Open-mid front unrounded vowel

Open-mid front unrounded vowel
ɛ
Image
IPA number	303
Encoding
Entity (decimal)	ɛ
Unicode (hex)	U+025B
X-SAMPA	E
Kirshenbaum	E
Sound

The open-mid front unrounded vowel, or low-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 Latin epsilon, ⟨ɛ⟩.

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 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.
• Its vowel roundedness is unrounded, which means that the lips are not rounded.

Occurrence

Language		Word	IPA	Meaning	Notes
Albanian		tre	[tɾɛ]	'three'
Catalan		mel	[ˈmɛɫ]	'honey'	See Catalan phonology
Chinese	Cantonese	蛇/se4	[sɛː˩]	'snake'	See Cantonese phonology
	Mandarin	斜/xié	[ɕjɛ˧˥]	'tilted'	See Mandarin phonology
	Wu	颜/ ngae	[ŋɛ˥˨]	'face'
Czech		Amerika	[amɛrɪka]	'America'	See Czech phonology
Dutch	Standard	bed	[bɛt]	'bed'	See Dutch phonology
	Southern	ijs	[ɛːs]	'ice'	Some dialects, corresponds to [ɛi] in standard Dutch. See Dutch phonology
	Haags				Corresponds to [ɛi] in standard Dutch.
English	GA	bed	[bɛd]	'bed'	See English phonology
	New Zealand	fat	[fɛt]	'fat'
Faroese		elska	[ɛlska]	'love'
French		bête	[bɛt]	'animal'	See French phonology
Galician		pé	[pɛ]	'foot'
Georgian		გედი	[ɡɛdi]	'swan'
German		Bett	[bɛt]	'bed'	See German phonology
Hindi		शहर	[ʃɛɦɛr]	'city'	See Hindi-Urdu phonology
Hungarian		nem	[nɛm]	'no'	See Hungarian phonology
Icelandic		ég	[jɛɣ]	'I'	See Icelandic phonology
Italian		bene	[ˈbɛːne]	'good'	See Italian phonology
Kabardian		Iэ	[ʔɛ]	'to tell'
Korean		태양	[tʰɛ.jaŋ]	'Sun'	See Korean phonology
Lithuanian		mane	[mɐˈnɛ]	'me' (acc.)
Ngwe	Njoagwi dialect	[lɛ̀rɛ́]		'eye'
North Frisian		tech	[tɛx]	'closed'
Norwegian		nett	[nɛt]	'net'	See Norwegian phonology
Polish		ten	[tɛn]	'this one'	See Polish phonology
Portuguese		café	[kɐˈfɛ]	'coffee'	See Portuguese phonology
Russian		это	[ˈɛtə]	'this'	See Russian phonology
Scottish Gaelic		aig	[ɛk]	'at'	See Scottish Gaelic phonology
Serbo-Croatian		mleko/млеко	[mlɛːko]	'milk'	See Serbo-Croatian phonology
Seri		me	[mɛ]	'you'
Slovak		pes	[pɛs]	'dog'
Swedish		ät	[ɛːt]	'eat' (imp.)	See Swedish phonology
Turkish		süre	[syɾɛ]	'duration'	See Turkish phonology
Ukrainian		береза	[bɛˈrɛzɑ]	'birch'	See Ukrainian phonology
Urdu		شہر	[ʃɛɦɛr]	'city'	See Hindi-Urdu phonology
Vietnamese		e	[ɛ]	'to fear'	See Vietnamese phonology
West Frisian		têd	[tɛːt]	'languid'
Yoruba		ẹsẹ̀	[ɛ̄sɛ]	'leg'

See also

• List of phonetics topics

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 
• Jones, Daniel; Dennis, Ward (1969), The Phonetics of Russian, Cambridge University Press 
• Jassem, Wiktor (2003), "Polish", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 33 (1): 103–107 
• 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