology | ||||
| South African[10] | Used in General and Broad accents; may be close-mid [??] instead. In the Cultivated variety, it is realized as mid central unrounded [???].[10] See South African English phonology | ||||
| Southern Welsh[11] | Also described as open-mid [??][12] and close-mid [??].[13][14] | ||||
| West Midlands[15] | |||||
| Faroese[16] | h?gt | [h??kt] | 'high' | Typically transcribed in IPA with ???. See Faroese phonology | |
| Finnish[17][18] | r?lli | [?r??l?i] | 'Common bent' | See Finnish phonology | |
| Greek | Tyrnavos[19] | κορι?? / koreos | [ko?????s] | 'bedbug' | Corresponds to /jo/ and /eo/ in Standard Modern Greek.[19] |
| Velvendos[19] | |||||
| Hungarian[20] | ?l | [??l] | 'kill' | See Hungarian phonology | |
| Icelandic[21] | ?ld | [??l?t?] | 'age' | Typically transcribed in IPA with ???. The long allophone is often diphthongized to [??].[22] See Icelandic phonology | |
| Korean[23] | ?? / oenson | [???nson] | 'left hand' | Typically transcribed in IPA with ???. Diphthongized to [we] in Modern Standard Korean. See Korean phonology | |
| Romanian[24] | bleu | [bl???] | 'light blue' | Found only in loanwords.[24] See Romanian phonology | |
| Turkish[25][26] | Standard | g?z | [?????z?] | 'eye' | May be transcribed in IPA with ???. See Turkish phonology |
Mid front protruded vowel
edit| Mid front protruded vowel | |
|---|---|
| ??? | |
| ??? | |
| ??? | |
| ??? | |
| e?? | |
| ??? |
Catford notes[full citation needed] that most languages with rounded front and back vowels use distinct types of labialization, protruded back vowels and compressed front vowels. However, a few languages, such as Scandinavian ones, have protruded front vowels. One of these, Swedish, even contrasts the two types of rounding in front vowels (see near-close near-front rounded vowel, with Swedish examples of both types of rounding).
As there are no diacritics in the IPA to distinguish protruded and compressed rounding, ????? (a mid front rounded vowel modified by endolabialization) will be used here as an ad hoc symbol for protruded mid front vowels.
Acoustically, this sound is "between" the more typical compressed mid front vowel [??] and the unrounded mid front vowel [e?].
Features
edit- Its vowel height is mid, which means the tongue is positioned halfway between a close vowel and an open vowel.
- Its vowel backness is front, which means the tongue is positioned forward in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Rounded front vowels are often centralized, which means that often they are in fact near-front.
- Its roundedness is protruded, which means that the corners of the lips are drawn together, and the inner surfaces exposed.
Occurrence
edit| Language | Word | IPA | Meaning | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Swedish | Central Standard[27][28] | n?tt | ? | 'worn' (past part. s.) | Typically transcribed in IPA with ???. See Swedish phonology |
Notes
edit- ^ a b Ternes (1992), p. 433.
- ^ Recasens (1996), pp. 80–81.
- ^ Basb?ll (2005), p. 46.
- ^ Basb?ll & Wagner (1985:40), cited in Basb?ll (2005:48).
- ^ Peters (2010), p. 241.
- ^ a b Wells (1982), p. 305.
- ^ a b Wells (1982), p. 607.
- ^ a b Roca & Johnson (1999), p. 188.
- ^ Bauer & Warren (2004), pp. 582, 591.
- ^ a b Lass (2002), p. 116.
- ^ Wells (1982), p. 381.
- ^ Penhallurick (2004), p. 104.
- ^ Collins & Mees (1990), p. 95.
- ^ Connolly (1990), p. 125.
- ^ Collins & Mees (2003), p. 299.
- ^ Peterson (2000), cited in árnason (2011:76)
- ^ Iivonen & Harnud (2005), pp. 60, 66.
- ^ Suomi, Toivanen & Ylitalo (2008), p. 21.
- ^ a b c Trudgill (2009), pp. 86–87.
- ^ Szende (1994), p. 92.
- ^ Brodersen (2011).
- ^ árnason (2011), pp. 57–60.
- ^ Lee (1999), p. 121.
- ^ a b Romanian Academy (2005), p. ?.
- ^ Zimmer & Orgun (1999), p. 155.
- ^ G?ksel & Kerslake (2005), p. 11.
- ^ Engstrand (1999), p. 140.
- ^ Elmquist (1915), p. 33.
