Open-mid front rounded vowel
Vowel sound represented by ⟨œ⟩ in IPA
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The open-mid front rounded vowel, or low-mid front rounded vowel,[1] is a type of vowel sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents the sound is â¨Åâ©.
| Open-mid front rounded vowel | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Å | |||
| IPA number | 311 | ||
| Audio sample | |||
| Encoding | |||
| Entity (decimal) | œ | ||
| Unicode (hex) | U+0153 | ||
| X-SAMPA | 9 | ||
| Braille |  | ||
| |||
Open-mid front compressed vowel
The open-mid front compressed vowel is typically transcribed in IPA simply as â¨Åâ©, which is the convention used in this article. There is no dedicated IPA diacritic for compression. However, the compression of the lips can be shown by the letter â¨Î²Ìâ© as â¨É͡βÌâ© (simultaneous [É] and labial compression) or â¨Éáµâ© ([É] modified with labial compression). The spread-lip diacritic ⨠Íâ© may also be used with a rounded vowel letter â¨ÅÍâ© as an ad hoc symbol, but 'spread' technically means unrounded.
Features
- Its vowel height is open-mid, also known as low-mid, which means the tongue is positioned halfway between an open vowel (a low vowel) and a mid vowel.
- 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. Rounded front vowels are often centralized, which means that often they are in fact near-front.
- Its roundedness is compressed, which means that the margins of the lips are tense and drawn together in such a way that the inner surfaces are not exposed.
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Occurrence
Because front rounded vowels are assumed to have compression, and few descriptions cover the distinction, some of the following may actually have protrusion.
| Language | Word | IPA | Meaning | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Asturian | Some Western dialects[2] | fuöra | [ËfwÅɾÉ] | 'outside' | Realization of â¨oâ© in the diphthong â¨uoâ©. May also be realized as [ɵ] or [ø]. |
| Azeri | North Azerbaijani | bÉnövÅÉyi | [bænÅyÌÊæji] | 'purple' | |
| Bavarian | Amstetten dialect[3] | Seil | [sÅË] | 'rope' | Contrasts close [y], near-close [øÌ], close-mid [ø] and open-mid [Å] front rounded vowels in addition to the open central unrounded [ä].[3] Typically transcribed in IPA with â¨É¶â©. |
| Northern[4] | I helfad | [i ËhÅlʲfÉdÌ¥] | 'I'd help' | Allophone of /É/ before /l/.[4] | |
| Breton | All speakers[5] | leur | [lÅËr] | 'floor' | Short counterpart of /øË/.[6] May be transcribed in IPA with â¨Ã¸â©. |
| Bas-Léon[6] | [example needed] | Long; contrasts with the short open-mid /Å/ and the long close-mid /øË/. Other speakers have only one mid front rounded vowel /øË/.[6] | |||
| Buwal[7] | [kÊ·ÅÌlÉÌlÉÌ] | 'fine' | Allophone of /a/ when adjacent to a labialized consonant.[7] | ||
| Catalan | Capcinès | lluna | [ËÊÅnÉ] | 'Moon' | Realization of /u/ in Capcir.[8] See Catalan phonology. |
| Chinese | Cantonese | é· / cheung4 | [tsÊ°ÅËÅË©] | 'long' | See Cantonese phonology |
| Lombard | Lombard | fiÅ | [fjÅË] | 'boy','man' | Occurs naturally in the language, most frequently in western and northern regions, alternating with ø in many words, and rendered under the letter 'Å', while [ø] is under the letter ö. |
| Danish | Standard[9] | gøre | [ËkÅËÉ] | 'to do' | Typically transcribed with â¨ÅÌâ©, where â¨Åâ© instead represents mid [ÅÌ]. See Danish phonology |
| Dutch | Standard[10][11] | manoeuvre | â | 'manoeuvre' | Occurs only in a few loanwords.[10][11] See Dutch phonology |
| Some speakers[12] | parfum | [pÉrËfÅÌË] | 'perfume' | Nasalized; occurs only in a few loanwords and it is used mainly in southern accents. Often nativized as [Êm].[12] See Dutch phonology | |
| The Hague dialect[13] | uit | [ÅËt] | 'out' | Corresponds to [Åy] in standard Dutch.[14] See Dutch phonology | |
| English | General New Zealand[15][16] | bird | [bÅËd] | 'bird' | May be mid [ÅÌË] instead. In broader varieties, it is close-mid or higher.[15][16][17] Typically transcribed in IPA with â¨ÉµËâ©. See New Zealand English phonology |
| Scouse[18] | Possible realization of the merged SQUAREâNURSE vowel /eË/.[18] | ||||
| Southern Welsh[19] | Also described as mid [ÅÌË][20] and close-mid [øË].[21][22] | ||||
