Central vowel

Central vowel

A central vowel is a type 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 and a back vowel. The central vowels identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet are:

* close central unrounded vowel IPA| []
* close central rounded vowel IPA| []
* close-mid central unrounded vowel IPA| []
* close-mid central rounded vowel IPA| []
* mid central vowel IPA| []
* open-mid central unrounded vowel IPA| []
* open-mid central rounded vowel IPA| []
* near-open central vowel IPA| []
* open central unrounded vowel IPA| [a] (unofficial but most frequent usage)

Occasionally, the "ad hoc" symbols Unicode|ᵻ, ᵿ Unicode|(ɪ, ʊ) for near-close central vowels will be seen.


Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.

Игры ⚽ Поможем решить контрольную работу

Look at other dictionaries:

  • Mid-central vowel — ə Image …   Wikipedia

  • Mid central vowel — The mid central vowel is a type of vowel sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is IPA|ə, and the equivalent X SAMPA symbol is @. The IPA symbol is a turned printed… …   Wikipedia

  • Near-open central vowel — ɐ Image …   Wikipedia

  • Vowel — In phonetics, a vowel is a sound in spoken language, such as English ah! IPA| [ɑː] or oh! IPA| [oʊ] , pronounced with an open vocal tract so that there is no build up of air pressure at any point above the glottis. This contrasts with consonants …   Wikipedia

  • Central Atlas Tamazight — This article is about the Berber dialect of Central Morocco called Tamazight exclusively. For other uses of the word Tamazight , see Berber language. TZM redirects here. For the organisation, see The Zeitgeist Movement Central Atlas Tamazight… …   Wikipedia

  • Vowel length — IPA vowel length aː aˑ IPA number 503 or 504 Encoding Entity …   Wikipedia

  • Vowel reduction in Russian — Main article: Russian phonology Vowel reduction in Russian differs in the standard language and in dialects. Several ways of reduction (and its absence) are distinguished. There are five vowel phonemes in Standard Russian. Vowels tend to merge… …   Wikipedia

  • Vowel reduction in English — In English, vowel reduction is the centralization and weakening of an unstressed vowel, such as the characteristic change of many vowels at the ends of words to schwa. Stressed vowels cannot be reduced. Reduced vowelsSchwa is the most common… …   Wikipedia

  • central — cen•tral [[t]ˈsɛn trəl[/t]] adj. 1) of or forming the center 2) in, at, or near the center: a central position[/ex] 3) constituting something from which other related things proceed or upon which they depend: a central office[/ex] 4) principal;… …   From formal English to slang

  • vowel — Synonyms and related words: accented, allophone, alveolar, apical, apico alveolar, apico dental, articulated, articulation, aspiration, assimilated, assimilation, back, barytone, bilabial, broad, cacuminal, central, cerebral, check, checked,… …   Moby Thesaurus

Share the article and excerpts

Direct link
Do a right-click on the link above
and select “Copy Link”