Close back unrounded vowel

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Not to be confused with the Armenian letter ա, or the Cyrillic letter ш.
Close back unrounded vowel
ɯ
IPA Number316
Encoding
Entity (decimal)ɯ
Unicode (hex)U+026F
X-SAMPAM
Braille⠲ (braille pattern dots-256)⠥ (braille pattern dots-136)
Audio sample
0:00
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The close back unrounded vowel, or high back unrounded vowel,[1] is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨ɯ⟩. Typographically a turned letter ⟨m⟩, given its relation to the sound represented by the letter ⟨u⟩ it can be considered a ⟨u⟩ with an extra "bowl".

Features[]

  • Its vowel height is close, also known as high, which means the tongue is positioned close 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 back in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Unrounded back vowels tend to be centralized, which means that often they are in fact near-back.
  • It is unrounded, which means that the lips are not rounded.

Occurrence[]

Language Word IPA Meaning Notes
Acehnese[2] eu [ɯ] 'see' Also described as closer to [ɨ].[3][4]
Azerbaijani bahalı [bɑhɑˈɫɯ] 'expensive'
Bashkir ҡыҙ/qyž [qɯð] 'girl'
Chinese Hokkien Quanzhou dialect 豬/tu [tɯ] 'pig' Allophone of [ɨ]. Written 'tir' in Pe̍h-ōe-jī.
Some Wu dialects 父/vu [vɯ] 'father'
Xiang 火/xu [xɯ] 'fire'
Chuvash ыхра [ɯɣra] 'garlic'
Crimean Tatar джаным [dʒanɯm] 'please'
English African-American[5] hook [hɯ̞k] 'hook' Near-close; possible realization of /ʊ/.[5]
Tidewater[6] Near-close; may be rounded [ʊ] instead.[6]
California[7] goose [ɡɯˑs] 'goose' Corresponds to [uː] in other dialects.
New Zealand[8][9] treacle [ˈtɹ̝̊iːkɯ] 'treacle' Possible realization of the unstressed vowel /ɯ/, which is variable in rounding and ranges from central to (more often) back and close to close-mid.[8][9] Corresponds to /əl/ in other accents. Develops from dark L; See New Zealand English phonology
Some Philadelphia speakers[10] plus [pɫ̥ɯs] 'plus' Used by some speakers; the exact height and backness is variable.[10] It corresponds to [ʌ] in other accents. See English phonology
South African[11] pill [pʰɯ̞ɫ] 'pill' Near-close; possible allophone of /ɪ/ before the velarised allophone of /l/.[11] See South African English phonology
Estonian[12] kõrv [kɯrv] 'ear' Typically transcribed in IPA with ⟨ɤ⟩; can be close-mid central [ɘ] or close-mid back [ɤ] instead, depending on the speaker.[12] See Estonian phonology
Irish Ulster caol [kʰɯːl̪ˠ] 'narrow' See Irish phonology
Japanese[13] 空気 / kūki About this sound[kɯːki] 'air' May be compressed [ɯᵝ].[14] See Japanese phonology
Korean[15] 음식 飮食 eumsik [ɯːmɕ͈ik̚] 'food' See Korean phonology
Kurdish Kurmanji (Northern) tirş [tˤɯɾʃ] 'sour' See Kurdish phonology. The "i" after "t" always uses this sound if the "t" is "tˤ". However, it can also appear at other places.
Sorani (Central) ترش‎/tirš
Kyrgyz кыз/qyz [qɯz] 'girl' See Kyrgyz phonology
Portuguese European[16] pegar [pɯ̞ˈɣäɾ] 'to grab' Reduced vowel. Near-close.[16] Typically transcribed in IPA with ⟨ɨ⟩. See Portuguese phonology
Scottish Gaelic caol [kʰɯːl̪ˠ] 'thin' See Scottish Gaelic phonology
Sob düm [dɯm] 'tree' See Sop language
Tamil அழகு/aḻagu [əɻəxɯ] 'beauty'
Thai Standard[17] ขึ้น/khuen [kʰɯn˥˩] 'to go up'
Turkish[18] sığ [sɯː] 'shallow' Described variously as close back [ɯ],[18] near-close near-back [ɯ̞][19] and close central [ɨ].[20] See Turkish phonology
Turkmen ýaşyl [jäːˈʃɯl] 'green'
Uyghur تىلىم/tulum [tɯlɯm] 'my language' In complementary distribution with /ɪ/. See Uyghur phonology
Vietnamese tư [tɯ] 'fourth' See Vietnamese phonology

