Near-open front unrounded vowel

The near-open front unrounded vowel, or near-low front unrounded vowel,^[1] is a type of vowel sound. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨æ⟩, a lowercase of the ⟨Æ⟩ ligature. Both the symbol and the sound are commonly referred to as "ash".

Near-open front unrounded vowel
æ
IPA Number	325
Audio sample
source · help
Encoding
Entity (decimal)	æ
Unicode (hex)	U+00E6
X-SAMPA	{
Braille
Image

IPA: Vowels
Front Central Back Close i y ɨ ʉ ɯ u Near-close ɪ ʏ ʊ Close-mid e ø ɘ ɵ ɤ o Mid e̞ ø̞ ə ɤ̞ o̞ Open-mid ɛ œ ɜ ɞ ʌ ɔ Near-open æ ɐ Open a ɶ ä ɑ ɒ
IPA help  audio full chart template Legend: unrounded • rounded

Sagittal section of a vocal tract pronouncing the IPA sound ⟨æ⟩. Note that a wavy glottis in this diagram indicates a voiced sound.

The rounded counterpart of [æ], the near-open front rounded vowel (for which the IPA provides no separate symbol) has been reported to occur allophonically in Danish;^[2][3] see open front rounded vowel for more information.

In practice, ⟨æ⟩ is sometimes used to represent the open front unrounded vowel; see the introduction to that page for more information.

In IPA transcriptions of Hungarian and Valencian, this vowel is typically written with ⟨ɛ⟩.

Features

• Its vowel height is near-open, also known as near-low, which means the tongue is positioned similarly to an open vowel, but is slightly more constricted – that is, the tongue is positioned similarly to a low vowel, but slightly higher.
• Its vowel backness is front, which means the tongue is positioned forward in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant.
• It is unrounded, which means that the lips are not rounded.

