The close back unrounded vowel, or high back 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 . Typographically, it is a turned letter .
The close back unrounded vowel can in many cases be considered the vocalic equivalent of the voiced velar approximant .
Features
thumb|left|[[Spectrogram of ]]
Occurrence
{| class="wikitable" style="clear: both;"
! colspan="2" | Language !! Word !! IPA !! Meaning !! Notes
|-
| colspan="2" | Acehnese || || || 'see' || Also described as closer to .
|-
| colspan="2" | Arara || || || 'my skin' || Frequent realisation of .
|-
| colspan="2" | Arbëresh || || || 'Arbëreshë' || in standard Albanian.
|-
| colspan="2" | Azerbaijani || / || || 'expensive' || Closer to an .
|-
| colspan="2" | Bashkir || / / || || 'girl' ||
|-
| rowspan="4" | Chinese || Mandarin || / || || 'thorn' ||
|-
| Wuhan dialect, Southwestern Mandarin || / || || 'to go' ||
|-
| Some Wu dialects || / || || 'father' ||
|-
| Xiang || / || || 'fire' ||
|-
| colspan="2" | Chuvash || / || || 'garlic' ||
|-
| colspan="2" | Crimean Tatar || / || || 'my dear' ||
|-
| rowspan="4" | English || Some California speakers || goose || || 'goose' || Corresponds to in other dialects.
|-
| New Zealand || treacle || || 'treacle' || Possible realization of the unstressed vowel , which is variable in rounding and ranges from central to (more often) back and close to close-mid. || || || 'hazel grouse' || See Eastern Khanty phonology
|-
| colspan="2" | Estonian || || || 'ear' || Typically transcribed in IPA with ; can be close-mid central or close-mid back instead, depending on the speaker. See Estonian phonology
|-
| Irish || Ulster || || || 'narrow' || See Irish phonology
|-
| colspan="2" | Japanese || / || || 'air' || May be compressed . See Japanese phonology
|-
| colspan="2" | Katukina || || || 'oscar (fish)' ||
|-
| colspan="2" | Kazakh || / / || || 'winter' || May be pronounced as
|-
| colspan="2" | Korean || / || || 'food' || See Korean phonology
|-
| rowspan="2" |Kurdish || Kurmanji (Northern) || || rowspan="2" | || rowspan="2" | 'sour' || rowspan="2" | See Kurdish phonology. The "i" after "t" always uses this sound if the "t" is "tˤ". However, it can also appear at other places.
|-
| Sorani (Central) || /
|-
| colspan="2" | Kyrgyz || / / || || 'girl' || See Kyrgyz phonology
|-
| Minangkabau || Some speakers || || || 'to push ahead' || Normally in standard Minangkabau language.
|-
| colspan="2" | Panará || || || 'to breathe' ||
|-
| Romanian || Some speakers || || || 'when' || Typically described as . See Romanian phonology
|-
| colspan="2" | Scottish Gaelic || || || 'thin' || See Scottish Gaelic phonology
|-
| colspan="2" | Sop || || || 'tree' || See Sop language
|-
| colspan="2" | Tamil || / || || 'beauty' || Normally elsewhere.
|-
| Thai || Standard || / || || 'to go up' ||
|-
| colspan="2" | Turkish || || || 'shallow' || Described variously as close back , and close central . See Turkish phonology
|-
| colspan="2" | Turkmen || / || || 'green' ||
|-
| colspan="2" | Uyghur || / || || 'my language' || In complementary distribution with . See Uyghur phonology
|-
| colspan="2" | Vietnamese || || || 'fourth' || See Vietnamese phonology
|}
Near-close near-back unrounded vowel
Some languages have a near-close near-back unrounded vowel, or near-high near-back unrounded vowel, which is more centralized than a typical .
The International Phonetic Alphabet has no dedicated symbol for this sound, but it may be represented as (mid-centralized ) or (lowered and centralized ). It may also be transcribed as (less rounded ), but because is defined by the Handbook of the International Phonetic Association as rounded (whereas and do not specify rounding), the symbol can also signify a weakly rounded , rather than the fully unrounded vowel that is described in this article. John C. Wells transcribes this vowel with the para-IPA symbol in his Accents of English, though Sinological phonetic notation uses this symbol instead for a near-open back rounded vowel . John Esling uses to represent this sound in his iPA Phonetics mobile application, though this is more typically used to represent a near-close central unrounded vowel .
For precision, a near-close back unrounded vowel, or near-high back unrounded vowel, may also be described, and is attested in a few spoken languages. This sound can be represented in the IPA as (lowered ) or (raised ). However, some phoneticians argue that all lip position inverses of the primary cardinal vowels are centralized (with the exception of ) based on formant acoustics, so that there may be no substantial difference between a near-close near-back unrounded vowel and its fully back counterpart .
Features
Occurrence
{| class="wikitable" style="clear: both;"
! colspan="2" | Language !! Word !! IPA !! Meaning !! Notes
|-
| rowspan="7" | English || African-American || rowspan="4" | hook || rowspan="3" | || rowspan="4" | 'hook' || Possible realization of .
|-
| California || Often pronounced with spread lips. Corresponds to in other accents. See English phonology
|-
| Tidewater || May be rounded instead.
|-
| Cardiff || || Also described as close-mid central .
|-
| New Zealand || || || 'shallow' || Also described as close back and close central . See Turkish phonology
|-
| Vietnamese || Hanoi || || || 'word' || Common allophone of . See Vietnamese phonology
|-
| colspan="2" | Yine || colspan="2" align="center" | || 'salt' || Typically transcribed in IPA with .
|}
See also
- Index of phonetics articles
- Ɯ