Near-open front unrounded vowel

The near-open front unrounded vowel, or near-low front unrounded vowel,^[1] is a type of vowel sound. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨æ⟩, a lowercase of the ⟨Æ⟩ ligature. Both the symbol and the sound are commonly referred to as "ash".

Near-open front unrounded vowel
æ
IPA number	325
Audio sample
source · help
Encoding
Entity (decimal)	æ
Unicode (hex)	U+00E6
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

Sagittal section of a vocal tract pronouncing the IPA sound ⟨æ⟩. Note that a wavy glottis in this diagram indicates a voiced sound.

The rounded counterpart of [æ], the near-open front rounded vowel (for which the IPA provides no separate symbol) has been reported to occur allophonically in Danish;^[2][3] see open front rounded vowel for more information.

In practice, ⟨æ⟩ is sometimes used to represent the open front unrounded vowel; see the introduction to that page for more information.

In IPA transcriptions of Hungarian and Valencian, this vowel is typically written with ⟨ɛ⟩.

Features

• Its vowel height is near-open, also known as near-low, which means the tongue is positioned similarly to an open vowel, but is slightly more constricted – that is, the tongue is positioned similarly to a low vowel, but slightly higher.
• 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[4]	'perd'	[pæːrt]	'horse'	Allophone of /ɛ/, in some dialects, before /k χ l r/. See Afrikaans phonology
Äiwoo		ikuwä	[ikuwæ]	'I go'	Distinguished from both [a] and [ɑ~ɒ].
Arabic	Standard[5]	كتاب / 'kitāb'	[kiˈtæːb]	'book'	Allophone of /a/ in the environment of plain labial and coronal consonants as well as /j/ (depending on the speaker's accent). See Arabic phonology
Azerbaijani		'Azərbaycan'	[ɑːzæɾbɑjˈd͡ʒɑn]	'Azerbaijan'
Bambam[6]		'bätä'	[ˈbætæ]	'stem'
Bashkir[7]		йәй / yäy	[jæj]ⓘ	'summer'
Bengali[8]		এক/ek	[æk]	'one'	See Bengali phonology
Bulgarian	Moesian dialects	млечен/mlečen	[mlæt͡ʃɛn]	'made from milk'	Descendant of Proto-Slavic *ě in places where Standard Bulgarian would have /ɛ/. See Yat.
	Rup dialects				Descendant of Proto-Slavic *ě in all positions. See Yat.
	Teteven dialect	мъж/măž	[mæʃ]	'man'	In place of Standard Bulgarian [ɤ̞] (written as ъ).
	Erkech dialect
Catalan	Majorcan[9]	tesi	[ˈt̪ɛ̞zi]	'thesis'	Main realization of /ɛ/. More open and centralized before liquids and in monosyllabics. See Catalan phonology
	Valencian[9]
Chechen		аьрзу / ärzu	[ærzu]	'eagle'
Danish	Standard[2][10]	dansk	[ˈtænˀsk]	'Danish'	Most often transcribed in IPA with ⟨a⟩ – the way it is realized by certain older or upper-class speakers.[11] See Danish phonology
Dutch[12]		pen	[pæn]	'pen'	Allophone of /ɛ/ before /n/ and coda /l/. In non-standard accents this allophone is generalized to other positions, where [ɛ] is used in Standard Dutch.[13] See Dutch phonology
English	Cultivated New Zealand[14]	cat	[kʰæt]ⓘ	'cat'	Higher in other New Zealand varieties. See New Zealand English phonology
	General American[15]				See English phonology
	Conservative Received Pronunciation[16]				Fully open [a] in contemporary RP.[16] See English phonology