Occurrence

Language		Word	IPA	Meaning	Notes
Afrikaans	Standard[4]	'perd'	[pæːrt]	'horse'	Allophone of /ɛ/, in some dialects, before /k χ l r/. See Afrikaans phonology
Äiwoo		ikuwä	[ikuwæ]	'I go'	Distinguished from both [a] and [ɑ~ɒ].
Arabic	Standard[5]	كتاب / 'kitāb'	[kiˈtæːb]	'book'	Allophone of /a/ in the environment of plain labial and coronal consonants as well as /j/ (depending on the speaker's accent). See Arabic phonology
Azerbaijani		'Azərbaycan'	[ɑːzæɾbɑjˈd͡ʒɑn]	'Azerbaijan'
Bambam[6]		'bätä'	[ˈbætæ]	'stem'
Bashkir[7]		йәй / yäy	[jæj]ⓘ	'summer'
Bengali[8]		এক/ek	[æk]	'one'	See Bengali phonology
Bulgarian
	Moesian dialects	млечен/mlečen	[mlæt͡ʃɛn]	'made from milk'	Descendant of Proto-Slavic *ě in places where Standard Bulgarian would have /ɛ/. See Yat.
	Rup dialects				Descendant of Proto-Slavic *ě in all positions. See Yat.
	Teteven dialect	мъж/măž	[mæʃ]	'man'	In place of Standard Bulgarian [ɤ̞] (written as ъ).
	Erkech dialect
Catalan	Majorcan[9]	tesi	[ˈt̪ɛ̞zi]	'thesis'	Main realization of /ɛ/. More open and centralized before liquids and in monosyllabics. See Catalan phonology
	Valencian[9]
Chechen		аьрзу / ärzu	[ærzu]	'eagle'
Danish	Standard[2][10]	dansk	[ˈtænˀsk]	'Danish'	Most often transcribed in IPA with ⟨a⟩ – the way it is realized by certain older or upper-class speakers.[11] See Danish phonology
Dutch[12]		pen	[pæn]	'pen'	Allophone of /ɛ/ before /n/ and coda /l/. In non-standard accents this allophone is generalized to other positions, where [ɛ] is used in Standard Dutch.[13] See Dutch phonology
English	Cultivated New Zealand[14]	cat	[kʰæt]ⓘ	'cat'	Higher in other New Zealand varieties. See New Zealand English phonology
	General American[15]				See English phonology
	Conservative Received Pronunciation[16]				Fully open [a] in contemporary RP.[16] See English phonology
Estonian[17]		väle	[ˈvæ̠le̞ˑ]	'agile'	Near-front.[17] See Estonian phonology
Finnish[18]		mäki	[ˈmæki]	'hill'	See Finnish phonology
French	Parisian[19]	bain	[bæ̃]	'bath'	Nasalized; typically transcribed in IPA with ⟨ɛ̃⟩. See French phonology
	Quebec[20]	ver	[væːʁ]	'worm'	Allophone of /ɛ/ before /ʁ/ or in open syllables, and of /a/ in closed syllables.[20] See Quebec French phonology
German	Standard Austrian[21]	erlauben	[æˈlɑɔ̯bn̩]	'allow'	Variant of pretonic [ɛɐ̯].[21] See Standard German phonology
	West Central German accents[22]	oder	[ˈoːdæ]	'or'	Used instead of [ɐ].[22] See Standard German phonology
	Northern accents[23]	alles	[ˈa̝ləs]	'everything'	Lower and often also more back in other accents.[23] See Standard German phonology
	Western Swiss accents[24]	spät	[ʃpæːt]	'late'	Open-mid [ɛː] or close-mid [eː] in other accents; contrasts with the open-mid /ɛː/.[25] See Standard German phonology
Greek	Macedonia[26]	γάτα/gáta	[ˈɣætæ]	'cat'	See Modern Greek phonology
	Thessaly[26]
	Thrace[26]
	Pontic[27]	καλάθια/kaláthia	[kaˈlaθæ]	'baskets'
Hungarian[28]		nem	[næm]	'no'	Typically transcribed in IPA with ⟨ɛ⟩. See Hungarian phonology
Kanoê[29]		[æː]		'tobacco'
Kazakh		әйел/äiel	[æ̝ˈje̘l̪ʲ]	'woman'	Varies between near-open and open-mid.
Kurdish	Sorani (Central)	گاڵته/ galte	[gäːɫtʲæ]	'joke'	Equal to Palewani (Southern) front [a]. See Kurdish phonology
Lakon[30]		rävräv	[ræβræβ]	'evening'
Limburgish[31][32][33]		twelf	[ˈtβ̞æ̠ləf]	'twelve'	Front[32][33] or near-front,[31] depending on the dialect. The example word is from the Maastrichtian dialect, in which the vowel is near-front.
Lithuanian		jachtą	[ˈjæːxt̪aː]	'yacht' (accusative)	See Lithuanian phonology
Low Saxon	Including Sallandic	gläzen	[xɫæːzn̩]	'glasses'
Luxembourgish[34]		Käpp	[kʰæpʰ]	'heads'	See Luxembourgish phonology
Norwegian	Urban East[35][36]	lær	[læːɾ]	'leather'	See Norwegian phonology
Persian[37][38]		هشت/hašt	[hæʃt]	'eight'
Portuguese	Some dialects[39]	pedra	[ˈpædɾɐ]	'stone'	Stressed vowel. In other dialects closer /ɛ/. See Portuguese phonology
	Some European speakers[40]	também	[tɐˈmæ̃]	'also'	Stressed vowel, allophone of nasal vowel /ẽ̞/.
Romanian	Bukovinian dialect[41]	piele	[ˈpæle]	'skin'	Corresponds to [je] in standard Romanian. Also identified in some Central Transylvanian sub-dialects.[41] See Romanian phonology
Russian[42][43]		пять / pjatʹ	[pʲætʲ]ⓘ	'five'	Allophone of /a/ between palatalized consonants. See Russian phonology
Serbo-Croatian	Zeta-Raška dialect[44]	дан/dan	[d̪æn̪]	'day'	Regional reflex of Proto-Slavic *ь and *ъ. Sometimes nasalised.[44]
Sinhala[45]		ඇය/æya	[æjə]	'she'
Slovak		mäso	[mæso]	'meat, flesh'	In conversation sometimes pronounced as [e] or [a]. See Slovak phonology
Swedish	Central Standard[46][47][48]	ära	[²æːɾä]ⓘ	'hono(u)r'	Allophone of /ɛː, ɛ/ before /r/. See Swedish phonology
	Stockholm[48]	läsa	[²læːsä]	'to read'	Realization of /ɛː, ɛ/ for younger speakers. Higher [ɛː, ɛ̝ ~ ɛ] for other speakers
Turkish[49]		sen	[s̪æn̪]	'you'	Allophone of /e/ before syllable-final /m, n, l, r/. In a limited number of words (but not before /r/), it is in free variation with [e̞].[49] See Turkish phonology