See also[]

Notes[]

  1. ^ While the International Phonetic Association prefers the terms "close" and "open" for vowel height, many linguists use "high" and "low".
  2. ^ Mid-vowels in Acehnese Archived 2010-07-14 at the Wayback Machine
  3. ^ "Agreement System in Acehnese" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2009-07-30. Retrieved 2012-05-21.
  4. ^ Acehnese Coda Condition
  5. ^ Jump up to: a b Wells (1982), p. 557.
  6. ^ Jump up to: a b Wells (1982), p. 536.
  7. ^ Ladefoged (1999), pp. 42–43.
  8. ^ Jump up to: a b "NZE Phonology" (PDF). Victoria University of Wellington. p. 3.
  9. ^ Jump up to: a b Bauer & Warren (2004), p. 585.
  10. ^ Jump up to: a b Gordon (2004), p. 290.
  11. ^ Jump up to: a b Bowerman (2004), p. 936.
  12. ^ Jump up to: a b Asu & Teras (2009), p. 369.
  13. ^ Labrune (2012), p. 25.
  14. ^ Okada (1999), p. 118.
  15. ^ Lee (1999), p. 122.
  16. ^ Jump up to: a b Cruz-Ferreira (1995), p. 91.
  17. ^ Tingsabadh & Abramson (1993), p. 24.
  18. ^ Jump up to: a b Göksel & Kerslake (2005:10)
  19. ^ Kılıç & Öğüt (2004)
  20. ^ Zimmer & Orgun (1999:155)

References[]

  • Asu, Eva Liina; Teras, Pire (2009). "Estonian". Journal of the International Phonetic Association. 39 (3): 367–372. doi:10.1017/s002510030999017x.
  • Bauer, Laurie; Warren, Paul (2004), "New Zealand English: phonology", in Schneider, Edgar W.; Burridge, Kate; Kortmann, Bernd; Mesthrie, Rajend; Upton, Clive (eds.), A handbook of varieties of English, 1: Phonology, Mouton de Gruyter, pp. 580–602, ISBN 3-11-017532-0
  • Bowerman, Sean (2004), "White South African English: phonology", in Schneider, Edgar W.; Burridge, Kate; Kortmann, Bernd; Mesthrie, Rajend; Upton, Clive (eds.), A handbook of varieties of English, 1: Phonology, Mouton de Gruyter, pp. 931–942, ISBN 3-11-017532-0
  • Ladefoged, Peter (1999), "American English", Handbook of the International Phonetic Association, Cambridge University Press, pp. 41–44
  • Cruz-Ferreira, Madalena (1995), "European Portuguese", Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 25 (2): 90–94, doi:10.1017/S0025100300005223
  • Göksel, Asli; Kerslake, Celia (2005), Turkish: a comprehensive grammar, Routledge, ISBN 978-0415114943
  • Gordon, Matthew J. (2004), "New York, Philadelphia, and other northern cities: phonology", in Schneider, Edgar W.; Burridge, Kate; Kortmann, Bernd; Mesthrie, Rajend; Upton, Clive (eds.), A handbook of varieties of English, 1: Phonology, Mouton de Gruyter, pp. 282–299, ISBN 3-11-017532-0
  • International Phonetic Association (1999), Handbook of the International Phonetic Association: A guide to the use of the International Phonetic Alphabet, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0-521-65236-7
  • Labrune, Laurence (2012), The Phonology of Japanese, Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0-19-954583-4
  • Lee, Hyun Bok (1999), "Korean", Handbook of the International Phonetic Association: A Guide to the Use of the International Phonetic Alphabet, Cambridge University Press, pp. 120–123, ISBN 0-521-63751-1
  • Okada, Hideo (1999), "Japanese", in International Phonetic Association (ed.), Handbook of the International Phonetic Association: A Guide to the Use of the International Phonetic Alphabet, Cambridge University Press, pp. 117–119, ISBN 978-0-52163751-0
  • Tingsabadh, M.R. Kalaya; Abramson, Arthur S. (1993). "Thai". Journal of the International Phonetic Association. 23 (1): 24–26. doi:10.1017/S0025100300004746.
  • Wells, John C. (1982). Accents of English. Volume 3: Beyond the British Isles (pp. i–xx, 467–674). Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-52128541-0 .
  • Zimmer, Karl; Orgun, Orhan (1999), "Turkish" (PDF), Handbook of the International Phonetic Association: A guide to the use of the International Phonetic Alphabet, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 154–158, ISBN 0-521-65236-7

External links[]

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