Near-open front unrounded vowel

The near-open front unrounded vowel, or near-low front 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 ⟨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
Encoding
Entity (decimal)	æ
Unicode (hex)	U+00E6
X-SAMPA	{
Braille
Audio sample
source · help

IPA: Vowels
Front Central Back Close i y ɨ ʉ ɯ u Near-close ɪ ʏ ʊ Close-mid e ø ɘ ɵ ɤ o Mid e̞ ø̞ ə ɤ̞ o̞ Open-mid ɛ œ ɜ ɞ ʌ ɔ Near-open æ ɐ Open a ɶ ä ɑ ɒ
IPA help  audio full chart template Vowels beside dots are: 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
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
Bashkir[6]		йәй / yäy	[jæj]	'summer'
Bengali[7]		এক/ek	[æk]	'one'	Allophone of /ɛ/ or /e/. See Bengali phonology
Catalan	Majorcan[8]	tesi	[ˈt̪æzi]	'thesis'	Main realization of /ɛ/. See Catalan phonology
	Valencian[8]
Danish	Standard[2][9]	dansk	[ˈtænsk]	'Danish'	Most often transcribed in IPA with ⟨a⟩ – the way it is realized by certain older or upper-class speakers.[10] See Danish phonology
Dutch[11]		pen	[pæn]	'pen'	Allophone of /ɛ/ before /n/ and the velarized or pharyngealized allophone of /l/. In non-standard accents this allophone is generalized to other positions, where [ɛ] is used in Standard Dutch.[12] See Dutch phonology
English	Cultivated New Zealand[13]	cat	[kʰæt]	'cat'	Higher in other New Zealand varieties. See New Zealand English phonology
	General American[14]				See English phonology
	Conservative Received Pronunciation[15]				Fully open [a] in contemporary RP.[15] See English phonology
Estonian[16]		väle	[ˈvæ̠le̞ˑ]	'agile'	Near-front.[16] See Estonian phonology
Finnish[17]		mäki	[ˈmæki]	'hill'	See Finnish phonology
French	Parisian[18]	bain	[bæ̃]	'bath'	Nasalized; typically transcribed in IPA with ⟨ɛ̃⟩. See French phonology
	Quebec[19]	ver	[væːʁ]	'worm'	Allophone of /ɛ/ before /ʁ/ or in open syllables, and of /a/ in closed syllables.[19] See Quebec French phonology
German	Standard Austrian[20]	erlauben	[æˈlɑɔ̯bm̩]	'allow'	Variant of pretonic [ɛɐ̯].[20] See Standard German phonology
	West Central German accents[21]	oder	[ˈoːdæ]	'or'	Used instead of [ɐ].[21] See Standard German phonology
	Northern accents[22]	alles	[ˈa̝ləs]	'everything'	Lower and often also more back in other accents.[22] See Standard German phonology
	Western Swiss accents[23]	spät	[ʃpæːt]	'late'	Open-mid [ɛː] or close-mid [eː] in other accents; contrasts with the open-mid /ɛː/.[24] See Standard German phonology
Greek	Macedonia[25]	γάτα/gáta	[ˈɣætæ]	'cat'	See Modern Greek phonology
	Thessaly[25]
	Thrace[25]
	Pontic[26]	καλάθια/kaláthia	[kaˈlaθæ]	'baskets'
Hungarian[27]		nem	[næm]	'no'	Typically transcribed in IPA with ⟨ɛ⟩. See Hungarian phonology
Kurdish	Sorani (Central)	گاڵته/ gältyä	[gäːɫtʲæ]	'joke'	Equal to Palewani (Southern) front [a]. See Kurdish phonology
Lakon[28]		rävräv	[ræβræβ]	'evening'
Limburgish[29][30][31]		twelf	[ˈtβ̞æ̠ləf]	'twelve'	Front[30][31] or near-front,[29] 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[32]		Käpp	[kʰæpʰ]	'heads'	See Luxembourgish phonology
Norwegian	Urban East[33][34]	lær	[læːɾ]	'leather'	See Norwegian phonology
Persian[35][36]		هشت/ašt	[hæʃt]	'eight'
Portuguese	Some dialects[37]	pedra	[ˈpædɾɐ]	'stone'	Stressed vowel. In other dialects closer /ɛ/. See Portuguese phonology
	Some European speakers[38]	também	[tɐˈmæ̃]	'also'	Stressed vowel, allophone of nasal vowel /ẽ̞/.
Romanian	Bukovinian dialect[39]	piele	[ˈpæle]	'skin'	Corresponds to [je] in standard Romanian. Also identified in some Central Transylvanian sub-dialects.[39] See Romanian phonology
Russian[40][41]		пять	[pʲætʲ]	'five'	Allophone of /a/ between palatalized consonants. See Russian phonology
Serbo-Croatian	Zeta-Raška dialect[42]	дан/dan	[d̪æn̪]	'day'	Regional reflex of Proto-Slavic *ь and *ъ. Sometimes nasalised.[42]
Sinhala[43]		ඇය/æya	[æjə]	'she'
Slovak	Some speakers[44]	väzy	[ˈʋæzi̞]	'ligaments'	Many speakers pronounce it the same as [ɛ̝]. See Slovak phonology
Swedish	Central Standard[45][46][47]	ära	[²æːɾä]	'hono(u)r'	Allophone of /ɛː, ɛ/ before /r/. See Swedish phonology
	Stockholm[47]	läsa	[²læːsä]	'to read'	Realization of /ɛː, ɛ/ for younger speakers. Higher [ɛː, ɛ̝ ~ ɛ] for other speakers
Turkish[48]		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].[48] See Turkish phonology