See also

• Index of phonetics articles

Notes

1. While the International Phonetic Association prefers the terms "close" and "open" for vowel height, many linguists use "high" and "low".
2. Grønnum (1998:100)
3. Basbøll (2005:46)
4. Donaldson (1993:3)
5. Holes (2004:60)
6. Campbell (1991:5)
7. Berta (1998:183)
8. "Bengali romanization table" (PDF). Bahai Studies. Bahai Studies. Retrieved 30 October 2020.
9. Rafel (1999:14)
10. Basbøll (2005:45)
11. Basbøll (2005:32)
12. Collins & Mees (2003:92, 129)
13. Collins & Mees (2003:92, 128–129, 131)
14. Gordon & Maclagan (2004:609)
15. Wells (1982:486)
16. Cruttenden (2014:119–120)
17. Asu & Teras (2009:368)
18. Suomi, Toivanen & Ylitalo (2008:21)
19. Collins & Mees (2013:226)
20. Walker (1984:75)
21. Moosmüller, Schmid & Brandstätter (2015:342)
22. Dudenredaktion, Kleiner & Knöbl (2015:40)
23. Dudenredaktion, Kleiner & Knöbl (2015:64)
24. Dudenredaktion, Kleiner & Knöbl (2015:65)
25. Dudenredaktion, Kleiner & Knöbl (2015:34, 64–65)
26. Newton (1972:11)
27. Revithiadou & Spyropoulos (2009:41)
28. Szende (1994:92)
29. Bacelar (2004:60)
30. François (2005:466)
31. Gussenhoven & Aarts (1999:159)
32. Peters (2006:119)
33. Verhoeven (2007:221)
34. Gilles & Trouvain (2013:70)
35. Vanvik (1979:13)
36. Popperwell (2010:16, 21–22)
37. Majidi & Ternes (1991)
38. Campbell (1995)
39. Portuguese: A Linguistic Introduction – by Milton M. Azevedo Page 186.
40. Lista das marcas dialetais e outros fenómenos de variação (fonética e fonológica) identificados nas amostras do Arquivo Dialetal do CLUP (in Portuguese)
41. Pop (1938), p. 29.
42. Jones & Ward (1969:50)
43. Yanushevskaya & Bunčić (2015:224–225)
44. Okuka 2008, p. 171.
45. Perera & Jones (1919:5)
46. Eliasson (1986:273)
47. Thorén & Petterson (1992:15)
48. Riad (2014:38)
49. Göksel & Kerslake (2005:10)

