Near-close near-front unrounded vowel

Near-close near-front unrounded vowel
ɪ
Image
IPA number	319
Encoding
Entity (decimal)	ɪ
Unicode (hex)	U+026A
X-SAMPA	I
Kirshenbaum	I
Sound

The near-close near-front unrounded vowel, or near-high near-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 ⟨ɪ⟩, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is I. The IPA symbol is a small capital letter i.

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.

There is also a near-close central unrounded vowel in some languages.

Features

IPA vowel chart
Front Near-​front Central Near-​back Back Close •iy •ɨʉ •ɯu •ɪʏ •ɪ̈ʊ̈ •ʊ •eø •ɘɵ •ɤo •e̞ø̞ ə •ɤ̞o̞ •ɛœ •ɜɞ •ʌɔ •æ ɐ •aɶ •ä •ɑɒ Near-close Close-mid Mid Open-mid Near-open Open
Paired vowels are: unrounded • rounded
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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-front, which means the tongue is positioned almost as far forward as a front vowel.
• Its vowel roundedness is unrounded, which means that the lips are not rounded.

Occurrence

Language		Word	IPA	Meaning	Notes
Chinese	Cantonese	冰/bing1	[pɪŋ˥]	'ice'	See Cantonese phonology
	Wu	一/ ih	[iɪʔ˥]	'one'
Czech		byli	[ˈbɪlɪ]	'they were'	See Czech phonology
Dutch		ik	[ɪ̽k]	'I'	See Dutch phonology
English		bit	[bɪt]	'bit'	See English phonology
French	Quebec	petite	[pətsɪt]	'small'	Occurs only in closed syllables. See Quebec French phonology
German		bitte	[ˈbɪtə]	'please'	See German phonology
Irish		duine	[dˠɪnʲə]	'person'	See Irish phonology
Mongolian		?	[xɪɾɘ̆]	'hillside'
Plautdietsch		winta	[vɪntə]	'winter'
Portuguese	Brazilian	saque	[ˈsakɪ]	'withdrawal'	Unstressed vowel. See Portuguese phonology
Norwegian		litt	[lɪt]	'a little'	See Norwegian phonology
Russian		дерево	[ˈdʲerʲɪvə]	'tree'	Occurs only in unstressed syllables. See Russian phonology
Scottish Gaelic		thig	[hɪk]	'come'	See Scottish Gaelic phonology
Sicilian		arrìriri	[arrɪriri]	'smile'
Swedish		sill	[sɪl]	'herring'	See Swedish phonology
Ukrainian		ходити	[xɔdɪtɪ]	'to walk'	See Ukrainian phonology
Vietnamese		chị	[cɪj˧ˀ˨]	'elder sister'	See Vietnamese phonology
West Frisian	Standard	lippe	[ɫɪpə]	'lip'
	Hindelopers	beast	[bɪːst]	'animal'

Bibliography

• Barbosa, Plínio A.; Albano, Eleonora C. (2004), "Brazilian Portuguese", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 34 (2): 227–232, doi:10.1017/S0025100304001756 
• 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