Near-open front unrounded vowel

Near-open front unrounded vowel
æ
IPA number	325
Encoding
Entity (decimal)	æ
Unicode (hex)	U+00E6
X-SAMPA	{
Kirshenbaum	&
Sound

The near-open front unrounded vowel, or near-low 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 ⟨æ⟩, a lowercase ae ligature. Both the symbol and the sound are commonly referred to as "ash".

The IPA prefers the terms "close" and "open" for vowels, and the name of this article follows this preference. 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.

In practice, /æ/ is sometimes used to represent an open front unrounded vowel; see the introduction to that page for more information.

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-open, also known as near-low, which means the tongue is positioned similarly to an open vowel, but is slightly more constricted – that is, the tongue is positioned similarly to a low vowel, but slightly higher.
• Its vowel backness is front, which means the tongue is positioned as far forward as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant.
• It is unrounded, which means that the lips are not rounded.

Occurrence

Language		Word	IPA	Meaning	Notes
Afrikaans	Standard	perd	[pæːrt]	'horse'	Allophone of /ɛ/ before sequences /rs/, /rt/, /rd/ and, in some dialects, before /k x l r/.
Ahtna		kuggaedi	[kʰuk̠æti]	'mosquito'
Arabic	Standard	كتاب	[kiˈt̪æːb]	'book'	Allophone of /a/ in the environment of plain labial and coronal consonants as well as /j/. See Arabic phonology
Azerbaijani		səs	[sæs]	'sound'
Bengali		এক	[æk]	'one'	See Bengali phonology
Catalan	Majorcan	sec	[sæk]	'I sit'	Typically transcribed as /ɛ/. See Catalan phonology
	Minorcan
	Valencian
Danish		Dansk	[ˈd̥ænsɡ̊]	'Danish'	See Danish phonology
Dutch Low Saxon	Some dialects	dät	[dæt]	'that'	More back in other dialects.
English		cat	[kʰæt]	'cat'	Common for most dialects. In some accents, mainly in Northern England, Scotland, Ireland, it is transcribed as /a/. In other areas, mainly New Zealand, it is transcribed as /ɛ/. See English phonology
Finnish		mäki	[ˈmæki]	'hill'	See Finnish phonology
French	Quebec	hiver	[ivæɛ̯ʁ]	'winter'	Allophone of /ɛ/ before /ʁ/[citation needed] and word-finally, and of /a/ in closed syllables. See Quebec French phonology
Greek	Macedonia		—	—	See Modern Greek phonology
	Thessaly
	Thrace
Hindi		बैल	[bæl]	'oxen'	See Hindi-Urdu phonology
Jalapa Mazatec		tsæ	[tsǣ]	'guava'
Lithuanian		eglė	[ˈæɡleː]	'spruce tree'
Luxembourgish		Käpp	[kʰæpʰ]	'heads'	Somewhat lowered.
Norwegian		lær	[læːɾ]	'leather'	See Norwegian phonology
Persian		در	[dær]	'door'	See Persian phonology
Portuguese	Some dialects	pedra	[ˈpæðɾɐ]	'stone'	Stressed vowel. In other dialects closer /ɛ/. See Portuguese phonology
Russian		пять	[pʲætʲ]	'five'	Allophone of /a/ between palatalized consonants. See Russian phonology
Sinhala		කැමති	[kæməti]	'to like'
Slovak		väzy	[ˈʋæzɪ]	'ligaments'	Somewhat rare pronunciation, with [ɛ] being more common.
Swedish		päron	[ˈpæˌrɔn]	'pear'	Allophone of /ɛ/ before /r/. See Swedish phonology
Turkish		sen	[sæn]	'you'	Allophone of /e/ before syllable-final /l m n ɾ/. See Turkish phonology
Vietnamese	Northern	pha	[fæ]	'phase'	Some dialects. Corresponds to [a] in other dialects. See Vietnamese phonology
Yaghan		mæpi	[mæpi]	'reed'

See also

• Index of phonetics articles

Bibliography

• Donaldson, Bruce C. (1993), A Grammar of Afrikaans, Mouton de Gruyter, pp. 1–24, ISBN 9783110134261 
• Gilles, Peter; Trouvain, Jürgen (2013), "Luxembourgish", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 43 (1): 67–74, doi:10.1017/S0025100312000278 
• Hanulíková, Adriana; Hamann, Silke (2010), "Slovak", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 40 (3): 373–378, doi:10.1017/S0025100310000162 
• Holes, Clive (2004), Modern Arabic: Structures, Functions, and Varieties, Georgetown University Press, ISBN 1-58901-022-1 
• Jones, Daniel; Ward, Dennis (1969), The Phonetics of Russian, Cambridge University Press 
• Newton, Brian (1972), The Generative Interpretation of Dialect: A Study of Modern Greek Phonology, Cambridge Studies in Linguistics 8, Cambridge University Press 
• Rafel, Joaquim (1999), Aplicació al català dels principis de transcripció de l'Associació Fonètica Internacional (3rd ed.), Barcelona: Institut d'Estudis Catalans, ISBN 84-7283-446-8 
• Recasens, Daniel (1996), Fonètica descriptiva del català: assaig de caracterització de la pronúncia del vocalisme i el consonantisme català al segle XX (2nd ed.), Barcelona: Institut d'Estudis Catalans, ISBN 978-84-7283-312-8 
• Walker, Douglas (1984), The Pronunciation of Canadian French, Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press, ISBN 0-7766-4500-5