Close front compressed vowel

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The close front or near-close near-front compressed vowel is a type of vowel sound, used in some spoken languages. There is no symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound.

[edit] Features

• Its vowel height is near-close, which means the tongue is not quite so constricted as a close vowel.
• Its vowel backness is near-front, which means the tongue is positioned almost as far forward as a front vowel.
• Its vowel roundedness is compressed, which means the corners of the mouth are drawn slightly together and the lips may be compressed horizontally, but do not protrude.

[edit] Occurs in

• Central Swedish: ut [ʉ̟ːt] or [ʉ̟β̞t] (help·info), 'out'

The Central Swedish (near) close (near) front compressed vowel is commonly transcribed as [ʉ̟]. It occurs only long. There is no diacritic in the IPA to indicate compression, but since the Swedish back vowel [u] and Norwegian central vowel [ʉ] are also labially compressed, <ʉ̟> is frequently chosen as an ad hoc transcription. Another possibility would be to transcribe it as a near-front vowel with an old alternate labialization diacritic, [ʏ̫].

When the long u in Central Swedish is diphthongized, the offglide is tellingly a bilabial approximant [β̞] rather than a [ɥ]. Note that this contrasts with Swedish close front rounded vowel [y], which when diphthongized has a prototypically rounded offglide, [yɥ].

Other dialects of Swedish have instead a close central compressed vowel. The close back vowel is also compressed. See close back compressed vowel.