Near-open central vowel - Definition and Overview

	front	near-front	central	near-back	back
Vowels

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)

Sound sample
IPA - Unicode	ɐ
IPA - image
X-SAMPA	`6`
Kirshenbaum	`&"`

The near-open 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 ɐ, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is 6. The symbol ɐ is a turned printed letter 'a'. Features of this vowel:

Its vowel height is near-open, which means the tongue is positioned similarly to an open vowel, but slightly more constricted.
Its vowel backness is central, which means the tongue is positioned halfway between a front vowel and a back vowel.

Occurs in:

German besser /bɛsɐ/
New England English winter /wɪntɐ/
European Portuguese amo /ɐmɔ/

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