| General South African[23] | go | [É¡ÅË] | 'go' | Some speakers. Can be a diphthong of the type [ÅÊ̯]~[ÅÉ̯] instead. Other South African varieties do not monophthongize. See South African English phonology | |
| French[24][25] | jeune | â | 'young' | See French phonology | |
| Galician[26] | semana | [s̺ÅËmãnÉÌ] | Ëweek' | Labialization of pre-tonic [e], which is usually realized as [o] | |
| German | Standard[27] | Hölle | [ËhÅlÉ] | 'hell' | See Standard German phonology |
| Western Swiss accents[28] | schön | [ÊÅËn] | 'beautiful' | Close-mid [øË] in other accents.[29] See Standard German phonology | |
| Limburgish | Many dialects[30][31] | mäö | [mÅË] | 'sleeve' | Central [ÉË] in Maastricht;[32] the example word is from the Hasselt dialect. |
| Low German[33] | söss / zös | [zÅs] | 'six' | ||
| EspÃrito Santo East Pomeranian[34] | [ËhÅÉ«] | 'hell' | |||
| Saterland Frisian[35][36] | bölkje | [ËbÅlkjÉ] | 'to rear' | ||
| Turkish | Istanbul | köz | [ËcÅz] | 'fire' | Corresponds to [øÌ] in standard Turkish. See Turkish phonology. |
| West Frisian | Hindeloopers[37] | [example needed] | See West Frisian phonology | ||
| Súdwesthoeksk[37][38] | skoalle | [ËskÅlÉ] | 'school' | ||
Open-mid front protruded vowel
| Open-mid front protruded vowel | |
|---|---|
| ÅÌ« |
Catford notes[full citation needed] that most languages with rounded front and back vowels use distinct types of labialization, protruded back vowels and compressed front vowels. However, a few, such as Scandinavian languages, have protruded front vowels. One Scandinavian language, Swedish, even contrasts the two types of rounding in front vowels (see near-close front rounded vowel, with Swedish examples of both types of rounding).
As there are no diacritics in the IPA to distinguish protruded and compressed rounding, an old diacritic for labialization, ⨠̫â©, will be used here as an ad hoc symbol for protruded front vowels. Another possible transcription is â¨ÅÊ·â© or â¨ÉÊ·â© (an open-mid front vowel modified by endolabialization), but it could be misread as a diphthong.
Acoustically, the sound is "between" the more typical compressed open-mid front vowel [Å] and the unrounded open-mid front vowel [É].
Features
- Its vowel height is open-mid, also known as low-mid, which means the tongue is positioned halfway between an open vowel (a low vowel) and a mid vowel.
- 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. Rounded front vowels are often centralized, which means that often they are in fact near-front.
- Its roundedness is protruded, which means that the corners of the lips are drawn together, and the inner surfaces exposed.
Occurrence
| Language | Word | IPA | Meaning | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Norwegian[39][40] | nøtt | [nÅÌ«tË] | 'nut' | The example word is from Urban East Norwegian, in which the vowel has also been described as mid central [ÉÌ].[41] See Norwegian phonology | |
| Swedish | Central Standard[42][43][44] | öra | [²ÅÌ«ËraÌ ] | 'ear' | Allophone of /øË/ and also sometimes /Å/ before /r/,[42][43][44] and according to older accounts before /m, n/ and less often after /r/.[45] Riad (2014) describe an even more open allophone in younger speakers [ɶ, ɶË][44] whilst Perrson (2024)'s charts point to open-mid central allophones [ÅÌ, ÅÌË].[46] See Swedish phonology |
| Stockholm,[44] Linköping, and Lund[47] | höna | â | 'hen' | Engstrand (1990) reported the phonemes /ŠøË/ and placed the short variant at mid height, as in [ÅÌá«]. According to Pelzer & Boersma (2019), the long vowel has been lowered to open-mid [ÅÌ«Ë] in Linköping and Lund, and near-open [ÅÌá«Ë] in Stockholm, with the recommendation of transcribing the phoneme as /ÅË/ instead of /øË/.[48] An earlier study from the same authors found that the vowel moves slightly lower and more central during its pronunciation in Stockholm and Linköping, while it moves slightly higher in Lund.[49] Persson (2024) reports both short and long variants as allophones of the phonemes /ø øË/, lowered before /r/ and any retroflex segment;[50] long [Ã¸Ë ÅË] are marked as 'lower-mid' and short [ø Å] are marked as 'mid-high', each pairing being differentiated primarily by formant acoustics other than height, and all as central rather than front.[51] See Swedish phonology | |