Close-mid back unrounded vowel

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Close-mid back unrounded vowel

The close-mid back unrounded vowel is a type of vowel

Vowel

In phonetics, a vowel is a sound in spoken language, such as English ah! or oh! , pronounced with an open vocal tract so that there is no build-up of air pressure at any point above the glottis....
sound, used in some spoken language

Language

A language is a form of symbol communication in which elements are combined to represents something other than themselves. Language can also refer to the use of such systems as a general phenomenon....
s. Its symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet

International Phonetic Alphabet

The International Phonetic Alphabet "The acronym 'IPA' strictly refers [...] to the 'International Phonetic Association'. But it is now such a common practice to use the acronym also to refer to the alphabet itself that resistance seems pedantic....
is , called "ram's horns". It is not to be confused with the symbol for the voiced velar fricative

Voiced velar fricative

The voiced velar fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in various Speech communication languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , not to be confused with , the IPA symbol for a close-mid back unrounded vowel), and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is G....
, , which has a descender

Descender

In typography, a descender is the portion of a grapheme in a Latin alphabet that extends below the Baseline of a typeface.For example, in the letter y, the descender would be the "tail," or that portion of the diagonal line which lies below the v created by the two lines converging....
.

Before 1989, the symbol for this sound was , sometimes called "baby gamma", which has a flat top.

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Encyclopedia

The close-mid back unrounded vowel is a type of vowel

Vowel

Language

International Phonetic Alphabet

Voiced velar fricative

Descender

, sometimes called "baby gamma", which has a flat top. Now the symbol is

, "ram's horns", with a rounded top. Unicode

Unicode

Unicode is a computing industry standard allowing computers to consistently represent and manipulate Character expressed in most of the world's writing systems....
provides a space only for LATIN SMALL LETTER RAMS HORN (U+0264), but in some fonts this character may appear as a "baby gamma" instead.

Features

Its vowel height is close-mid
Close-mid vowel

A close-mid vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a close-mid vowel is that the tongue is positioned two-thirds of the way from a close vowel to a mid vowel....
, which means the tongue is positioned halfway between close vowel
Close vowel

A close vowel is a type of vowel sound used in many spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a close vowel is that the tongue is positioned as close as possible to the roof of the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant....
and a mid vowel
Mid vowel

A mid vowel is a vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a mid vowel is that the tongue is positioned mid-way between an open vowel and a close vowel....
.
Its vowel backness is back
Back vowel

A back vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a back vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far back as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant....
, which means the tongue is positioned as far back as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant
Consonant

In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the upper vocal tract, the upper vocal tract being defined as that part of the vocal tract that lies above the larynx....
.
Its vowel roundedness is unrounded, which means that the lips are not rounded.

Occurrence

Language		Word	Meaning	Notes
Alekano			'cucumber'
Chinese Chinese language Chinese or the Sinitic language is a language family consisting of language mutually unintelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the two branches of Sino-Tibetan languages of languages....	Mandarin	/	'to drink'	See Standard Mandarin Standard Mandarin Standard Mandarin, or Standard Chinese, is the official modern Spoken Chinese used in People's Republic of China and Republic of China, and is one of the four official languages of Languages of Singapore....
	Taiwanese	/	'oyster'	Mostly southern Taiwanese speech
Estonian Estonian language Estonian is the official language of Estonia, spoken by about 1.1 million people in Estonia and tens of thousands in various ?migr? communities....			'ear'
Irish Irish language Irish , also known as Irish Gaelic, is a Goidelic languages of the Indo-European language family, originating in Ireland and historically spoken by the Irish people....			'Ulster'	See Irish phonology Irish phonology File:Gaeltachtai le hainmneacha.svgThe phonology of the Irish language varies from Irish language#Dialects; there is no standard language of the language....
Korean Korean language Korean is the official language of North Korea and South Korea. It is also one of the two official languages in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in People's Republic of China....			'young'	See Korean phonology Korean phonology This article is a technical description of the phonetics and phonology of Korean language.Korean has many allophones, so it is important here to distinguish morphophonemics from corresponding phonemes and allophones ....
Onge		önge Latin alphabet The Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most widely used alphabetic writing system in the world today. It evolved from the western variety of the Greek alphabet called the Cumae alphabet, and was initially developed by the Ancient Romes to write the Latin....	'man'
Scottish Gaelic			'difficult'
Vietnamese Vietnamese language Vietnamese , formerly known under French colonization as Annamese , is the national language and official language language of Vietnam. It is the mother tongue of the Vietnamese people , who constitute 86% of Demographics of Vietnam, and of about three million overseas Vietnamese, most of whom live in the United States....			'silk'	See Vietnamese phonology Vietnamese phonology This article is a technical description the sound system of the Vietnamese language, including phonetics and phonology....

Mid back unrounded vowel

Some languages have a mid back unrounded vowel, 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 may be used: .

Several of the languages listed above may have mid rather than close-mid vowels.

Occurrence

Language Word IPA
International Phonetic Alphabet

The International Phonetic Alphabet "The acronym 'IPA' strictly refers [...] to the 'International Phonetic Association'. But it is now such a common practice to use the acronym also to refer to the alphabet itself that resistance seems pedantic....
Meaning Notes
Bulgarian
Bulgarian language

Bulgarian is an Indo-European languages, a member of the Slavic languages linguistic group.Bulgarian demonstrates several linguistic innovations that set it apart from all other Slavic languages except Macedonian language, such as the elimination of grammatical case, the development of a suffixed definite article , the lack of a verb infin...
'path' Somewhat fronted