Open front unrounded vowel

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Vowels

v • d • e

See also: IPA, Consonants

[ edit • discuss • enlarge ]	Front	Near- front	Central	Near- back	Back
Close	i · y ɨ · ʉ ɯ · u ɪ · ʏ ʊ e · ø ɘ · ɵ ɤ · o ə ɛ · œ ɜ · ɞ ʌ · ɔ æ ɐ a · ɶ ɑ · ɒ
Near-close
Close-mid
Mid
Open-mid
Near-open
Open

Where symbols appear in pairs, the one to the right
represents a rounded vowel.

IPA – number	304
IPA – text	a
IPA – image
Entity	a
X-SAMPA	a
Kirshenbaum	a
Sound sample (help·info)

The open 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 a, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is a.

This symbol is very frequently used for an open central unrounded vowel, and this usage is accepted by the International Phonetic Association.^{[citation needed]} Since no language distinguishes front from central open vowels, a separate symbol is not considered necessary. If required, the difference may be specified with the central diacritic, [ä], or the retracted diacritic, [a̠]. Many Sinologists use an unofficial symbol [A] alternatively (see Obsolete and nonstandard symbols in the International Phonetic Alphabet).

Features

• Its vowel height is open, which means the tongue is positioned as far as possible from the roof of the mouth.
• 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. This subsumes central open vowels because the tongue does not have as much flexibility in positioning as it does for the close vowels; the difference between an open front vowel and an open back vowel is equal to the difference between a close front and a close mid vowel, or a close mid and a close back vowel.
• Its vowel roundedness is unrounded, which means that the lips are not rounded.

Occurrence

Most languages have some form of an unrounded open vowel. For languages that only have a single low vowel, the symbol for this vowel <a> may be used because it is the only low vowel whose symbol is part of the basic Latin alphabet. Whenever marked as such, the vowel is closer to a central [ä] than to a front [a].

References

Bibliography

• Carbonell, Joan F. & Joaquim Llisterri (1992), "Catalan", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 22 (1-2): 53-56
• Cruz-Ferreira, Madalena (1995), "European Portuguese", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 25 (2): 90-94
• Fougeron, Cecile & Caroline L Smith (1993), "Illustrations of the IPA:French", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 23 (2): 73-76
• Jassem, Wiktor (2003), "Polish", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 33 (1): 103-107
• Martínez-Celdrán, Eugenio; Ana Ma. Fernández-Planas & Josefina Carrera-Sabaté (2003), "Castilian Spanish", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 33 (2): 255-259
• Rogers, Derek & Luciana d'Arcangeli (2004), "Italian", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 34 (1): 117-121
• Thelwall, Robin (1990), "Illustrations of the IPA: Arabic", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 20 (2): 37-41