Estonian[17]		väle	[ˈvæ̠le̞ˑ]	'agile'	Near-front.[17] See Estonian phonology
Finnish[18]		mäki	[ˈmæki]	'hill'	See Finnish phonology
French	Parisian[19]	bain	[bæ̃]	'bath'	Nasalized; typically transcribed in IPA with ⟨ɛ̃⟩. See French phonology
	Quebec[20]	ver	[væːʁ]	'worm'	Allophone of /ɛ/ before /ʁ/ or in open syllables, and of /a/ in closed syllables.[20] See Quebec French phonology
German	Standard Austrian[21]	erlauben	[æˈlɑɔ̯bn̩]	'allow'	Variant of pretonic [ɛɐ̯].[21] See Standard German phonology
	West Central German accents[22]	oder	[ˈoːdæ]	'or'	Used instead of [ɐ].[22] See Standard German phonology
	Northern accents[23]	alles	[ˈa̝ləs]	'everything'	Lower and often also more back in other accents.[23] See Standard German phonology
	Western Swiss accents[24]	spät	[ʃpæːt]	'late'	Open-mid [ɛː] or close-mid [eː] in other accents; contrasts with the open-mid /ɛː/.[25] See Standard German phonology
Greek	Macedonia[26]	γάτα/gáta	[ˈɣætæ]	'cat'	See Modern Greek phonology
	Thessaly[26]
	Thrace[26]
	Pontic[27]	καλάθια/kaláthia	[kaˈlaθæ]	'baskets'
Hungarian[28]		nem	[næm]	'no'	Typically transcribed in IPA with ⟨ɛ⟩. See Hungarian phonology
Kanoê[29]		[æː]		'tobacco'
Kazakh		әйел/äiel	[æ̝ˈje̘l̪ʲ]	'woman'	Varies between near-open and open-mid.
Kurdish	Sorani (Central)	گاڵته/ galte	[gäːɫtʲæ]	'joke'	Equal to Palewani (Southern) front [a]. See Kurdish phonology
Lakon[30]		rävräv	[ræβræβ]	'evening'
Limburgish[31][32][33]		twelf	[ˈtβ̞æ̠ləf]	'twelve'	Front[32][33] or near-front,[31] depending on the dialect. The example word is from the Maastrichtian dialect, in which the vowel is near-front.
Lithuanian		jachtą	[ˈjæːxt̪aː]	'yacht' (accusative)	See Lithuanian phonology
Low Saxon	Including Sallandic	gläzen	[xɫæːzn̩]	'glasses'
Luxembourgish[34]		Käpp	[kʰæpʰ]	'heads'	See Luxembourgish phonology
Norwegian	Urban East[35][36]	lær	[læːɾ]	'leather'	See Norwegian phonology
Persian[37][38]		هشت/hašt	[hæʃt]	'eight'
Portuguese	Some dialects[39]	pedra	[ˈpædɾɐ]	'stone'	Stressed vowel. In other dialects closer /ɛ/. See Portuguese phonology
	Some European speakers[40]	também	[tɐˈmæ̃]	'also'	Stressed vowel, allophone of nasal vowel /ẽ̞/.
Romanian	Bukovinian dialect[41]	piele	[ˈpæle]	'skin'	Corresponds to [je] in standard Romanian. Also identified in some Central Transylvanian sub-dialects.[41] See Romanian phonology
Russian[42][43]		пять / pjatʹ	[pʲætʲ]ⓘ	'five'	Allophone of /a/ between palatalized consonants. See Russian phonology
Serbo-Croatian	Zeta-Raška dialect[44]	дан/dan	[d̪æn̪]	'day'	Regional reflex of Proto-Slavic *ь and *ъ. Sometimes nasalised.[44]
Sinhala[45]		ඇය/æya	[æjə]	'she'
Slovak		mäso	[mæso]	'meat, flesh'	In conversation sometimes pronounced as [e] or [a]. See Slovak phonology
Swedish	Central Standard[46][47][48]	ära	[²æːɾä]ⓘ	'hono(u)r'	Allophone of /ɛː, ɛ/ before /r/. See Swedish phonology
	Stockholm[48]	läsa	[²læːsä]	'to read'	Realization of /ɛː, ɛ/ for younger speakers. Higher [ɛː, ɛ̝ ~ ɛ] for other speakers
Turkish[49]		sen	[s̪æn̪]	'you'	Allophone of /e/ before syllable-final /m, n, l, r/. In a limited number of words (but not before /r/), it is in free variation with [e̞].[49] See Turkish phonology

See also

• Index of phonetics articles