Close back unrounded vowel

For the letter, see Ɯ.

Not to be confused with the Armenian letter ա (U+0561), the Cyrillic letter ш (U+0448), or the Tamil letter ய (U+0BAF).

The close back unrounded vowel, or high back 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 ⟨ɯ⟩. Typographically, it is a turned letter ⟨m⟩; given its relation to the sound represented by the letter ⟨u⟩, it can be considered a ligature of 2 ⟨u⟩s.

Close back unrounded vowel
ɯ
IPA number	316
Audio sample
source · help
Encoding
Entity (decimal)	ɯ
Unicode (hex)	U+026F
X-SAMPA	M
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

The close back unrounded vowel can in many cases be considered the vocalic equivalent of the voiced velar approximant [ɰ].

Spectrogram of [ɯ]

Features

• Its vowel height is close, also known as high, which means the tongue is positioned close to the roof of the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant.
• Its vowel backness is back, which means the tongue is positioned back in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Unrounded back vowels tend to be centralized, which means that often they are in fact near-back.
• It is unrounded, which means that the lips are not rounded.

Occurrence

Language		Word	IPA	Meaning	Notes
Acehnese[2]		eu	[ɯ]	'see'	Also described as closer to [ɨ].[3][4]
Arara[5]		îput	[ɯput̚]	'my skin'	Frequent realisation of /ɨ/.[5]
Arbëreshë		Arbëreshë	[ɑɾbɯɾeʃ]	'Arbëreshë'	/ə/ in standard Albanian.
Azerbaijani		bahalı / باهالیٛ	[bɑhɑˈɫɯ]	'expensive'	Closer to an [ɘ][6]
Bashkir		ҡыҙ / قىُث / qıđ	[qɯð]	'girl'
Chinese	Mandarin	刺 / cì	[t͡sʰɯ˥˩]	'thorn'
	Wuhan dialect, Southwestern Mandarin	去 / keu	[kʰɯ]	'to go'
	Some Wu dialects	父 / vu	[vɯ]	'father'
Xiang	火 / xu	[xɯ]	'fire'
Chuvash		ыхра/ıxra	[ɯɣra]	'garlic'
Crimean Tatar		джаным/canım	[dʒanɯm]	'my dear'
English	African-American[7]	hook	[hɯ̞k]	'hook'	Near-close; possible realization of /ʊ/.[7]
	Tidewater[8]				Near-close; may be rounded [ʊ] instead.[8]
	Some California speakers[9]	goose	[ɡɯˑs]	'goose'	Corresponds to [uː] in other dialects.
	New Zealand[10][11]	treacle	[ˈtɹ̝̊iːkɯ]	'treacle'	Possible realization of the unstressed vowel /ɯ/, which is variable in rounding and ranges from central to (more often) back and close to close-mid.[10][11] Corresponds to /əl/ in other accents. Develops from dark L; See New Zealand English phonology
	Some Philadelphia speakers[12]	plus	[pɫ̥ɯs]	'plus'	Used by some speakers; the exact height and backness is variable.[12] It corresponds to [ʌ] in other accents. See English phonology
	South African[13]	pill	[pʰɯ̞ɫ]	'pill'	Near-close; possible allophone of /ɪ/ before the velarised allophone of /l/.[13] See South African English phonology
Estonian[14]		kõrv	[kɯrv]	'ear'	Typically transcribed in IPA with ⟨ɤ⟩; can be close-mid central [ɘ] or close-mid back [ɤ] instead, depending on the speaker.[14] See Estonian phonology
Irish	Ulster	caol	[kʰɯːl̪ˠ]	'narrow'	See Irish phonology
Japanese[15]		空気 / kūki	[kɯːki]ⓘ	'air'	May be compressed [ɯᵝ].[16] See Japanese phonology
Katukina[17]			[babɯˈdʒɯ]	'oscar (fish)'
Kazakh		қыс/qys/قىس	[qɯs]	'winter'	May be pronounced as [qəs]
Korean[18]		음식 飮食 / eumsik	[ɯːmɕ͈ik̚]	'food'	See Korean phonology
Kurdish	Kurmanji (Northern)	tirş	[tˤɯɾʃ]	'sour'	See Kurdish phonology. The "i" after "t" always uses this sound if the "t" is "tˤ". However, it can also appear at other places.
	Sorani (Central)	ترش / tirş
Kyrgyz		кыз / qyz / قىز	[qɯz]	'girl'	See Kyrgyz phonology
Panará[19]			[tɯˈsəʰ]	'to breathe'
Portuguese	European[20]	pegar	[pɯ̞ˈɣäɾ]ⓘ	'to grab'	Reduced vowel. Near-close.[20] Typically transcribed in IPA with ⟨ɨ⟩. See Portuguese phonology
Romanian	Some speakers	când	[kɯnd]	'when'	Typically described as /ɨ/. See Romanian phonology
Scottish Gaelic		caol	[kʰɯːl̪ˠ]	'thin'	See Scottish Gaelic phonology
Sop		düm	[dɯm]	'tree'	See Sop language
Tamil		அழகு / aḻagu	[əɻəgɯ]	'beauty'	Known by the Tamil grammar phenomenon குற்றியலுகரம்
Thai	Standard[21]	ขึ้น / khuen/khîn	[kʰɯn˥˩]	'to go up'
Turkish[22]		sığ	[sɯː]ⓘ	'shallow'	Described variously as close back [ɯ],[22] near-close near-back [ɯ̞][23] and close central [ɨ].[24] See Turkish phonology
Turkmen		ýaşyl/یاشیٛل	[jɑːˈʃɯl]	'green'
Uyghur		تىلىم/tılım / tilim	[tɯlɯm]	'my language'	In complementary distribution with /ɪ/. See Uyghur phonology
Vietnamese		tư	[tɯ]	'fourth'	See Vietnamese phonology

See also

• Index of phonetics articles
• Ɯ