The open-mid back unrounded vowel or low-mid back unrounded vowel[1] is a type of vowel sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨ʌ⟩, graphically a rotated lowercase "v" (called a turned V but created as a small-capital ⟨ᴀ⟩ without the crossbar, even though some vendors display it as a real turned v). Both the symbol and the sound are commonly referred to as a "wedge", "caret" or "hat". In transcriptions for English, this symbol is commonly used for the near-open central unrounded vowel and in transcriptions for Danish, it is used for the open back rounded vowel.
| Open-mid back unrounded vowel | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| ʌ | |||
| IPA Number | 314 | ||
| Audio sample | |||
| Encoding | |||
| Entity (decimal) | ʌ | ||
| Unicode (hex) | U+028C | ||
| X-SAMPA | V | ||
| Braille |  | ||
| |||
Legend: unrounded • rounded
Features
- Its vowel height is open-mid, also known as low-mid, which means the tongue is positioned halfway between an open vowel (a low 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 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ajië[2] | kë | [kʌˀ] | 'pot' | Distinct from /ə/ | |
| Catalan | Solsonès[3] | tarda | [ˈtaɾð̞ʌ̃ː] | 'afternoon' | Realization of final unstressed /ə/ |
| Emilian | most Emilian dialects[4] | Bulåggna | [buˈlʌɲːɐ] | 'Bologna' | It corresponds to a sound between /ɔ/ to /ä/; written ò in some spellings |
| English | Cape Town[5] | lot | [lʌt] | 'lot' | It corresponds to a weakly rounded [ɒ̈] in all other South African dialects. See South African English phonology |
| Natal[5] | |||||
| Cardiff[6] | thought | [θʌːt] | 'thought' | For some speakers it may be rounded and closer. See English phonology | |
| General South African[7] | no | [nʌː] | 'no' | May be a diphthong [ʌʊ̯] instead.[8] See South African English phonology | |
| General American[9] | gut | ⓘ | 'gut' | In some dialects, fronted to [ɜ], or fronted and lowered to [ɐ]. In Standard Southern British English, [ʌ] is increasingly heard in place of [ɐ] to avoid the trap-strut merger.[10] See English phonology and Northern Cities Vowel Shift | |
| Inland Northern American[11] | |||||
| Multicultural London[12] | |||||
| Newfoundland[13] | |||||
| Northern East Anglian[14] | |||||
| Philadelphia[15] | |||||
| Scottish[16] | |||||
| Some Estuary English speakers[17] | |||||
| Some Standard Southern British speakers[10] | |||||
| French | Picardy[18] | alors | [aˈlʌʀ̥] | 'so' | Corresponding to /ɔ/ in standard French. |
| German | Chemnitz dialect[19] | machen | [ˈmʌχɴ̩] | 'to do' | Allophone of /ʌ, ʌː/ (which phonetically are central [ɜ, ɜː])[20] before and after /ŋ, kʰ, k, χ, ʁ/. Exact backness varies; it is most posterior before /χ, ʁ/.[21] |
| Haida[22] | ḵwaáay | [qʷʰʌʔáːj] | 'the rock' | Allophone of /a/ (sometimes also /aː/) after uvular and epiglottal consonants.[23] | |
| Irish | Ulster dialect[24] | ola | [ʌl̪ˠə] | 'oil' | See Irish phonology |
| Kaingang[25] | [ˈɾʌ] | 'mark' | Varies between back [ʌ] and central [ɜ].[26] | ||
| Kashmiri | از | [ʌz] | 'today' | Allophone of [ɐ]. Used only in monosyllables. Typical of the Srinagar variety. | |
| Kensiu[27] | [hʌʎ] | 'stream' | |||
| Korean[28] | 너 / neo | [nʌ̹] | 'you' | See Korean phonology | |
| Lillooet | [example needed] | Retracted counterpart of /ə/. | |||
| Mah Meri[29] | [example needed] | Allophone of /ə/; can be mid central [ə] or close-mid back [ɤ] instead.[29] | |||
| Nepali | असल/asal | [ʌsʌl] | 'good' | See Nepali phonology | |
| Portuguese | Greater Lisbon area[30] | leite | [ˈɫ̪ʌjt̪ɨ̞] | 'milk' | Allophone of /ɐ/ before [j]. Corresponds to [e] in other accents.[30] See Portuguese phonology |
| Russian | Standard Saint Petersburg[31] | голова/golová | [ɡəɫ̪ʌˈvä] | 'head' | Corresponds to [ɐ] in standard Moscow pronunciation;[31] occurs mostly immediately before stressed syllables. See Russian phonology |
| Tamil[32] | [example needed] | Nasalized. Phonetic realization of the sequence /am/, may be [õ] or [ã] instead.[32] See Tamil phonology | |||
| Xavante[33] | [jʌm] | 'seed' | The nasal version [ʌ̃] also occurs.[33] | ||
Before World War II, the /ʌ/ of Received Pronunciation was phonetically close to a back vowel [ʌ], which has since shifted forward towards [ɐ] (a near-open central unrounded vowel). Daniel Jones reported his speech (southern British) as having an advanced back vowel [ʌ̟] between his central /ə/ and back /ɔ/; however, he also reported that other southern speakers had a lower and even more advanced vowel that approached cardinal [a].[34] In American English varieties, such as in the West, the Midwest, and the urban South, the typical phonetic realization of the phoneme /ʌ/ is an open-mid central [ɜ].[35][36] Truly backed variants of /ʌ/ that are phonetically [ʌ] can occur in Inland Northern American English, Newfoundland English, Philadelphia English, some of African-American English, and (old-fashioned) white Southern American English in coastal plain and Piedmont areas.[37][38] However, the letter ⟨ʌ⟩ is still commonly used to indicate this phoneme, even in the more common varieties with central variants [ɐ] or [ɜ]. That may be because of both tradition and some other dialects retaining the older pronunciation.[39]