Near-open front unrounded vowel

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

IPA – number	325
IPA – text	æ
IPA – image
Entity	æ
X-SAMPA	{
Kirshenbaum	&
Sound sample (help·info)

The near-open front 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 æ, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is {. The IPA symbol is the lowercase ae ligature, and both the symbol and the sound are commonly referred to as "ash".

Contents 1 Features 2 Occurrence 3 References 4 Bibliography

[edit] Features

• 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 front, which means the tongue is positioned as far forward as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant.
• Its vowel roundedness is unrounded, which means that the lips are not rounded.

[edit] Occurrence

Language		Word	IPA	Meaning	Notes
Ahtna		kuggaedi	[kʰuk̠æti]	'mosquito'
Arabic	Standard[1]	كتاب	[‎kiˈt̪æːb]	'book'	Allophone of /a/ in the environment of plain labial and coronal consonants as well as /j/. See Arabic phonology
Azeri		səs	[sæs]	'sound'
Bengali		?	[æk]	'one'
English		cat	[kʰæt]	'cat'	In New Zealand English, this is closer to [ɛ]. See English phonology
Finnish		mäki	[ˈmæki]	'hill'	See Finnish phonology
German	Bernese	standard German drehen	[ˈtræːjə]	'turn'	See Bernese German phonology
Norwegian		lær	[læːɾ]	'leather'	See Norwegian phonology
Persian		در	[dær]	'door'	See Persian phonology
Russian[2]		пять	[pʲætʲ]	'five'	Allophone of /a/ between palatalized consonants. See Russian phonology
Sinhala		කැමති	[kæməti]	'to will, to like'
Slovak		deväť	[ˈɟevæc]	'nine'
Swedish		päron	[ˈpæˌrɔn]	'pear'	Allophone of /ɛ/ before /r/. See Swedish phonology
Vietnamese		pha	[fæ]	'phase, stage'	Variety: [fa]. See Vietnamese phonology
Yaghan		mæpi	[mæpi]	'reed'

[edit] References

[edit] Bibliography

• Holes, Clive (2004), Modern Arabic: Structures, Functions, and Varieties, Georgetown University Press, ISBN 1589010221
• Jones, Daniel & Ward Dennis (1969), The Phonetics of Russian, Cambridge University Press