Close-mid front unrounded vowel

Close-mid front unrounded vowel
e
IPA number 302
Encoding
Entity (decimal) e
Unicode (hex) U+0065
X-SAMPA e
Kirshenbaum e
Sound
 

The close-mid front unrounded vowel, or high-mid front unrounded vowel, is a type of vowel sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨e⟩.

The IPA prefers terms "close" and "open" for vowels, and the name of the article follows this. However, a large number of linguists, perhaps a majority, prefer the terms "high" and "low", and these are the only terms found in introductory textbooks on phonetics such as those by Peter Ladefoged.

Contents

Features

IPA vowel chart
Front Near-​front Central Near-​back Back
Close
•iy
•ɨʉ
•ɯu
•ɪʏ
•ʊ
•eø
•ɘɵ
•ɤo
•ɛœ
•ɜɞ
•ʌɔ
•æ
•aɶ
•ä
•ɑɒ
Near-close
Close-mid
Mid
Open-mid
Near-open
Open
Paired vowels are: unrounded • rounded
This table contains phonetic symbols. They may not display correctly in some browsers (Help).
IPA help • IPA key • chart •  chart with audio • view

Occurrence

Language Word IPA Meaning Notes
Arabic Egyptian ليه [leː] 'why' See Arabic phonology
Catalan[1] séc [ˈsek] 'fold' See Catalan phonology
Chinese Cantonese 鼻/bei6 [pei˨˨] 'nose' See Cantonese phonology
Mandarin 飛/fēi [feɪ̯˥] 'to fly' See Mandarin phonology
Wu 隑/ge [ɡe˩˧] 'lean'
Danish seng [seŋ] 'bed' See Danish phonology
Dutch vreemd [vreːmt] 'strange' In the north of the Netherlands usually diphthongized to [eɪ]. See Dutch phonology
English Australian bed [bed] 'bed' See Australian English phonology
North American play [pl̥eː] 'play' Some dialects. Many speakers have a diphthong of the type [eɪ] instead. See English phonology
Scottish
Faroese eg [eː] 'I'
French[2] beauté [bote] 'beauty' See French phonology
Galician tres [tres] 'three'
Georgian[3] მეფჱ [mɛpʰej] 'king'
German Seele [ˈzeːlə] 'soul' See German phonology
Italian[4] stelle [ˈstelle] 'stars' See Italian phonology
Korean 베다/beda [ˈpeːda] 'to cut' See Korean phonology
North Frisian ween [ʋeːn] 'blue'
Norwegian le [leː] 'laugh' See Norwegian phonology
Polish[5] dzień [dʑeɲ] 'day' Allophone of /ɛ/ between palatal or palatalized consonants. See Polish phonology
Portuguese[6] mesa [mezɐ] 'table' See Portuguese phonology
Russian[7] шея [ˈʂejə] 'neck' Occurs only before soft consonants. See Russian phonology
Swedish se [seː] 'see' See Swedish phonology
Vietnamese tê [te] 'numb' See Vietnamese phonology
West Frisian skeel [skeːɫ] 'cross-eyed'
Zapotec Tilquiapan[8] example needed [] Occurs mostly after [i], otherwise the vowel is central [ɘ]

Notes

  1. ^ Carbonell & Llisterri (1992:54)
  2. ^ Fougeron & Smith (1993:73)
  3. ^ Shosted & Chikovani (2006:261–262)
  4. ^ Rogers & d'Arcangeli (2004:119)
  5. ^ Jassem (2003:106)
  6. ^ Cruz-Ferreira (1995:91)
  7. ^ Jones & Ward (1969:44)
  8. ^ Merrill (2008:109–10)

Bibliography

  • Carbonell, Joan F.; Llisterri, Joaquim (1992), "Catalan", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 22 (1-2): 53–56, doi:10.1017/S0025100300004618 
  • Cruz-Ferreira, Madalena (1995), "European Portuguese", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 25 (2): 90–94, doi:10.1017/S0025100300005223 
  • Fougeron, Cecile; Smith, Caroline L (1993), "Illustrations of the IPA:French", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 23 (2): 73–76, doi:10.1017/S0025100300004874 
  • Jassem, Wiktor (2003), "Polish", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 33 (1): 103–107, doi:10.1017/S0025100303001191 
  • Jones, Daniel; Dennis, Ward (1969), The Phonetics of Russian, Cambridge University Press 
  • Merrill, Elizabeth (2008), "Tilquiapan Zapotec", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 38 (1): 107–114, doi:10.1017/S0025100308003344 
  • Rogers, Derek; d'Arcangeli, Luciana (2004), "Italian", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 34 (1): 117–121, doi:10.1017/S0025100304001628 
  • Shosted, Ryan K.; Vakhtang, Chikovani (2006), "Standard Georgian", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 36 (2): 255–264, doi:10.1017/S0025100306002659