Talk:Near-open front unrounded vowel

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[edit] Other Languages

Persian: [dær], 'door'. In English, Æ is a 2-step sound: First you open your mouth wide and then you make it a ə (schwa) before closing it. In Persian, the second step is absent.

I am absolutely sure about Persian because I speak Persian. In am also suspicious whether Æ occurs in other languages. The difference is very subtle and most people don't notice it except those who have are bilingual and have studied the phonics of the English language systematically.--02:40, 8 July 2006 (UTC)~


There are two problems with your analysis.

1. In some English dialects, the phoneme /æ/ is phonetically diphthongized but this doesn't mean that [æ] is a diphthong.

2. Being a native speaker doesn't make you an expert in phonology and phonetics and doesn't mean you don't need to cite sources.

Your input is appreciated but you can't say that a sound doesn't occur in a language because it's different than in English. AEuSoes1 06:06, 8 July 2006 (UTC)


  • Pronounce It Perfectly in English (Pronounce It Perfectly in/Book and 3 Audio Cassettes) (Audio Cassette) [1] has a diagram of the mouth showing the two pronuciation stages. This vowel is a diphthong. I live in California and everyone pronounces "æ" thus.--06:18, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
I believe that it can be diphthongized in English, but that doesn't mean that it's dipthongized in every language. Read the Persian phonology page and you'll see an actual vowel chart taking formants and whatnot into account. AEuSoes1 06:23, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
  • My understanding of English phonology is pretty systematic. However, that is not the case with Farsi even though I learned it before English. Nonetheless, I can assure you that my mother does not pronounce "æ" like Californians and she refuses to learn the right way.--06:33, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
I hope you didn't put that it was disputed just because you personally disagree with it. You're gonna need some academic disputing to really let that sort of edit fly. You haven't even indicated what it would be instead. AEuSoes1 16:09, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
It's simple really... if the vowel was a diphthong, why would IPA have one symbol for it? It's common sense. Some Americans say "eæ" especially Californians and people in the KY, OH, IN area. I think that's causing confusion.RedAugust 22:01, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Many Californians pronounce /æ/ as a vowel close to [a]: bad [bad], bag [bag], last [last].

The phenomenon is known as Californian vowel shift (American version of the Canadian vowel shift).

[edit] German /æ/?

Someone has included the pronunciation of the german <ä> here, as in the word Käse. This is actually pronounced with a different vowel (in X-Sampa, it's represented by /E/, I can't get the IPA to work here). /æ/ (X-Sampa /{/) might possibly be present in some German dialects, but not in any "standard" variety.

[edit] Russian /æ/?

I'm going to dispute this line:

  • Russian: пять [pʲætʲ], "five"

At least in my dialect (Kaliningrad region), pronouncing it with /æ/ makes it sound more like (but not quite like) петь - 'to sing'. I definitely say пять with a clear /a/ sound.

Check the sources for Russian phonology. Wikipedia's mentions of Russian imply Standard (Moscow) Russian. Ƶ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 00:40, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] English words in German?

Often when English words with this short a sound are borrowed into German, as they don't have the sound per se, it's rendered as /ɛ/, like "bands" being said like "bents" and so on... I'm not sure if this is noteworthy, the right article to put this in, or whether it's original research... so yeah...

86.20.219.123 22:59, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Received pronunciation

According to the BBC website, the near-open front unrounded vowel (represented by æ) is the sound of the 'a' in 'cat' in received English. This isn't mentioned in the article, which, instead, says that it is the 'e' in 'help'. If you listen to the soundbite on the site, you will see that it does, indeed, sound like the 'a' of received pronunciation, and nothing like any pronunciation of 'e' in 'help'. On this site, it says æ is the American pronunciation of the 'a' in 'cat', which sounds like an American 'a' (which is similar to the 'a' of Received Pronunciation).

The IPA website itself is of little use, but to me, from these other sources, it looks like this page is incorrect. Any ideas?

[edit] Is this the a in "ant"?

I'm a United Stateser with a roughly General American accent, and I'm very interested in phonetics. Here's the deal: As far as I can tell, sources seem to agree that the A in words like "ant" and "camp" (at least the way I pronounce it) is an ash. But I can't help but feel that it's actually a vowel in its own right.

I feel that if I wanted to, I could say "man" like /mæn/, with the same internal vowel as the way I say /pæθ/ ("path"), but I think that when I normally say the word, there's something more nasal going on in that A. If I repeat /æ/ sound, I just sound like I'm dully reading a scream ("A-a-a-a"), but if I repeat the vowel in the way I say "ant", it's like the laugh of a nerdy supervillain. I only find this the case for As that precede N or M. Does anyone have the same feeling I do? Is there a word for this change to a vowel, equivalent to the vocalic r? \sim Lenoxus " * " 18:37, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes, what you're talking about, I think, is nasalization. In English (and many other languages) nasal consonants spread their nasal quality to preceding vowels. Thus, all vowels are nasalized before nasals.
If it seems like more than that, it could be some sort of quality change that is either allophonic or diachronic. In my Californian dialect, front vowels are (diachronically, I think) raised before [ŋ] so that sing has the same vowel as seen and rang has the same vowel as rain. — Ƶ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 20:07, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
Thanks, aeusoes! That pretty much answers my question. Maybe nasalization needs to be linked more? \sim Lenoxus " * " 18:40, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] æ in Polish?

I have to disagree with the jajko example, to my ears æ does not exist in Polish, at least not in the standard version of the language. And I have not found any info on this vowel possibly existing in other dialects.. the wiki page on Polish phonology has no mention of it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.112.56.46 (talk) 01:33, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

You're right. Examples in Polish should all be sourced. — Ƶ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 01:51, 11 April 2008 (UTC)