Near-close vowel

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A near-close vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a near-close vowel is that the tongue is positioned similarly to a close vowel, but slightly less constricted. Near-close vowels are sometimes described as lax variants of the fully-close vowels. The near-close vowels identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet are:

• near-close near-front unrounded vowel [ɪ]
• near-close near-front rounded vowel [ʏ]
• near-close near-back rounded vowel [ʊ]