Vowels
	front	near-front	central	near-back	back
close	i • y		ɨ • ʉ		ɯ • u
near-close		ɪ • ʏ		ʊ
close-mid	e • ø		ɘ • ɵ		ɤ • o
mid			ə
open-mid	ɛ • œ		ɜ • ɞ		ʌ • ɔ
near-open	æ		ɐ
open	a • ɶ				ɑ • ɒ
Table of vowels
List of vowels
Edit this box (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Template:Vowels)

IPA - Unicode	u
IPA - image
X-SAMPA	u
Kirshenbaum	u
Sound sample

The close back rounded vowel is a type of vowel sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is u, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is u.

Features of this vowel:

• Its vowel height is close, which means the tongue is positioned as close as possible to the roof of the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant.
• Its vowel backness is back, which means the tongue is positioned as far back as possible in the mouth in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant.
• Its vowel roundedness is rounded, which means that the lips are rounded.

This vowel occurs in English, and is the sound represented by the letters oo in boot or food.