Near-open front unrounded vowel

Near-open front unrounded vowel
æ
Image
IPA number	325
Encoding
Entity (decimal)	æ
Unicode (hex)	U+00E6
X-SAMPA	{
Kirshenbaum	&
Sound
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The near-open front unrounded vowel, or near-low 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 æ. The IPA symbol is the lowercase ae ligature, and both the symbol and the sound are commonly referred to as "ash".

The IPA prefers terms "close" and "open" for vowels, and the name of the article follows this. However, a large number of linguists, perhaps a majority, prefer the terms "high" and "low", and these are the only terms found in introductory textbooks on phonetics such as those by Peter Ladefoged.

In practice, /æ/ is sometimes used to represent an open front unrounded vowel; see the introduction to that page for more information.

Features

IPA vowel chart
Front Near-​front Central Near-​back Back Close •iy •ɨʉ •ɯu •ɪʏ •ɪ̈ʊ̈ •ʊ •eø •ɘɵ •ɤo •e̞ø̞ ə •ɤ̞o̞ •ɛœ •ɜɞ •ʌɔ •æ ɐ •aɶ •ä •ɑɒ Near-close Close-mid Mid Open-mid Near-open Open
Paired vowels are: unrounded • rounded
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• Its vowel height is near-open, also known as near-low, which means the tongue is positioned similarly to an open vowel, but is slightly more constricted – that is, the tongue is positioned similarly to a low vowel, but slightly higher.
• 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.

Occurrence

Language		Word	IPA	Meaning	Notes
Ahtna		kuggaedi	[kʰuk̠æti]	'mosquito'
Arabic	Standard[1]	كتاب	[kiˈt̪æːb]	'book'	Allophone of /a/ in the environment of plain labial and coronal consonants as well as /j/. See Arabic phonology
Azerbaijani		səs	[sæs]	'sound'
Bengali		এক	[æk]	'one'	See Bengali phonology
English		cat	[kʰæt]	'cat'	In some accents it is more open. In others it is closer. The length also varies. See English phonology
Danish		Dansk	[d̥ænsɡ̊]	'Danish'	See Danish phonology
Finnish		mäki	[ˈmæki]	'hill'	See Finnish phonology
German	Bernese	drääje	[ˈtræːjə]	'turn'	See Bernese German phonology
Greek[2]	Thessaly, Macedonia, Thrace	[example needed]	[]	--	See Modern Greek phonology
Hindi		बैल	[bæl]	'oxen'	See Hindi-Urdu phonology
Jalapa Mazatec		tsæ	[tsǣ]	'guava'
Norwegian		lær	[læːɾ]	'leather'	See Norwegian phonology
Persian		در	[dær]	'door'	See Persian phonology
Polish		jajko	[jæjkɔ]	'egg'	Allophone of /a/ between soft consonants. See Polish phonology
Russian[3]		пять	[pʲætʲ]	'five'	Allophone of /a/ between palatalized consonants. See Russian phonology
Sinhala		කැමති	[kæməti]	'to like'
Slovak[4]		väzy	[ˈʋæzɪ]	'ligaments'	Somewhat rare pronunciation, with [ɛ] being more common.
Swedish		päron	[ˈpæˌrɔn]	'pear'	Allophone of /ɛ/ before /r/. See Swedish phonology
Turkish		sen	[sæn]	'thou'	Allophone of /e/ before syllable-coda /l m n ɾ/. See Turkish phonology
Vietnamese	Some northern dialects	pha	[fæ]	'phase'	Corresponds to [a] in other dialects. See Vietnamese phonology
West Frisian	Hindeloopers	tät	[tæt]	'horse' (children’s language)
Yaghan		mæpi	[mæpi]	'reed'

References

1. ^ Holes (2004:60)
2. ^ Newton (1972:11)
3. ^ Jones & Ward (1969:50)
4. ^ Hanulíková & Hamann (2010:374)

Bibliography

• Hanulíková, Adriana; Hamann, Silke (2010), "Slovak", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 40 (3): 373–378 
• Holes, Clive (2004), Modern Arabic: Structures, Functions, and Varieties, Georgetown University Press, ISBN 1589010221 
• Jones, Daniel; Dennis, Ward (1969), The Phonetics of Russian, Cambridge University Press 
• Newton, Brian (1972). The Generative Interpretation of Dialect: A Study of Modern Greek Phonology. Cabridge Studies in Linguistics. 8. Cambridge University Press.