References
edit- árnason, Kristján (2011), The Phonology of Icelandic and Faroese, Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0-19-922931-4
- Basb?ll, Hans (2005), The Phonology of Danish, Taylor & Francis, ISBN 0-203-97876-5
- Basb?ll, Hans; Wagner, Johannes (1985), Kontrastive Phonologie des Deutschen und D?nischen, Max Niemeyer Verlag, ISBN 978-3-484-30160-3
- Bauer, Laurie; Warren, Paul (2004), "New Zealand English: phonology", in Schneider, Edgar W.; Burridge, Kate; Kortmann, Bernd; Mesthrie, Rajend; Upton, Clive (eds.), A handbook of varieties of English, vol. 1: Phonology, Mouton de Gruyter, pp. 580–602, ISBN 3-11-017532-0
- Brodersen, Randi Benedikte (2011). "Isl?ndinges udtale af dansk". Sprogmuseet (in Danish). Archived from the original on 2025-08-07. Retrieved 2025-08-07.
- Collins, Beverley; Mees, Inger M. (1990), "The Phonetics of Cardiff English", in Coupland, Nikolas; Thomas, Alan Richard (eds.), English in Wales: Diversity, Conflict, and Change, Multilingual Matters Ltd., pp. 87–103, ISBN 1-85359-032-0
- Collins, Beverley; Mees, Inger M. (2003) [First published 1981], The Phonetics of English and Dutch (5th ed.), Leiden: Brill Publishers, ISBN 9004103406
- Connolly, John H. (1990), "Port Talbot English", in Coupland, Nikolas; Thomas, Alan Richard (eds.), English in Wales: Diversity, Conflict, and Change, Multilingual Matters Ltd., pp. 121–129, ISBN 1-85359-032-0
- Elmquist, A. Louis (1915), Swedish phonology, Chicago: The Engberg-Holmberg Publishing Company
- Engstrand, Olle (1999), "Swedish", Handbook of the International Phonetic Association: A Guide to the usage of the International Phonetic Alphabet., Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 140–142, ISBN 0-521-63751-1
- G?ksel, Asli; Kerslake, Celia (2005), Turkish: a comprehensive grammar, Routledge, ISBN 978-0415114943
- Iivonen, Antti; Harnud, Huhe (2005), "Acoustical comparison of the monophthong systems in Finnish, Mongolian and Udmurt", Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 35 (1): 59–71, doi:10.1017/S002510030500191X, S2CID 145733117
- Lass, Roger (2002), "South African English", in Mesthrie, Rajend (ed.), Language in South Africa, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 9780521791052
- Lee, Hyun Bok (1999), "Korean", Handbook of the International Phonetic Association, Cambridge University Press, pp. 120–122, ISBN 978-0-521-63751-0
- Penhallurick, Robert (2004), "Welsh English: phonology", in Schneider, Edgar W.; Burridge, Kate; Kortmann, Bernd; Mesthrie, Rajend; Upton, Clive (eds.), A handbook of varieties of English, vol. 1: Phonology, Mouton de Gruyter, pp. 98–112, ISBN 3-11-017532-0
- Peters, J?rg (2010), "The Flemish–Brabant dialect of Orsmaal–Gussenhoven", Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 40 (2): 239–246, doi:10.1017/S0025100310000083
- Peterson, Hjalmar P. (2000), "Mátingar af sjálvljóeum í f?ruyskum", Málting, 28: 37–43
- Recasens, Daniel (1996), Fonètica descriptiva del català: assaig de caracterització de la pronúncia del vocalisme i el consonantisme català al segle XX (2nd ed.), Barcelona: Institut d'Estudis Catalans, ISBN 978-84-7283-312-8
- Roca, Iggy; Johnson, Wyn (1999), A Course in Phonology, Blackwell Publishing
- Romanian Academy (2005), Dic?ionarul ortografic, ortoepic ?i morfologic al limbii romane (2nd ed.), Bucarest: Editura Univers Enciclopedic
- Suomi, Kari; Toivanen, Juhani; Ylitalo, Riikka (2008), Finnish sound structure – Phonetics, phonology, phonotactics and prosody (PDF), Studia Humaniora Ouluensia 9, Oulu University Press, ISBN 978-951-42-8984-2
- Szende, Tamás (1994), "Hungarian", Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 24 (2): 91–94, doi:10.1017/S0025100300005090, S2CID 242632087
- Ternes, Elmar (1992), "The Breton language", in MacAulay, Donald (ed.), The Celtic Languages, Cambridge University Press, pp. 371–452, ISBN 0-521-23127-2
- Trudgill, Peter (2009), "Greek Dialect Vowel Systems, Vowel Dispersion Theory, and Sociolinguistic Typology", Journal of Greek Linguistics, 9 (1): 80–97, doi:10.1163/156658409X12500896406041
- Wells, John C. (1982). Accents of English. Vol. 2: The British Isles (pp. i–xx, 279–466), Vol. 3: Beyond the British Isles (pp. i–xx, 467–674). Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/CBO9780511611759, doi:10.1017/CBO9780511611766. ISBN 0-52128540-2, 0-52128541-0.
- Zimmer, Karl; Orgun, Orhan (1999), "Turkish" (PDF), Handbook of the International Phonetic Association: A guide to the use of the International Phonetic Alphabet, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 154–158, ISBN 0-521-65236-7, archived from the original (PDF) on 2025-08-07, retrieved 2025-08-07