Open-mid vowel
An open-mid vowel (also mid-open vowel, low-mid vowel, mid-low vowel or half-open vowel) is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of an open-mid vowel is that the tongue is positioned two-thirds of the way from an open vowel to a mid vowel. The open-mid vowels which have dedicated symbols in the International Phonetic Alphabet are:
- open-mid front unrounded vowel [ɛ]
- open-mid front rounded vowel [œ]
- open-mid central unrounded vowel [ɜ] (older publications may use [ɛ̈] instead)
- open-mid central rounded vowel [ɞ] (older publications may use [ɔ̈] instead)
- open-mid back unrounded vowel [ʌ]
- open-mid back rounded vowel [ɔ]
There also are open-mid vowels which don't have dedicated symbols in the IPA:
- open-mid near-front unrounded vowel [ɛ̈], [ɛ̠] or [ɜ̟]
- open-mid near-front rounded vowel [œ̈], [œ̠] or [ɞ̟]
- open-mid near-back unrounded vowel [ʌ̈], [ʌ̟] or [ɜ̠]
- open-mid near-back rounded vowel [ɔ̈], [ɔ̟] or [ɞ̠]
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