Open central vowel

The open central vowel is a vowel that has no dedicated symbol in the IPA 2015 chart.^[1]

IPA symbol

Nearby symbols and their modification by use of diacritics

The five nearest symbols in the chart that can be used to approximate an open central vowel:

• the symbol for a central vowel more close than mid-close, can be combined with the symbol 403 "lowered"
  • near-open central vowel, ɐ. Can be combined to lowered near-open central vowel ɐ̞. It contains no information about rounding.
• the four symbols for the open vowels, which can be combined with the symbol 415 "centralized"
  • open front unrounded vowel a - centralized open front unrounded vowel ä
  • open front rounded vowel ɶ - centralized open front rounded vowel ɶ̈
  • open back unrounded vowel ɑ - centralized open back unrounded vowel ɑ̈
  • open back rounded vowel ɒ - centralized open back rounded vowel ɒ̈

1989 debate at IPA meeting in Kiel

A symbol for the open central vowel was debated at the 1989 IPA meeting in Kiel. The report published in JIPA (IPA 1989: 74) states:

Several proposals concerning vowels were rejected. It was decided that:
1. No means of symbolizing a central fully open unrounded vowel with a 
special symbol should be provided. Specifically, small capital A [A] 
should not be recognized for this purpose. Print A [a], script A [A], 
and ash [œ] should retain their present meaning.

^[2]

2008 proposal to assign a dedicated IPA symbol

In 2008 William J. Barry and Jürgen Trouvain from the Institute of Phonetics, Saarland University, Saarbrücken published a text "Do we need a symbol for a central open vowel?]" in the Journal of the International Phonetic Association 38 No. 3, 2008, 349-357.^[3][4]

Two outlined solutions address roundedness:

1. "barred a analogous to the ‘central close’ vowels. To maintain consistency for the central vowel series, a barred ɒ could be defined for the rounded version".
2. "The capital [ᴀ] suggestion [...] does have a substantial following in the community and is explicitly mentioned in Pullum & Ladusaw (1996: 14) as being ‘occasionally used as a symbol for a fully open central unrounded vowel’."

Two responses have been in JIPA 39(2), one by Daniel Recasens ^[5] and one by Martin J. Ball ^[6].

Recasens objects to the idea of establishing a dedicated symbol. Ball mainly addressed the proposed solutions and rejected the proposal to reassign symbols and favoured [ᴀ] for the unrounded open central vowel, in case a new symbol would have to be adopted.

A response from Barry and Trouvain was published in JIPA 39(3). ^[7]

2011 IPA Council decision

The first voting in 2011 was positive 8 to 7. Another vote took place in December 2011 on the text

"I agree with the adoption of [ᴀ] (small-cap A) as the IPA symbol for the central open vowel, to be placed on the IPA chart under 'Other symbols'."

It was rejected with 17 no, 12 yes, 1 abstention^[8] The proposal that was voted on does not mention roundedness, despite the fact that for the front and back open vowel there are two pairs, containing a symbol for rounded and unrounded each. The IPA states that the discussion was about "central open (unrounded) vowel".^[9]

Alternative symbols

Some people use the [a], some the [ᴀ].

References