Back vowel

IPA: Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i y	ɨ ʉ	ɯ u
Near-close	ɪ ʏ		ʊ
Close-mid	e ø	ɘ ɵ	ɤ o
Mid	e̞ ø̞	ə	ɤ̞ o̞
Open-mid	ɛ œ	ɜ ɞ	ʌ ɔ
Near-open	æ	ɐ
Open	a ɶ	ä	ɑ ɒ

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Vowels beside dots are: unrounded • rounded

This article contains phonetic transcriptions in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA. For the distinction between [ ], / / and ⟨ ⟩, see IPA § Brackets and transcription delimiters.

A back vowel is any in a class of vowel sound used in spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a back vowel is that the highest point of the tongue is positioned relatively back in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Back vowels are sometimes also called dark vowels because they are perceived as sounding darker than the front vowels.^[1]

Near-back vowels are essentially a type of back vowels; no language is known to contrast back and near-back vowels based on backness alone.

The category "back vowel" comprises both raised vowels and retracted vowels.

Articulation[]

In their articulation, back vowels do not form a single category, but may be either raised vowels such as [u] or retracted vowels such as [ɑ].^[2]

Partial list[]

The back vowels that have dedicated symbols in the International Phonetic Alphabet are:

close back unrounded vowel [ɯ]
close back protruded vowel [u]
near-close back protruded vowel [ʊ]
close-mid back unrounded vowel [ɤ]
close-mid back protruded vowel [o]
open-mid back unrounded vowel [ʌ]
open-mid back rounded vowel [ɔ]
open back unrounded vowel [ɑ]
open back rounded vowel [ɒ]

There also are back vowels that don't have dedicated symbols in the IPA:

close back compressed vowel [ɯᵝ] or [uᵝ]
near-close back unrounded vowel [ɯ̽] or [ʊ̜]
near-close back compressed vowel [ɯ̽ᵝ] or [ʊᵝ]
close-mid back compressed vowel [ɤᵝ] or [oᵝ]
mid back unrounded vowel [ɤ̞] or [ʌ̝]
mid back rounded vowel [o̞] or [ɔ̝]

As here, other back vowels can be transcribed with diacritics of relative articulation applied to letters for neighboring vowels, such as ⟨u̞⟩, ⟨o̝⟩ or ⟨ʊ̠⟩ for a near-close back rounded vowel.

References[]

^ Tsur, Reuven (February 1992). The Poetic Mode of Speech Perception. Duke University Press. p. 20. ISBN 978-0-8223-1170-6.
^ Scott Moisik, Ewa Czaykowska-Higgins, & John H. Esling (2012) "The Epilaryngeal Articulator: A New Conceptual Tool for Understanding Lingual-Laryngeal Contrasts"

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[1] Tsur, Reuven (February 1992). The Poetic Mode of Speech Perception. Duke University Press. p. 20. ISBN 978-0-8223-1170-6.

[2] Scott Moisik, Ewa Czaykowska-Higgins, & John H. Esling (2012) "The Epilaryngeal Articulator: A New Conceptual Tool for Understanding Lingual-Laryngeal Contrasts"

[1]

[2]

Back vowel

Contents

Articulation[]

Partial list[]

See also[]

References[]