See also

• Index of phonetics articles

Notes

1. While the International Phonetic Association prefers the terms "close" and "open" for vowel height, many linguists use "high" and "low".
2. Grønnum (1998:100)
3. Basbøll (2005:46)
4. Donaldson (1993:3)
5. Holes (2004:60)
6. Berta (1998:183)
7. "Bengali romanization table" (PDF). Bahai Studies. Bahai Studies. Retrieved 30 October 2020.
8. Rafel (1999:14)
9. Basbøll (2005:45)
10. Basbøll (2005:32)
11. Collins & Mees (2003:92, 129)
12. Collins & Mees (2003:92, 128–129, 131)
13. Gordon & Maclagan (2004:609)
14. Wells (1982:486)
15. Gimson (2014:119–120)
16. Asu & Teras (2009:368)
17. Suomi, Toivanen & Ylitalo (2008:21)
18. Collins & Mees (2013:226)
19. Walker (1984:75)
20. Moosmüller, Schmid & Brandstätter (2015:342)
21. Dudenredaktion, Kleiner & Knöbl (2015:40)
22. Dudenredaktion, Kleiner & Knöbl (2015:64)
23. Dudenredaktion, Kleiner & Knöbl (2015:65)
24. Dudenredaktion, Kleiner & Knöbl (2015:34, 64–65)
25. Newton (1972:11)
26. Revithiadou & Spyropoulos (2009:41)
27. Szende (1994:92)
28. François (2005:466)
29. Gussenhoven & Aarts (1999:159)
30. Peters (2006:119)
31. Verhoeven (2007:221)
32. Gilles & Trouvain (2013:70)
33. Vanvik (1979:13)
34. Popperwell (2010:16, 21–22)
35. Majidi & Ternes (1991)
36. Campbell (1995)
37. Portuguese: A Linguistic Introduction – by Milton M. Azevedo Page 186.
38. Lista das marcas dialetais e ouros fenómenos de variação (fonética e fonológica) identificados nas amostras do Arquivo Dialetal do CLUP (in Portuguese)
39. Pop (1938), p. 29.
40. Jones & Ward (1969:50)
41. Yanushevskaya & Bunčić (2015:224–225)
42. Okuka 2008, p. 171.
43. Perera & Jones (1919:5)
44. Hanulíková & Hamann (2010:374)
45. Eliasson (1986:273)
46. Thorén & Petterson (1992:15)
47. Riad (2014:38)
48. Göksel & Kerslake (2005:10)

