Close-mid front unrounded vowel

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search
Vowels
v • d • e
See also: IPA, Consonants
  Front Near- front Central Near- back Back
Close
Blank vowel trapezoid.svg
i · y
ɨ · ʉ
ɯ · u
ɪ · ʏ
e · ø
ɘ · ɵ
ɤ · o
ɛ · œ
ɜ · ɞ
ʌ · ɔ
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. Vowel length is indicated by appending  ː
IPA – number 302
IPA – text e
IPA – image {{{imagesize}}}
Entity e
X-SAMPA e
Kirshenbaum e
About this sound Sound sample (help·info)

The close-mid 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 e, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is e.

Contents

[edit] Features

[edit] Occurrence

Language Word IPA Meaning Notes
Catalan[1] cec [sek] 'blind' See Catalan phonology
Dutch vreemd [vreːmt] 'strange' See Dutch phonology
English Australian bed [bed] 'bed' See Australian English phonology
North American play [pl̥eː] 'play' Some dialects. Many speakers have a diphthong of the type [eɪ] instead.
Faroese eg [eː] 'I'
French[2] beauté [bote] 'beauty' See French phonology
Georgian[3] მეფჱ [mɛpʰej] 'king'
German Seele [ˈzeːlə] 'soul' See German phonology
Italian[4] stelle [ˈstelle] 'stars' See Italian phonology
Korean 베다/peda [ˈpeːda] 'to cut' See Korean phonology
Norwegian le [leː] 'laugh' See Norwegian phonology
Polish dzień [dʑeɲ] 'day' See Polish phonology
Portuguese[5] mesa [mezɐ] 'table' See Portuguese phonology
Russian[6] шея [ˈʂejə] 'neck' Occurs only before soft consonants. See Russian phonology
Swedish se [seː] 'see' See Swedish phonology
Vietnamese tê [tē] 'numb' See Vietnamese phonology
Zapotec Tilquiapan[7] example needed [] Occurs mostly after [i], otherwise the vowel is central [ɘ]

[edit] Mid front unrounded vowel

Many languages, such as Spanish, Japanese, Korean, Greek and Turkish, have a mid front unrounded vowel that is clearly distinct to speakers from both the close-mid and open-mid vowels. A number of dialects of English also have such a mid front vowel. However, since no language is known to distinguish all three, there is no separate IPA symbol for the mid vowel, and [e] is generally used. If precision is desired, the lowering diacritic can be used: [e̞].

Although many languages have only one non-close, non-open front vowel, there is no predisposition for it being mid. Igbo, for example, has a close-mid [e], whereas Bulgarian has an open-mid [ɛ], even though these languages do not contrast said vowels with another mid front vowel.

[edit] Occurrence

In the following transcriptions, the lowering diacritic has been omitted for the sake of simplicity.

Language Word IPA Meaning Notes
Albanian keq [kec] 'bad'
Croatian deset [deset] 'ten'
English Yorkshire[8] play [pleː] 'play' See English phonology
Hebrew חלק [χelek] 'part' Hebrew vowels are not shown in the script, see Niqqud and Hebrew phonology
Hungarian[9] hét [heːt] 'week, seven' See Hungarian phonology
Finnish[10] menen [menen] 'I (will) go'
Greek φαινόμενο [feˈnomeˌno] 'phenomenon' See Modern Greek phonology
Japanese 笑み [emi] 'smile' See Japanese phonology
Korean 베개 [peˈɡɛ] 'pillow' See Korean phonology
Romanian fete [ˈfete] 'girls' See Romanian phonology
Russian[11] человек [t͡ɕɪlɐˈvʲek] 'person' Occurs only after soft consonants. See Russian phonology
Serbian жена/žena [ʒena] 'woman'
Spanish[12] bebé [beˈβ̞e] 'baby' See Spanish phonology
Turkish ev [ev] 'house' See Turkish phonology

[edit] References

  1. ^ Carbonell & Llisterri (1992:54)
  2. ^ Fougeron & Smith (1993:73)
  3. ^ Shosted & Chikovani (2006:261-262)
  4. ^ Rogers & d'Arcangeli (2004:119)
  5. ^ Cruz-Ferreira (1995:91)
  6. ^ Jones & Ward (1969:44)
  7. ^ Merrill (2008:109-10)
  8. ^ Roca & Johnson (1999:179)
  9. ^ Szende (1994:92)
  10. ^ Iivonen & Harnud (2005:60, 66)
  11. ^ Jones & Ward (1969:41)
  12. ^ Martínez-Celdrán, Fernández-Planas & Carrera-Sabaté (2003:256)

[edit] Bibliography

  • Carbonell, Joan F.; Llisterri, Joaquim (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; Smith, Caroline L (1993), "Illustrations of the IPA:French", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 23 (2): 73–76 
  • Iivonen, Antti; Harnud, Huhe (2005), "Acoustical comparison of the monophthong systems in Finnish, Mongolian and Udmurt", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 35 (1): 59–71 
  • Jones, Daniel; Dennis, Ward (1969). The Phonetics of Russian. Cambridge University Press. 
  • Martínez-Celdrán, Eugenio; Fernández-Planas, Ana Ma.; Carrera-Sabaté, Josefina (2003), "Castilian Spanish", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 33 (2): 255–259 
  • Merrill, Elizabeth (2008), "Tilquipan Zapotec", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 38 (1): 107–114 
  • Roca, Iggy; Johnson, Wyn (1999). A Course in Phonology. Blackwell Publishing. 
  • Rogers, Derek; d'Arcangeli, Luciana (2004), "Italian", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 34 (1): 117–121 
  • Shosted, Ryan K.; Vakhtang, Chikovani (2006), "Standard Georgian", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 36 (2): 255–264 
  • Szende, Tamás (1994), "Illustrations of the IPA:Hungarian", Journal of the International Phonetic Alphabet 24 (2): 91–94 
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Close-mid_front_unrounded_vowel"