The near-open front unrounded vowel, or near-low front unrounded vowel,[1] is a type of vowel sound. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨æ⟩, a lowercase of the ⟨Æ⟩ ligature. Both the symbol and the sound are commonly referred to as "ash".
| Near-open front unrounded vowel | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| æ | |||
| IPA Number | 325 | ||
| Audio sample | |||
| Encoding | |||
| Entity (decimal) | æ | ||
| Unicode (hex) | U+00E6 | ||
| X-SAMPA | { | ||
| Braille |  | ||
| |||
Legend: unrounded • rounded
The rounded counterpart of [æ], the near-open front rounded vowel (for which the IPA provides no separate symbol) has been reported to occur allophonically in Danish;[2][3] see open front rounded vowel for more information.
In practice, ⟨æ⟩ is sometimes used to represent the open front unrounded vowel; see the introduction to that page for more information.
In IPA transcriptions of Hungarian and Valencian, this vowel is typically written with ⟨ɛ⟩.
Features
- Its vowel height is near-open, also known as near-low, which means the tongue is positioned similarly to an open vowel, but is slightly more constricted – that is, the tongue is positioned similarly to a low vowel, but slightly higher.
- Its vowel backness is front, which means the tongue is positioned forward in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant.
- It is unrounded, which means that the lips are not rounded.
Occurrence
| Language | Word | IPA | Meaning | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Afrikaans | Standard[4] | 'perd' | [pæːrt] | 'horse' | Allophone of /ɛ/, in some dialects, before /k χ l r/. See Afrikaans phonology |
| Äiwoo | ikuwä | [ikuwæ] | 'I go' | Distinguished from both [a] and [ɑ~ɒ]. | |
| Arabic | Standard[5] | كتاب / 'kitāb' | [kiˈtæːb] | 'book' | Allophone of /a/ in the environment of plain labial and coronal consonants as well as /j/ (depending on the speaker's accent). See Arabic phonology |
| Azerbaijani | 'Azərbaycan' | [ɑːzæɾbɑjˈd͡ʒɑn] | 'Azerbaijan' | ||
| Bambam[6] | 'bätä' | [ˈbætæ] | 'stem' | ||
| Bashkir[7] | йәй / yäy | ⓘ | 'summer' | ||
| Bengali[8] | এক/ek | [æk] | 'one' | See Bengali phonology | |
| Bulgarian | |||||
| Moesian dialects | млечен/mlečen | [mlæt͡ʃɛn] | 'made from milk' | Descendant of Proto-Slavic *ě in places where Standard Bulgarian would have /ɛ/. See Yat. | |
| Rup dialects | Descendant of Proto-Slavic *ě in all positions. See Yat. | ||||
| Teteven dialect | мъж/măž | [mæʃ] | 'man' | In place of Standard Bulgarian [ɤ̞] (written as ъ). | |
| Erkech dialect | |||||
| Catalan | Majorcan[9] | tesi | [ˈt̪æzi] | 'thesis' | Main realization of /ɛ/. See Catalan phonology |
| Valencian[9] | |||||
| Chechen | аьрзу / ärzu | [ærzu] | 'eagle' | ||
| Danish | Standard[2][10] | dansk | [ˈtænˀsk] | 'Danish' | Most often transcribed in IPA with ⟨a⟩ – the way it is realized by certain older or upper-class speakers.[11] See Danish phonology |
| Dutch[12] | pen | [pæn] | 'pen' | Allophone of /ɛ/ before /n/ and coda /l/. In non-standard accents this allophone is generalized to other positions, where [ɛ] is used in Standard Dutch.[13] See Dutch phonology | |
| English | Cultivated New Zealand[14] | cat | ⓘ | 'cat' | Higher in other New Zealand varieties. See New Zealand English phonology |
| General American[15] | See English phonology | ||||
| Conservative Received Pronunciation[16] | Fully open [a] in contemporary RP.[16] See English phonology | ||||
| Estonian[17] | väle | [ˈvæ̠le̞ˑ] | 'agile' | Near-front.[17] See Estonian phonology | |