References

• Asu, Eva Liina; Teras, Pire (2009), "Estonian", Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 39 (3): 367–372, doi:10.1017/s002510030999017x
• Basbøll, Hans (2005), The Phonology of Danish, ISBN 978-0-203-97876-4
• Berta, Árpád (1998), "Tatar and Bashkir", in Johanson, Lars; Csató, Éva Á. (eds.), The Turkic languages, Routledge, pp. 283–300
• Campbell, George L. (1995), "Persian", Concise compendium of the world's languages (1st publ. ed.), London: Routledge, p. 385, ISBN 0415160499
• Collins, Beverley; Mees, Inger M. (2003) [First published 1981], The Phonetics of English and Dutch (5th ed.), Leiden: Brill Publishers, ISBN 978-9004103405
• Collins, Beverley; Mees, Inger M. (2013) [First published 2003], Practical Phonetics and Phonology: A Resource Book for Students (3rd ed.), Routledge, ISBN 978-0-415-50650-2
• Donaldson, Bruce C. (1993), "1. Pronunciation", A Grammar of Afrikaans, Mouton de Gruyter, pp. 1–35, ISBN 9783110134261
• Dudenredaktion; Kleiner, Stefan; Knöbl, Ralf (2015) [First published 1962], Das Aussprachewörterbuch (in German) (7th ed.), Berlin: Dudenverlag, ISBN 978-3-411-04067-4
• Eliasson, Stig (1986), "Sandhi in Peninsular Scandinavian", in Anderson, Henning (ed.), Sandhi Phenomena in the Languages of Europe, Berlin: de Gruyter, pp. 271–300
• François, Alexandre (2005), "Unraveling the history of vowels in seventeen north Vanuatu languages" (PDF), Oceanic Linguistics, 44 (2): 443–504, doi:10.1353/ol.2005.0034, S2CID 131668754
• Gilles, Peter; Trouvain, Jürgen (2013), "Luxembourgish" (PDF), Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 43 (1): 67–74, doi:10.1017/S0025100312000278
• Gimson, Alfred Charles (2014), Cruttenden, Alan (ed.), Gimson's Pronunciation of English (8th ed.), Routledge, ISBN 9781444183092
• Göksel, Asli; Kerslake, Celia (2005), Turkish: a comprehensive grammar, Routledge, ISBN 978-0415114943
• Gordon, Elizabeth; Maclagan, Margaret (2004), "Regional and social differences in New Zealand: phonology", in Schneider, Edgar W.; Burridge, Kate; Kortmann, Bernd; Mesthrie, Rajend; Upton, Clive (eds.), A handbook of varieties of English, 1: Phonology, Mouton de Gruyter, pp. 603–613, ISBN 978-3-11-017532-5
• Grønnum, Nina (1998), "Illustrations of the IPA: Danish", Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 28 (1 & 2): 99–105, doi:10.1017/s0025100300006290
• Gussenhoven, Carlos; Aarts, Flor (1999), "The dialect of Maastricht" (PDF), Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 29 (2): 155–166, doi:10.1017/S0025100300006526
• Hanulíková, Adriana; Hamann, Silke (2010), "Slovak" (PDF), Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 40 (3): 373–378, doi:10.1017/S0025100310000162
• Holes, Clive (2004), Modern Arabic: Structures, Functions, and Varieties, Georgetown University Press, ISBN 978-1-58901-022-2
• Jones, Daniel; Ward, Dennis (1969), The Phonetics of Russian, Cambridge University Press
• Majidi, Mohammad-Reza; Ternes, Elmar (1991), "Illustrations of the IPA: Persian (Farsi)", Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 21 (2): 96–98, doi:10.1017/S0025100300004461
• Moosmüller, Sylvia; Schmid, Carolin; Brandstätter, Julia (2015), "Standard Austrian German", Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 45 (3): 339–348, doi:10.1017/S0025100315000055
• Newton, Brian (1972), The Generative Interpretation of Dialect: A Study of Modern Greek Phonology, Cambridge Studies in Linguistics, 8, Cambridge University Press
• Okuka, Miloš (2008), Srpski dijalekti, Zagreb: Prosvjeta, ISBN 9789537611064
• Perera, H.S.; Jones, D. (1919), A colloquial Sinhalese reader in phonetic transcription, Manchester: Longmans, Green & Co
• Peters, Jörg (2006), "The dialect of Hasselt", Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 36 (1): 117–124, doi:10.1017/S0025100306002428
• Pop, Sever (1938), Micul Atlas Linguistic Român, Muzeul Limbii Române Cluj
• Popperwell, Ronald G. (2010) [First published 1963], Pronunciation of Norwegian, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 978-0-521-15742-1
• Rafel, Joaquim (1999), Aplicació al català dels principis de transcripció de l'Associació Fonètica Internacional (PDF) (3rd ed.), Barcelona: Institut d'Estudis Catalans, ISBN 978-84-7283-446-0
• Revithiadou, Anthi; Spyropoulos, Vassilios (2009), Οφίτικη Ποντιακή: Έρευνα γλωσσικής καταγραφής με έμφαση στη διαχρονία και συγχρονία της διαλέκτου [Ofitika Pontic: A documentation project with special emphasis on the diachrony and synchrony of the dialect] (PDF) (in Greek), John S. Latsis Public Benefit Foundation, archived from the original (PDF) on 2012-01-31
• Riad, Tomas (2014), The Phonology of Swedish, Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0-19-954357-1
• Suomi, Kari; Toivanen, Juhani; Ylitalo, Riikka (2008), Finnish sound structure – Phonetics, phonology, phonotactics and prosody (PDF), Studia Humaniora Ouluensia 9, Oulu University Press, ISBN 978-951-42-8984-2
• Szende, Tamás (1994), "Illustrations of the IPA: Hungarian", Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 24 (2): 91–94, doi:10.1017/S0025100300005090
• Thorén, Bosse; Petterson, Nils-Owe (1992), Svenska Utifrån Uttalsanvisningar, ISBN 978-91-520-0284-1
• Vanvik, Arne (1979), Norsk fonetikk, Oslo: Universitetet i Oslo, ISBN 978-82-990584-0-7
• Verhoeven, Jo (2007), "The Belgian Limburg dialect of Hamont", Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 37 (2): 219–225, doi:10.1017/S0025100307002940
• Walker, Douglas (1984), The Pronunciation of Canadian French (PDF), Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press, ISBN 978-0-7766-4500-1
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• Yanushevskaya, Irena; Bunčić, Daniel (2015), "Russian", Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 45 (2): 221–228, doi:10.1017/S0025100314000395

External links

• List of languages with [æ] on PHOIBLE