Near-close near-back vowel
| Near-close near-back vowel | |||
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| ʊ | |||
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| IPA number | 321 | ||
| Encoding | |||
| Entity (decimal) | ʊ |
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| Unicode (hex) | U+028A | ||
| X-SAMPA | U |
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| Kirshenbaum | U |
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| Sound | |||
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The near-close near-back vowel, or near-high near-back vowel, is a type of vowel sound, used in some spoken languages. The IPA symbol for the near-close near-back rounded vowel is ⟨ʊ⟩. This derives from a small turned capital Ω; although officially called a small Latin letter upsilon, it bears little resemblance to the Greek upsilon and is informally called "horseshoe u" instead. Prior to 1989, there was an alternate IPA symbol for this sound, ⟨ɷ⟩, called "closed omega". Use of this symbol is no longer sanctioned by the IPA. In Americanist phonetic notation, the symbol ⟨ᴜ⟩ (a small capital U) is used.
The IPA prefers terms "close" and "open" for vowels, and the name of the article follows this. However, a large number of linguists, perhaps a majority, prefer the terms "high" and "low", and these are the only terms found in introductory textbooks on phonetics such as those by Peter Ladefoged.
Some languages may have a near-close near-back unrounded vowel; since no language is known to contrast rounding of this vowel, the IPA has not devised a standard way to represent this and thus can be represented in a number of ways, including ⟨ɯ̽⟩ and ⟨ʊ̜⟩.
There is also a near-close central rounded vowel in some languages.
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[edit] Features
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IPA help • IPA key • chart •  chart with audio • view |
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- Its vowel height is near-close, also known as near-high, which means the tongue is not quite so constricted as a close vowel (high vowel).
- Its vowel backness is near-back, which means the tongue is positioned as in a back vowel, but slightly further forward in the mouth.
- Its vowel roundedness is generally rounded, which means that the lips are rounded to a greater or lesser degree, but is sometimes rather ambiguous. Because no language is known to contrast rounding with this place of articulation, the IPA has not created separate symbols to show this.
[edit] Occurrence
In the following transcriptions, an unrounded vowel is represented by the "less-rounded" diacritic [ʊ̜]:
| Language | Word | IPA | Meaning | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Arabic | كتب | [ˈkʊtʊb] | 'books' | See Arabic phonology | |
| Cabécar | Köpö´ | [kʊpʊː] | 'sleep' | ||
| Chinese | Cantonese | 紅/hung4 | [hʊ̜ŋ˨˩] | 'red' | See Cantonese phonology |
| Mandarin | 紅/hóng | [xʊ̜ŋ˧˥] | 'red' | May be only slightly rounded. See Mandarin phonology | |
| Dutch | voor | [vʊːr] | 'for' | Allophone of /oː/ before /r/. See Dutch phonology | |
| English | hook | [hʊk] | 'hook' | May be only slightly rounded. See English phonology | |
| Faroese | hvalur | [kvɛalʊɹ] | 'whale' | ||
| French | Quebec | foule | [fʊl] | 'crowd' | See French phonology |
| German | Schutz | [ʃʊts] | 'protection' | See German phonology | |
| Mongolian[1] | ус | [ʊs] | 'water' | ||
| Portuguese | European[2] | pegar | [pʊ̜ˈɡaɾ] | 'to hold' | Unstressed vowel. See Portuguese phonology |
| Some Brazilian dialects[3] |
arco | [ˈaʁkʊ] | 'bow' | ||
| Russian[4] | сухой | [sʊˈxo̞j] (help·info) |
'dry' | Unstressed allophone of /u/. See Russian phonology | |
| Swedish | ort | [ʊʈː] (help·info) |
'(geographic) place' | Exolabial (compressed). See Swedish phonology | |
| Vietnamese | thu | [tʰʊw] | 'autumn' | See Vietnamese phonology | |
[edit] References
- ^ Iivonen & Harnud (2005:62, 66–67)
- ^ Cruz-Ferreira (1995:91)
- ^ Barbosa & Albano (2004:229)
- ^ Jones & Ward (1969:69)
[edit] Bibliography
- Barbosa, Plínio A.; Albano, Eleonora C. (2004), "Brazilian Portuguese", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 34 (2): 227–232, doi:10.1017/S0025100304001756
- Carbonell, Joan F.; Llisterri, Joaquim (1992), "Catalan", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 22 (1-2): 53–56, doi:10.1017/S0025100300004618
- Cruz-Ferreira, Madalena (1995), "European Portuguese", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 25 (2): 90–94, doi:10.1017/S0025100300005223
- 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, doi:10.1017/S002510030500191X
- Jones, Daniel; Dennis, Ward (1969), The Phonetics of Russian, Cambridge University Press