| Finnish[18] | mäki | [ˈmæki] | 'hill' | See Finnish phonology | |
| French | Parisian[19] | bain | [bæ̃] | 'bath' | Nasalized; typically transcribed in IPA with ⟨ɛ̃⟩. See French phonology |
| Quebec[20] | ver | [væːʁ] | 'worm' | Allophone of /ɛ/ before /ʁ/ or in open syllables, and of /a/ in closed syllables.[20] See Quebec French phonology | |
| German | Standard Austrian[21] | erlauben | [æˈlɑɔ̯bn̩] | 'allow' | Variant of pretonic [ɛɐ̯].[21] See Standard German phonology |
| West Central German accents[22] | oder | [ˈoːdæ] | 'or' | Used instead of [ɐ].[22] See Standard German phonology | |
| Northern accents[23] | alles | [ˈa̝ləs] | 'everything' | Lower and often also more back in other accents.[23] See Standard German phonology | |
| Western Swiss accents[24] | spät | [ʃpæːt] | 'late' | Open-mid [ɛː] or close-mid [eː] in other accents; contrasts with the open-mid /ɛː/.[25] See Standard German phonology | |
| Greek | Macedonia[26] | γάτα/gáta | [ˈɣætæ] | 'cat' | See Modern Greek phonology |
| Thessaly[26] | |||||
| Thrace[26] | |||||
| Pontic[27] | καλάθια/kaláthia | [kaˈlaθæ] | 'baskets' | ||
| Hungarian[28] | nem | [næm] | 'no' | Typically transcribed in IPA with ⟨ɛ⟩. See Hungarian phonology | |
| Kanoê[29] | [æː] | 'tobacco' | |||
| Kazakh | әйел/äiel | [æ̝ˈje̘l̪ʲ] | 'woman' | Varies between near-open and open-mid. | |
| Kurdish | Sorani (Central) | گاڵته/ galte | [gäːɫtʲæ] | 'joke' | Equal to Palewani (Southern) front [a]. See Kurdish phonology |
| Lakon[30] | rävräv | [ræβræβ] | 'evening' | ||
| Limburgish[31][32][33] | twelf | [ˈtβ̞æ̠ləf] | 'twelve' | Front[32][33] or near-front,[31] depending on the dialect. The example word is from the Maastrichtian dialect, in which the vowel is near-front. | |
| Lithuanian | jachtą | [ˈjæːxt̪aː] | 'yacht' (accusative) | See Lithuanian phonology | |
| Luxembourgish[34] | Käpp | [kʰæpʰ] | 'heads' | See Luxembourgish phonology | |
| Norwegian | Urban East[35][36] | lær | [læːɾ] | 'leather' | See Norwegian phonology |
| Persian[37][38] | هشت/hašt | [hæʃt] | 'eight' | ||
| Portuguese | Some dialects[39] | pedra | [ˈpædɾɐ] | 'stone' | Stressed vowel. In other dialects closer /ɛ/. See Portuguese phonology |
| Some European speakers[40] | também | [tɐˈmæ̃] | 'also' | Stressed vowel, allophone of nasal vowel /ẽ̞/. | |
| Romanian | Bukovinian dialect[41] | piele | [ˈpæle] | 'skin' | Corresponds to [je] in standard Romanian. Also identified in some Central Transylvanian sub-dialects.[41] See Romanian phonology |
| Russian[42][43] | пять / pjatʹ | ⓘ | 'five' | Allophone of /a/ between palatalized consonants. See Russian phonology | |
| Serbo-Croatian | Zeta-Raška dialect[44] | дан/dan | [d̪æn̪] | 'day' | Regional reflex of Proto-Slavic *ь and *ъ. Sometimes nasalised.[44] |
| Sinhala[45] | ඇය/æya | [æjə] | 'she' | ||
| Slovak | mäso | [mæso] | 'meat, flesh' | In conversation sometimes pronounced as [e] or [a]. See Slovak phonology | |
| Swedish | Central Standard[46][47][48] | ära | ⓘ | 'hono(u)r' | Allophone of /ɛː, ɛ/ before /r/. See Swedish phonology |
| Stockholm[48] | läsa | [²læːsä] | 'to read' | Realization of /ɛː, ɛ/ for younger speakers. Higher [ɛː, ɛ̝ ~ ɛ] for other speakers | |
| Turkish[49] | sen | [s̪æn̪] | 'you' | Allophone of /e/ before syllable-final /m, n, l, r/. In a limited number of words (but not before /r/), it is in free variation with [e̞].[49] See Turkish phonology | |
See also
Notes
References
External links
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