Near-open vowel
A near-open vowel or a near-low vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a near-open vowel is that the tongue is positioned similarly to an open vowel, but slightly more constricted. Near-open vowels are sometimes described as lax variants of the fully open vowels. The near-open vowels with dedicated symbols in the International Phonetic Alphabet are:
- near-open front unrounded vowel [æ]
- near-open central vowel without specified rounding [ɐ] (usually used for an unrounded vowel)
There also are near-open vowels which don't have dedicated symbols in the IPA:
- near-open front rounded vowel [œ̞] or [ɶ̝]
- near-open near-front unrounded vowel [æ̈], [æ̠] or [ɛ̞̈]
- near-open near-front rounded vowel [œ̞̈] or [ɶ̝̈]
- near-open central unrounded vowel [ɜ̞] (commonly written [ɐ])
- near-open central rounded vowel [ɞ̞] (may be written [œ], i.e. as if it were front open-mid)
- near-open near-back unrounded vowel [ɑ̽], [ɑ̝̈] or [ʌ̞̈]
- near-open near-back rounded vowel [ɒ̽], [ɒ̝̈] or [ɔ̞̈]
- near-open back unrounded vowel [ɑ̝] or [ʌ̞] (normally written [ɑ], i.e. as if it were fully open)
- near-open back rounded vowel [ɒ̝] or [ɔ̞] (normally written [ɒ], i.e. as if it were fully open)
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
