Close-mid front unrounded vowel

The close-mid front 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 , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is e.

Features

Its vowel height is close-mid, which means the tongue is positioned halfway between close vowel and a mid vowel.
Its vowel backness is front, which means the tongue is positioned as far forward as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant.
Its vowel roundedness is unrounded, which means that the lips are not rounded.

Occurs in

Dutch: één , 'one'
English: (AuE) bed and bared ; (NZE) bed
- In RP, this vowel occurs only as the first part of the diphthong , as in late , play .
- In CaE, this vowel may occur alone in words like bait during rapid speech.
French: beauté , 'beauty'
German: Seele , 'soul'
Hungarian: hét , 'week, seven'
Vietnamese: tê , 'numb'

Mid front unrounded vowel

Many languages, such as Spanish, Japanese, Korean, and Turkish, have a mid front unrounded vowel, which to speakers is clearly distinct from both the close-mid and open-mid vowels. However, since no language is known to distinguish all three, there is no separate IPA symbol for the mid vowel, and is generally used. If precision is desired, the lowering diacritic can be used: .

Note that just because a language has only one non-close, non-open front vowel, that doesn't mean it's a cardinal mid vowel. Igbo, for example, has a close-mid , whereas Bulgarian has an open-mid ; in neither language does this contrast with another open/close-mid vowel.

Occurs in

Albanian: keq , 'bad'
English: in GA, the first part of the diphthong , as in late , play .
Greek: επέτρεψε , 's/he allowed'
Italian: benché , 'though'
Japanese: 笑み , 'smile'
Romanian: fete , 'girls'
Spanish: bebé , 'baby'
Turkish: kel , 'bald'

Reference

Vowels

Gourt Home::Gourt :: Close-mid front unrounded vowel