References

• Asu, Eva Liina; Teras, Pire (2009), "Estonian", Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 39 (3): 367–372, doi:10.1017/s002510030999017x
• Basbøll, Hans (2005), The Phonology of Danish, ISBN 978-0-203-97876-4
• Berta, Árpád (1998), "Tatar and Bashkir", in Johanson, Lars; Csató, Éva Á. (eds.), The Turkic languages, Routledge, pp. 283–300
• Campbell, George L. (1995), "Persian", Concise compendium of the world's languages (1st publ. ed.), London: Routledge, p. 385, ISBN 0415160499
• Campbell, Philip J. (1991). "Phonology of Pitu Ulunna Salu" (PDF). In Rene van den Berg (ed.). Workpapers in Indonesian Languages and Cultures (PDF). Vol. 12, Sulawesi phonologies. Ujung Pandang, Sulawesi: Summer Institute of Linguistics. pp. 1–52. ISBN 979-8132-85-8.
• Collins, Beverley; Mees, Inger M. (2003) [First published 1981], The Phonetics of English and Dutch (5th ed.), Leiden: Brill Publishers, ISBN 978-9004103405
• Collins, Beverley; Mees, Inger M. (2013) [First published 2003], Practical Phonetics and Phonology: A Resource Book for Students (3rd ed.), Routledge, ISBN 978-0-415-50650-2
• Cruttenden, Alan (2014), Gimson's Pronunciation of English (8th ed.), Routledge, ISBN 9781444183092
• Donaldson, Bruce C. (1993), "1. Pronunciation", A Grammar of Afrikaans, Mouton de Gruyter, pp. 1–35, ISBN 9783110134261
• Dudenredaktion; Kleiner, Stefan; Knöbl, Ralf (2015) [First published 1962], Das Aussprachewörterbuch (in German) (7th ed.), Berlin: Dudenverlag, ISBN 978-3-411-04067-4
• Eliasson, Stig (1986), "Sandhi in Peninsular Scandinavian", in Anderson, Henning (ed.), Sandhi Phenomena in the Languages of Europe, Berlin: de Gruyter, pp. 271–300
• François, Alexandre (2005), "Unraveling the history of vowels in seventeen north Vanuatu languages" (PDF), Oceanic Linguistics, 44 (2): 443–504, doi:10.1353/ol.2005.0034, S2CID 131668754
• Gilles, Peter; Trouvain, Jürgen (2013), "Luxembourgish" (PDF), Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 43 (1): 67–74, doi:10.1017/S0025100312000278
• Göksel, Asli; Kerslake, Celia (2005), Turkish: a comprehensive grammar, Routledge, ISBN 978-0415114943
• Gordon, Elizabeth; Maclagan, Margaret (2004), "Regional and social differences in New Zealand: phonology", in Schneider, Edgar W.; Burridge, Kate; Kortmann, Bernd; Mesthrie, Rajend; Upton, Clive (eds.), A handbook of varieties of English, vol. 1: Phonology, Mouton de Gruyter, pp. 603–613, ISBN 978-3-11-017532-5
• Grønnum, Nina (1998), "Illustrations of the IPA: Danish", Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 28 (1 & 2): 99–105, doi:10.1017/s0025100300006290, S2CID 249412109
• Gussenhoven, Carlos; Aarts, Flor (1999), "The dialect of Maastricht" (PDF), Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 29 (2): 155–166, doi:10.1017/S0025100300006526, S2CID 145782045
• Holes, Clive (2004), Modern Arabic: Structures, Functions, and Varieties, Georgetown University Press, ISBN 978-1-58901-022-2
• Jones, Daniel; Ward, Dennis (1969), The Phonetics of Russian, Cambridge University Press
• Majidi, Mohammad-Reza; Ternes, Elmar (1991), "Illustrations of the IPA: Persian (Farsi)", Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 21 (2): 96–98, doi:10.1017/S0025100300004461, S2CID 249413637
• Moosmüller, Sylvia; Schmid, Carolin; Brandstätter, Julia (2015), "Standard Austrian German", Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 45 (3): 339–348, doi:10.1017/S0025100315000055
• Newton, Brian (1972), The Generative Interpretation of Dialect: A Study of Modern Greek Phonology, Cambridge Studies in Linguistics, vol. 8, Cambridge University Press
• Okuka, Miloš (2008), Srpski dijalekti, Zagreb: Prosvjeta, ISBN 9789537611064
• Perera, H.S.; Jones, D. (1919), A colloquial Sinhalese reader in phonetic transcription, Manchester: Longmans, Green & Co
• Peters, Jörg (2006), "The dialect of Hasselt", Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 36 (1): 117–124, doi:10.1017/S0025100306002428
• Pop, Sever (1938), Micul Atlas Linguistic Român, Muzeul Limbii Române Cluj
• Popperwell, Ronald G. (2010) [First published 1963], Pronunciation of Norwegian, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 978-0-521-15742-1
• Rafel, Joaquim (1999), Aplicació al català dels principis de transcripció de l'Associació Fonètica Internacional (PDF) (3rd ed.), Barcelona: Institut d'Estudis Catalans, ISBN 978-84-7283-446-0
• Revithiadou, Anthi; Spyropoulos, Vassilios (2009), Οφίτικη Ποντιακή: Έρευνα γλωσσικής καταγραφής με έμφαση στη διαχρονία και συγχρονία της διαλέκτου [Ofitika Pontic: A documentation project with special emphasis on the diachrony and synchrony of the dialect] (PDF) (in Greek), John S. Latsis Public Benefit Foundation, archived from the original (PDF) on 2012-01-31
• Riad, Tomas (2014), The Phonology of Swedish, Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0-19-954357-1
• Suomi, Kari; Toivanen, Juhani; Ylitalo, Riikka (2008), Finnish sound structure – Phonetics, phonology, phonotactics and prosody (PDF), Studia Humaniora Ouluensia 9, Oulu University Press, ISBN 978-951-42-8984-2
• Szende, Tamás (1994), "Illustrations of the IPA: Hungarian", Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 24 (2): 91–94, doi:10.1017/S0025100300005090, S2CID 242632087
• Thorén, Bosse; Petterson, Nils-Owe (1992), Svenska Utifrån Uttalsanvisningar, ISBN 978-91-520-0284-1
• Vanvik, Arne (1979), Norsk fonetikk, Oslo: Universitetet i Oslo, ISBN 978-82-990584-0-7
• Verhoeven, Jo (2007), "The Belgian Limburg dialect of Hamont", Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 37 (2): 219–225, doi:10.1017/S0025100307002940
• Walker, Douglas (1984), The Pronunciation of Canadian French (PDF), Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press, ISBN 978-0-7766-4500-1
• Wells, John C. (1982). Accents of English. Vol. 3: Beyond the British Isles (pp. i–xx, 467–674). Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/CBO9780511611766. ISBN 0-52128541-0.
• Yanushevskaya, Irena; Bunčić, Daniel (2015), "Russian", Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 45 (2): 221–228, doi:10.1017/S0025100314000395
• Bacelar, Laércio Nora (2004), Gramática da língua Kanoê (Dissertation), Nijmegen: Radboud University, hdl:2066/19429

External links

• List of languages with [æ] on PHOIBLE