The open-mid central rounded vowel, or low-mid central rounded vowel, is a vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is . The symbol is called closed reversed epsilon. It was added to the IPA in 1993; before that, this vowel was transcribed .
IPA charts were first published with this vowel transcribed as a closed epsilon, (that is, a closed variant of , much as is a closed variant of ), and this variant made its way into Unicode as . The IPA charts were later changed to the current closed reversed epsilon , and this was adopted into Unicode as .<!--It's widely reported that the initial letter, the closed epsilon, was an error on the part of the IPA. However, the sources that the IPA based the letter on did indeed use that form. It's possible that the only error was a later assumption that the IPA had made an error, or it may simply be that people later decided they preferred a different form of the letter. It's difficult to find sources on this written by people who actually know what they're talking about, rather than just repeating a chain of unsubstantiated claims, so for WP it's best (for now at least) to not call either form an 'error'.-->
Features
thumb|left|[[Spectrogram of ]]
Occurrence
{| class="wikitable" style="clear: both;"
! colspan="2" | Language !! Word !! IPA!! Meaning !! Notes
|-
| colspan="2" | Afrikaans|| || || 'air' || Also been described as mid , typically transcribed in IPA with . Many speakers merge with , even in formal speech. See Afrikaans phonology
|-
| rowspan="2" | English || Irish || munch || || 'munch' || Corresponds to in other varieties. See English phonology
|-
| New Zealand || not || || 'not' || Possible realization of . See New Zealand English phonology
|-
| colspan="2" | Faroese || || || 'high' || Typically transcribed in IPA with . See Faroese phonology
|-
| French || Parisian || || || 'port', 'harbour' || Described variously as an allophone of before and as the default allophone of . See French phonology
|-
|German
|Chemnitz dialect
|
|
|'bliss'
|May be transcribed as though is typically used.
|-
| colspan="2" | Irish || || || 'consume' (imp.)|| See Irish phonology
|-
| colspan="2" | Kashubian||||||'bird'||
|-
| colspan="2" |Koyukon
|-ʉghdonaanh
|
|'son-in-law'
|
|-
| Limburgish|| Maastrichtian || || || 'lazy' || Allophone of in words with Accent 2. May be slightly diphthongal itself. It contrasts with the near-open in words with Accent 2 ( itself is always toneless). It may be transcribed in IPA with , as it is a phonological front vowel.
|-
| Mongolian || Khalkha
|
|
|'horse'
|Allophone of before a palatalized consonant.
|-
| colspan="2" |Mortlockese
|mér
|
|'to sleep'
|Phonemic vowel.
|-
| colspan="2" | Mwerlap||||||'Merelava'||
|-
| colspan="2" | Navajo|| ||||'seven'|| See Navajo phonology
|-
| Northern Tiwa || Taos dialect || || || 'his-garment-around' || Allophone of . See Taos phonology
|-
| colspan="2" |Panará
|colspan=2 align=center|
|'trousers'
|Contrasts with .
|-
| colspan="2" | Poitevin || || ||'he gives'||
|-
| West Frisian || Southwestern dialects || || || 'tomcat' || Corresponds to in other dialects.