Open-mid central unrounded vowel

Open-mid central unrounded vowel
ɜ
ɛ̈
IPA number	326
Encoding
Entity (decimal)	ɜ
Unicode (hex)	U+025C
X-SAMPA	3
Kirshenbaum	V"
Image
Sound
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The open-mid central unrounded vowel, or low-mid central 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 ⟨ɜ⟩. Note that the IPA symbol is not the digit ⟨3⟩, but a reversed epsilon. The value of this letter was only specified in 1993; before that, it was transcribed ⟨ɛ̈⟩.

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.

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 open-mid, also known as low-mid, which means the tongue is positioned halfway between an open vowel (a low vowel) and a mid vowel.
• Its vowel backness is central, which means the tongue is positioned halfway between a front vowel and a back vowel.
• It is unrounded, which means that the lips are not rounded.

Occurrence

Language		Word	IPA	Meaning	Notes
Cherokee		ᎥᏝ v-tla	[ɜʔtɬ͡a˦]	'no'	Always nasalized.
English	RP	bird	[bɜːd]	'bird'	Sulcalized (the tongue is grooved like in [ɹ]). 'Upper Crust RP' speakers pronounce a more open vowel [ɐː], but for most other speakers it's actually mid ([ɜ̝ː]). This vowel corresponds to rhotacized [ɝ] in rhotic dialects.
	Norfolk	bet	[bɜ̟ʔ]	'bet'	Somewhat fronted, corresponds to [ɛ~e̞] in other British dialects.
	Ohio	bust	[bɜst]	'bust'	The most common realization of the vowel transcribed as ⟨ʌ⟩ in American English.
	Most of Texas
	Northern Welsh				Some speakers. Corresponds to [ə] (or a further back vowel) in other Welsh dialects.
Paicî		[mbʷɜ̄]		'remainder'
West Frisian	Hindeloopers	pöt	[pɜt]	'pot'

Bibliography

• Ladefoged, Peter (1993), A course in phonetics (3rd ed.), Fort Worth: Harcourt College Publishers 
• Lodge, Ken (2009), A Critical Introduction to Phonetics 
• Roach, Peter (2004), "British English: Received Pronunciation", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 34 (2): 239–245, doi:10.1017/S0025100304001768 
• Thomas, Erik R. (2001), An acoustic analysis of vowel variation in New World English, Publication of the American Dialect Society 85, Duke University Press for the American Dialect Society, ISSN 0002-8207 
• Wells, John C. (1982), Accents of English, 2: The British Isles, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.