Near-open vowel

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Vowels

See also: IPA, Consonants

Edit - 2×

Front

Near-front

Central

Near-back

Back

Close

i • y

ɨ • ʉ

ɯ • u

ɪ • ʏ

• ʊ

e • ø

ɘ • ɵ

ɤ • o

ɛ • œ

ɜ • ɞ

ʌ • ɔ

a • ɶ

ɑ • ɒ

Near‑close

Close‑mid

Mid

Open‑mid

Near‑open

Open

Where symbols appear in pairs, the one to the right
represents a rounded vowel.

A near-open vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a near-open vowel is that the tongue is positioned similarly to an open vowel, but slightly more constricted. Near-open vowels are sometimes described as lax variants of the fully-open vowels^{[citation needed]}. The near-open vowels for which separate symbols exist in the International Phonetic Alphabet are: