Close central unrounded vowel - Definition and Overview

IPA - Unicode	ɨ
IPA - image
X-SAMPA	1
Kirshenbaum	i"
Sound sample

The close central 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 ɨ, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is 1. The IPA symbol is the letter i with a horizontal bar. Both the symbol and the sound are commonly referred to as "barred-i". 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 central, which means the tongue is positioned halfway between a front vowel and a back vowel.
• Its vowel roundedness is unrounded, which means that the lips are not rounded.

The ɨ is the sound of the Korean "ㅡ" (으, romanized as "eu" or "ŭ"), the Romanian "â" and "î", the Russian "ы", and the Turkish "ı". In English, it is the sound of the 'e' in roses in those dialects that distinguish the words "Rosa's" and "roses".