Close-mid front unrounded vowel

"/e/" redirects here. For the operating system, see /e/ (operating system).

The close-mid front unrounded vowel, or high-mid front 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 ⟨e⟩.

Close-mid front unrounded vowel
e
IPA number	302
Audio sample
source · help
Encoding
Entity (decimal)	e
Unicode (hex)	U+0065
X-SAMPA	e
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 [e]

For the close-mid front unrounded vowel that is usually transcribed with the symbol ⟨ɪ⟩ or ⟨i⟩, see near-close front unrounded vowel. If the usual symbol is ⟨e⟩, the vowel is listed here.

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 front, which means the tongue is positioned forward 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[2]	bed	[bet]	'bed'	Typically transcribed in IPA with ⟨ɛ⟩. The height varies between close-mid [e] and mid [ɛ̝].[2] See Afrikaans phonology
Arabic	Standard	مَجۡر۪ىٰهَا/majreha	[mad͡ʒ.reː.haː]		See imalah
Azerbaijani		gecə	[ɟeˈd͡ʒæ]	'night'
Bavarian	Amstetten dialect[3]	[example needed]
Breton		eget[4]	[eˈɡet]	'than'
Catalan[5]		séc	[ˈsek]	'fold'	See Catalan phonology
Chinese	Shanghainese[6]	该/kè	[ke̠ʔ˩]	'should'	Near-front; realization of /ɛ/, which appears only in open syllables. Phonetically, it is nearly identical to /ɪ/ ([ɪ̞]), which appears only in closed syllables.[6]
Chuvash		эрешмен/ereşmen	[erɛʃ'mɛnʲ]	'spider'
Danish	Standard[7][8]	hæl	[ˈheːˀl]	'heel'	Typically transcribed in IPA with ⟨ɛː⟩. See Danish phonology
Dutch	Belgian[9]	vreemd	[vreːmt]	'strange'	In the Netherlands often diphthongized to [eɪ]. See Dutch phonology
English	Australian[10]	bed	[bed]	'bed'	See Australian English phonology
	New Zealand[11]				The height varies from near-close in broad varieties to mid in the Cultivated variety.[11] See New Zealand English phonology
	General American[12]	may	[meː]	'may'	Most often a closing diphthong [eɪ].[12]
	General Indian[13]				Realized closer to [j̚e].
	General Pakistani[14]				Can be a diphthong [eɪ] instead, depending on speaker.
	Geordie[15]
	Scottish[16]
	Singaporean[17]
	Ulster[18]				Pronounced [ɛː~iə] in Belfast.
	Some Cardiff speakers[19]	square	[skweː]	'square'	More often open-mid [ɛː].[19]
	Scouse[20]				May (less commonly) be less open [ɪː] or more open [ɛː] instead[21]
	Scottish[16]	bit	[bë̞ʔ]	'bit'	Near-front,[16] may be [ɪ] (also [ə]) instead for other speakers.
	Cockney[22]	bird	[bɛ̝̈ːd]	'bird'	Near-front; occasional realization of /ɜː/. It can be rounded [œ̝ː] or, more often, unrounded central [ɜ̝ː] instead.[22] Typically transcribed in IPA with ⟨ɜː⟩.
Estonian[23]		keha	[ˈkeɦɑ̝ˑ]	'body'	See Estonian phonology
French[24][25]		beauté	[bot̪e]	'beauty'	See French phonology
German	Standard[26][27]	Seele	[ˈzeːlə]ⓘ	'soul'	See Standard German phonology
	Many speakers[28]	Jäger	[ˈjeːɡɐ]	'hunter'	Outcome of the /ɛː–eː/ merger found universally in Northern Germany, Eastern Germany and Eastern Austria (often even in formal speech) and in some other regions.[28] See Standard German phonology
	Southern accents[29]	Bett	[b̥et]	'bed'	Common realization of /ɛ/ in Southern Germany, Switzerland and Austria.[29] See Standard German phonology
	Swabian accent[29]				Contrasts with the open-mid [ɛ].[29] See Standard German phonology
Greek	Sfakian[30]	[example needed]			Corresponds to mid [e̞] in Modern Standard Greek.[31] See Modern Greek phonology
Hebrew[32]		כן/ken	[ke̞n]	'yes'	Hebrew vowels are not shown in the script, see Niqqud and Modern Hebrew phonology
Hindustani	Hindi	के/ke	[keː]	'of'	See Hindustani phonology
	Urdu	کے/ke
Hungarian[33]		hét	[heːt̪]	'seven'	Also described as mid [e̞ː].[34] See Hungarian phonology
Italian	Standard[35]	stelle	[ˈs̪t̪elle]	'stars'	See Italian phonology
Khmer		ទុរេន / turen	[tureːn]	'durian'	See Khmer phonology
Korean		메아리 / meari	[meɐɾi]	'echo'	See Korean phonology
Limburgish	Most dialects[36][37][38]	leef	[leːf]	'dear'	The example word is from the Maastrichtian dialect.
Lithuanian		tėtė	[t̪eːt̪eː]	'father'	'Tete' and 'tėtis' are more commonly used than 'tėtė.'
Malay		kecil	[kə.t͡ʃel]	'small'	Allophone of /i/ in closed-final syllables. May be [ɪ] or [e̞] depending on the speaker. See Malay phonology
Malayalam		ചെവി/čevi	[ȶ͡ɕeʋi]	'ear'	See Malayalam phonology
Marathi		एक/ek	[e:k]	'one'	See Marathi phonology
Norwegian		le	[leː]	'laugh'	The example word is from Urban East Norwegian.[39][40] See Norwegian phonology
Mpade[41]		faɗe	[faɗe]	'night'
Persian		سه/se	[se]	'three'
Polish[42]		dzień	[d͡ʑeɲ̟]ⓘ	'day'	Allophone of /ɛ/ between palatal or palatalized consonants. See Polish phonology
Portuguese[43]		mesa	[ˈmezɐ]	'table'	See Portuguese phonology
Romanian		umple	[ˈumple]	'to fill'	See Romanian phonology
Russian[44]		шея/šeja	[ˈʂejə]ⓘ	'neck'	Close-mid [e] before and between soft consonants, mid [e̞] after soft consonants.[44] See Russian phonology
Saterland Frisian[45]		tään	[te̠ːn]	'thin'	Near-front; typically transcribed in IPA with ⟨ɛː⟩. Phonetically, it is nearly identical to /ɪ/ ([ɪ̞]). The vowel typically transcribed in IPA with ⟨eː⟩ is actually near-close [e̝ː].[45]
Slovene[46]		sedem	[ˈsèːdəm]	'seven'	See Slovene phonology
Sotho[47]		ho jwetsa	[hʊ̠ʒʷet͡sʼɑ̈]	'to tell'	Contrasts close, near-close and close-mid front unrounded vowels.[47] See Sotho phonology
Swedish	Central Standard[48][49]	se	[s̪eː]	'see'	Often diphthongized to [eə̯] (hear the word: [s̪eə̯]ⓘ). See Swedish phonology
Tahitian		vahine	[vahine]	'woman'
Tamil		செவி/čevi	[ȶ͡ɕeʋi]	'ear'	See Tamil phonology
Ukrainian		ефі́рний efirný	[eˈfirnɪj]	'ethereal'	See Ukrainian phonology
Welsh		chwech	[χweːχ]	'six'	See Welsh phonology
Yoruba[50]		[example needed]

See also

• Index of phonetics articles