Open central unrounded vowel
Vowel sound often represented by ⟨ä⟩ in IPA
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The open central unrounded vowel, or low central unrounded vowel,[1] is a type of vowel sound, used in several spoken languages. While the International Phonetic Alphabet officially has no dedicated letter for this sound between front [a] and back [ɑ], it is normally written ⟨a⟩. If precision is required, it can be specified by using diacritics, typically centralized ⟨ä⟩.
| Open central unrounded vowel | |
|---|---|
| ä | |
| IPA number | 304 415 |
| Audio sample | |
| Encoding | |
| Entity (decimal) | ä |
| Unicode (hex) | U+00E4 |
| X-SAMPA | a_" |
It is usual to use plain ⟨a⟩ for an open central vowel and, if needed, ⟨æ⟩ for an open front vowel. Sinologists may use the letter ⟨ᴀ⟩ (small capital A). The IPA has voted against officially adopting this symbol in 1976, 1989, and 2012.[2][3][4]
Features
- Its vowel height is open, also known as low, which means the tongue is positioned far from the roof of the mouth – that is, low in the mouth.
- Its vowel backness is central, which means the tongue is positioned halfway between a front vowel and a back vowel. This often subsumes open (low) front vowels, because the tongue does not have as much flexibility in positioning as it does for the close (high) 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 central vowel, or a close central and a close back vowel.
- It is unrounded, which means that the lips are not rounded.
Occurrence
Most languages have some form of an unrounded open vowel. Because the IPA uses ⟨a⟩ for both front and central unrounded open vowels, it is not always clear whether a particular language uses the former or the latter. However, there may not actually be a difference. (See Vowel § Acoustics.)
| Language | Word | IPA | Meaning | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Burmese[5] | မာ (ma) | [mä] | 'hard' | Oral allophone of /a/ in open syllables; realized as near-open [ɐ] in other environments.[5] | |
| Catalan | sac | [ˈs̺äk] | 'bag' | General pronunciation of stressed /a/. See Catalan phonology | |
| Chinese | Mandarin[6] | 塌 (tā) | ⓘ | 'collapse' | See Standard Chinese phonology |
| Czech[7][8] | prach | [präx] | 'dust' | See Czech phonology | |
| Danish | Standard[9] | barn | [ˈpɑ̈ːˀn] | 'child' | Typically transcribed in IPA with ⟨ɑː⟩. See Danish phonology |
| Dutch[10][11] | zaal | ⓘ | 'hall' | Ranges from front to central;[10] in non-standard accents it may be back. See Dutch phonology | |
| English | Australian[12] | bra | [bɹɐ̞ː] | 'bra' | Typically transcribed in IPA with ⟨ɐː⟩. See Australian English phonology |
| East Anglian[13] | Used mostly by middle-class speakers; can be front [aː] instead.[13] | ||||
| General American[14] | In the Midwest. Can be back [ɑː] instead.[14] | ||||
| New Zealand[15][16] | Can be more front [a̠ː] and/or higher [ɐ̟ː ~ ɐː] instead.[15][16] It may be transcribed in IPA with ⟨ɐː⟩. See New Zealand English phonology | ||||
| Mid-Ulster | |||||
| Can be more front [a] instead. | |||||
| trap | [t̪͆ɹäp] | 'trap' | |||
| Some Canadian and Californian speakers[17][18] | [t̠ɹ̝̊äp̚] | See Canadian Shift and English phonology | |||
| Multicultural London[19] | [t̠ɹ̝̊äʔp] | More front [a] in other Southern England English. | |||
| Northern England[20] | [tʰɹäp] | More front [a] in Scouse. | |||
| French | Parisian[21][22] | patte | ⓘ | 'paw' | Older speakers have two contrastive open vowels: front /a/ and back /ɑ/.[22] See French phonology |
| German[23][24] | Katze | [ˈkʰät͡sə] | 'cat' | Can be more front or more back in regional Standard German.[25] See Standard German phonology | |
| Hindustani | Hindi | जान(jaan) | [d͡ʒäːn] | 'life','sweetheart', 'beloved' or 'darling' | Allophone of [aː ~ ɑ]. See Hindustani phonology. |
| Urdu | جان(jaan) | ||||
| Hungarian[26] | láb | [läːb] | 'leg' | See Hungarian phonology | |
| Italian[27] | casa | [ˈkäːsä] | 'home' | See Italian phonology | |
| Japanese[28] | 蚊 (ka) | ⓘ | 'mosquito' | See Japanese phonology | |
| Limburgish | Hamont-Achel dialect[29] | zaak | [ˈzǎ̠ːk] | 'business' | Front [aː] in other dialects. |
| Lithuanian | ratas | [räːtɐs̪] | 'wheel' | See Lithuanian phonology | |
| Malay | Standard | رق (rak) | [räʔ] | 'shelf' | Can be front [a]. See Malay phonology |
| Kedah | کاتيل (katil) | [käte] | 'bed' | See Kedah Malay | |
| Kelantan-Pattani | سست (sesat) | [səˈsäʔ] | 'lost' | See Kelantan-Pattani Malay | |
| Malayalam | വാൾ | [ʋäːɭ̩] | 'sword' | See Malayalam phonology | |
| Polish[30] | kat | ⓘ | 'executioner' | See Polish phonology | |
| Portuguese[31] | vá | ⓘ | 'go' | See Portuguese phonology | |
| Romanian[32] | cal | [käl] | 'horse' | See Romanian phonology | |
| Serbo-Croatian[33][34] | пас / pas | [pâ̠s̪] | 'dog' | See Serbo-Croatian phonology | |
| Spanish[35] | rata | [ˈrät̪ä] | 'rat' | See Spanish phonology | |
| Swedish | Central Standard[36][37] | bank | ⓘ | 'bank' | Also described as front [a].[38][39] See Swedish phonology |
| Thai[40] | บางกอก (baang-gɔ̀ɔk) | ⓘ | 'Bangkok' | See Thai phonology | |
| Turkish[41] | Standard | at | ⓘ | 'horse' | Also described as back [ɑ].[42] See Turkish phonology |
| Welsh | siarad | [ʃäräd] | 'talk' | See Welsh phonology | |
| Yoruba[43] | àbá | [ä̀.bä́] | 'idea' | See Yoruba phonology | |