Mid front unrounded vowel

The mid front unrounded vowel is a type of vowel sound, used in some spoken languages. While there is no dedicated symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents the exact mid front unrounded vowel between close-mid [e] and open-mid [ɛ] (since no language is known to distinguish all three), it is normally written ⟨e⟩. If precision is required, diacritics may be used, such as ⟨e̞⟩ or ⟨ɛ̝⟩ (the former being more common). Sinologists sometimes use ⟨E⟩.

Many languages, such as Spanish, Japanese, Korean, Greek and Turkish, have a mid front unrounded vowel that is phonetically distinct from both the close-mid and open-mid vowels. A number of dialects of English also have such a mid front vowel.

Although many languages have only one non-close, non-open front vowel, there is no predisposition for it being mid. Igbo, for example, has a close-mid [e], whereas Bulgarian has an open-mid [ɛ], even though these languages do not contrast said vowels with another mid front vowel.

Features

• Its vowel height is mid, which means the tongue is positioned halfway between a close-mid vowel and an open-mid vowel.
• Its vowel backness is front, which means the tongue is positioned as far forward as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant.
• Its vowel roundedness is unrounded, which means that the lips are not rounded.

Occurrence

References

Bibliography

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• Martínez-Celdrán, Eugenio; Fernández-Planas, Ana Ma.; Carrera-Sabaté, Josefina (2003), "Castilian Spanish", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 33 (2): 255–259, doi:10.1017/S0025100303001373 
• Okada, Hideo (1991). "Japanese". Journal of the International Phonetic Association 21 (2): 94–96. doi:10.1017/S002510030000445X. 
• Roca, Iggy; Johnson, Wyn (1999), A Course in Phonology, Blackwell Publishing 
• Szende, Tamás (1994), "Illustrations of the IPA:Hungarian", Journal of the International Phonetic Alphabet 24 (2): 91–94 
• Zimmer, Karl; Orgun, Orhan (1999), "Turkish", Handbook of the International Phonetic Association: A guide to the use of the International Phonetic Alphabet, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 154–158, ISBN 0-521-65236-7