The close-mid back unrounded vowel, or high-mid back unrounded vowel,[1] is a type of vowel sound, used in some spoken languages. Its symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet is ⟨ɤ⟩, called "ram's horns." This symbol is distinct from the symbol for the voiced velar fricative, ⟨ɣ⟩, which has a descender, but some texts[2] use this symbol for the voiced velar fricative.
| Close-mid back unrounded vowel | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| ɤ | |||
| IPA Number | 315 | ||
| Audio sample | |||
| Encoding | |||
| Entity (decimal) | ɤ | ||
| Unicode (hex) | U+0264 | ||
| X-SAMPA | 7 | ||
| Braille |   | ||
| |||
Legend: unrounded • rounded
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Before the 1989 IPA Convention, the symbol for the close-mid back unrounded vowel was ⟨
⟩, sometimes called "baby gamma", which has a flat top; this symbol was in turn derived from and replaced the inverted small capital A, ⟨Ɐ⟩, that represented the sound before the 1928 revision to the IPA.[3] The symbol was ultimately revised to be ⟨
⟩, "ram's horns", with a rounded top, in order to better differentiate it from the Latin gamma ⟨ɣ⟩.[4]
Unicode provides U+0264 ɤ LATIN SMALL LETTER RAMS HORN, but in some fonts this character may appear as a "baby gamma" instead. The superscript IPA version is U+10791 𐞑 MODIFIER LETTER SMALL RAMS HORN.[5]
Features
- Its vowel height is close-mid, also known as high-mid, which means the tongue is positioned halfway between a close vowel (a high vowel) and a mid vowel.
- 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 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Aklanon | saeamat | [saɤamat] | 'thanks' | ||
| Bashkir | туғыҙ/tuğïð | ⓘ | 'nine' | ||
| Biak[6] | ores | [ɤres] | 'stand' | ||
| Chinese | Mandarin | 餓/è | [ɤ˥˩] | 'hungry' | |
| English | Cape Flats[7] | foot | [fɤt] | 'foot' | Possible realization of /ʊ/; may be [u] or [ʉ] instead.[7] See South African English phonology |
| South African[8] | Possible realization of /ʊ/; may be a weakly rounded [ʊ] instead.[8] See South African English phonology | ||||
| Geordie | Usual realization of /ʊ/. See Geordie phonology | ||||
| Birmingham and The Black Country | Corresponds to /ʊ/ in most other dialects.[9] | ||||
| Estonian[10] | kõrv | [kɤrv] | 'ear' | Can be close-mid central [ɘ] or close back [ɯ] instead, depending on the speaker.[10] See Estonian phonology | |
| Gayo[11] | kule | [kuˈlɤː] | 'tiger' | Close-mid or mid; one of the possible allophones of /ə/.[11] | |
| Iaai[12] | löö | [lɤː] | 'banana leaf' | ||
| Irish | Ulster[13] | Uladh | [ɤl̪ˠu] | 'Ulster' | See Irish phonology |
| Kaingang[14] | mo | [ˈᵐbɤ] | 'tail' | Varies between back [ɤ] and central [ɘ][15] | |
| Korean | Gyeongsang dialect | 거기/geogi | [ˈkɤ̘ɡɪ] | 'there' | See Korean phonology |
| Northern Tiwa | Taos dialect | mânpəumán | [ˌmã̀ˑˈpɤ̄u̯mã̄] | 'it was squeezed' | May be central [ɘ] instead. See Taos phonology |
| Samogitian | Õlgs | [ˈɤːl̪ˠgs] | 'long' | May be central [ɘ] instead. | |
| Scottish Gaelic | doirbh | [d̪̊ɤɾʲɤv] | 'difficult' | See Scottish Gaelic phonology | |
| Rusyn | Lemko variety | часы | [ t͡ɕaˈsɤ] | 'times' | Used only in place of etymological praslavic sound *y[16] |
| Prešov variety | |||||
| Thai[17] | เธอ/thoe | [tʰɤː] | 'you' | ||
| Ukrainian | Lemko dialect[18] | часи | [ t͡ɕaˈsɤ] | 'times' | Used in some of Carpathian dialects in place of etymological praslavic sound *y |
| Transcarpathian dialect[19] | |||||
| Yaqay | khoro | [xɤrɤ] | 'frog' | Uncommon pronunciation of /o/. | |