Close-mid central unrounded vowel

The close-mid central unrounded vowel, or high-mid central unrounded vowel,^[1] is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨ɘ⟩. This is a mirrored letter e and should not be confused with the schwa ⟨ə⟩, which is a turned e. It was added to the IPA in 1993; before that, this vowel was transcribed ⟨ë⟩, the Latin letter e with diaeresis (Ë ë Ë ë), not the Cyrillic letter yo (Ё ё Ё ё). Certain older sources^[2] transcribe this vowel ⟨ɤ̈⟩.

Close-mid central unrounded vowel
ɘ
IPA number	397
Audio sample
source · help
Encoding
Entity (decimal)	ɘ
Unicode (hex)	U+0258
X-SAMPA	@\
Braille
Image

IPA: Vowels
Front Central Back Close i y ɨ ʉ ɯ u Near-close ɪ ʏ ʊ Close-mid e ø ɘ ɵ ɤ o Mid e̞ ø̞ ə ɤ̞ o̞ Open-mid ɛ œ ɜ ɞ ʌ ɔ Near-open æ ɐ Open a ɶ ä ɑ ɒ
IPA help  audio full chart template Legend: unrounded • rounded

Spectrogram of [ɘ]

The letter ⟨ɘ⟩ may be used with a lowering diacritic ⟨ɘ̞⟩, to denote the mid central unrounded vowel, and with the retracted diacritic ⟨ɘ̠⟩, it represents the close-mid near-back unrounded vowel.

Conversely, ⟨ə⟩, the symbol for the mid central vowel may be used with a raising diacritic ⟨ə̝⟩ to denote the close-mid central unrounded vowel, although that is more accurately written with an additional unrounding diacritic ⟨ə̝͑⟩ to explicitly denote the lack of rounding (the canonical value of IPA ⟨ə⟩ is undefined for rounding).

Features

• Its vowel height is close-mid, also known as high-mid, which means the tongue is positioned halfway between a close vowel (a high 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
Chuvash		пӗррехинче	[pɘrrɛχint͡ɕɛ]	'once'
Cotabato Manobo[3]		[example needed]			May be transcribed in IPA with ⟨ə⟩.
Dinka	Luanyjang[4]	ŋeŋ	[ŋɘ́ŋ]	'jawbone'	Short allophone of /e/.[4]
English	Australian[5][6]	bird	[bɘːd]	'bird'	Typically transcribed in IPA with ⟨ɜː⟩. Optionally rounded. See Australian English phonology
	Cardiff[7]	foot	[fɘt]	'foot'	Less often rounded [ɵ];[8] corresponds to [ʊ] in other dialects. See English phonology
	New Zealand[9]	bit	[bɘt]	'bit'	Merger of /ə/ and /ɪ/ found in other dialects. See New Zealand English phonology
	Southern American[10]	nut	[nɘt]	'nut'	Some dialects.[10] Corresponds to /ʌ/ in other dialects. See English phonology
Estonian[11]		kõrv	[kɘrv]	'ear'	Typically transcribed in IPA with ⟨ɤ⟩; can be close-mid back [ɤ] or close back [ɯ] instead, depending on the speaker.[11] See Estonian phonology
Irish	Munster[12]	sáile	[ˈsˠɰaːlʲə̝]	'salt water'	Usually transcribed in IPA with [ɪ̽]. It is an allophone of /ə/ next to non-palatal slender consonants.[12] See Irish phonology
Jebero[13]		ɨx[e/ï][k/c/q]	[ˈiʃɘk]	'bat'
Kaingang[14]		me	[ˈᵐbɘ]	'tail'	Varies between central [ɘ] and back [ɤ].[15]
Kalagan Kaagan[16]		[miˈwə̝ːʔ]		'lost'	Allophone of /ɨ/ in word-final stressed syllables before /ʔ/; can be transcribed in IPA with ⟨ə⟩.[16]
Katë[17]		Katë	[kaˈt̪ɘ]	'Katë'	Can also be realized as /ɨ/.
Kensiu[18]		[ɟɚ̝h]		'to trim'	Rhotacized; may be transcribed in IPA with ⟨ɚ⟩.[18]
Kera[19]		[t͡ʃə̝̄wā̠a̠]		'fire'	Allophone of /a/; typically transcribed in IPA with ⟨ə⟩.[19]
Korean[20]		어른/ŏŏleun	[ə̝ːɾɯ̽n]	'adult'	May be transcribed in IPA with ⟨əː⟩. See Korean phonology
Kurdish	Kurmanji	dil/دل	[dɘl]	'heart'	Allophone of /ɪ/. Sorani alphabet does not transcribe this vowel phoneme in text.
	Sorani
Lizu[21]		[Fkə̝][clarification needed]		'eagle'	Allophone of /ə/ after velar stops.[21]
Mapudungun[22]		elün	[ë̝ˈlɘn]	'to give (something)'
Mongolian[23]		үсэр	[usɘɾɘ̆]	'jump'
Mono[24]		dœ	[də̝]	'be (equative)'	May be transcribed in IPA with ⟨ə⟩.[24]
Polish[25]		mysz	[mɘ̟ʂ]ⓘ	'mouse'	Somewhat fronted;[25] typically transcribed in IPA with ⟨ɨ⟩. See Polish phonology
Romanian	Moldavian dialect[26]	casă	[ˈkäsɘ]	'house'	Corresponds to [ə] in standard Romanian. See Romanian phonology
Shiwiar[27]		[example needed]
Temne[28]		pər	[pə̝́r]	'incite'	Typically transcribed in IPA with ⟨ə⟩.[28]
Vietnamese[29]		vợ	[vɘ˨˩ˀ]	'wife'	Typically transcribed in IPA with ⟨ɤ⟩. See Vietnamese phonology
Xumi	Upper[30]	[LPmɘ̃dɐ]		'upstairs'	Nasalized; occurs only in this word.[30] It is realized as mid [ə̃] in Lower Xumi.[31]
Zapotec	Tilquiapan[32]	ne	[nɘ]	'and'	Most common realization of /e/.[32]