Open-mid front unrounded vowel

The open-mid front unrounded vowel, or low-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 the Latin epsilon, a Latinized variant of the Greek lowercase epsilon, ⟨ɛ⟩.

Open-mid front unrounded vowel
ɛ
IPA number	303
Audio sample
source · help
Encoding
Entity (decimal)	ɛ
Unicode (hex)	U+025B
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 [ɛ]

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

Features

• 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 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
Akan (Twi)		ɛyɛ	[ɛjɛ]	'it is good/fine'	See Akan phonology
Arabic					See Imāla
Armenian	Eastern[2]	էջ/ēj	[ɛd͡ʒ]	'page'
Bavarian	Amstetten dialect[3]	[example needed]			Typically transcribed in IPA with ⟨æ⟩.
Bengali[4]		কে/ke	[kɛ]	'who'	See Bengali phonology
Breton[5]		gwenn	[ˈɡwɛnː]	'white'
Bulgarian[6]		пет/pet	[pɛt̪]	'five'	See Bulgarian phonology
Catalan[7]		set	[ˈsɛt]	'seven'	See Catalan phonology
Chinese	Mandarin[8]	天 / tiān	[tʰi̯ɛn˥]ⓘ	'sky'	Height varies between mid and open depending on the speaker. See Standard Chinese phonology
Chuvash		ҫепĕç	['ɕɛp̬ɘɕ]	'gentle, tender'
Czech[9][10]		led	[lɛt]	'ice'	In Bohemian Czech, this vowel varies between open-mid front [ɛ], open-mid near-front [ɛ̠] and mid near-front [ɛ̝̈].[9] See Czech phonology
Danish	Standard[11][12]	frisk	[ˈfʁɛsk]	'fresh'	Most often transcribed in IPA with ⟨æ⟩. See Danish phonology
Dutch	Standard[13]	bed	[bɛt]ⓘ	'bed'	See Dutch phonology
	The Hague[14]	jij	[jɛ̞ː]ⓘ	'you'	Corresponds to [ɛi] in standard Dutch.
English	General American[15]	bed	[bɛd]ⓘ	'bed'
	Northern England[16]				May be somewhat lowered.[16]
	Received Pronunciation[17][18]				Older RP speakers pronounce a closer vowel [e̞]. See English phonology
	Younger General Australian speakers				Realization of /e/ due to an ongoing short-front vowel chain shift. See Australian English phonology
	Scottish[19]
	Cockney[20]	fat	[fɛt]	'fat'
	Singaporean[21]
	New Zealand[22]				See New Zealand English phonology
	Broad Australian				Realization of /æ/. General Australian speakers realize this vowel as [æ] or [a]. See Australian English phonology
	Some Broad South African speakers[23]				Other speakers realize this vowel as [æ] or [a]. See South African English phonology
	Belfast[24]	days	[dɛːz]	'days'	Pronounced [iə] in closed syllables; corresponds to [eɪ] in RP.
	Zulu[25]	mate	[mɛt]	'mate'	Speakers exhibit a met-mate merger.
Faroese[26]		frekt	[fɹɛʰkt]	'greedy'	See Faroese phonology
French[27][28]		bête	[bɛt̪]ⓘ	'beast'	See French phonology
Galician		ferro	[ˈfɛro̝]	'iron'	See Galician phonology
Georgian[29]		გედი/gedi	[ɡɛdi]	'swan'
German	Standard[30][31]	Bett	[b̥ɛt]ⓘ	'bed'	Also described as mid [ɛ̝].[32] See Standard German phonology
	Franconian accent[33]	oder	[ˈoːdɛ]	'or'	Used instead of [ɐ].[33] See Standard German phonology
	Coastal Northern accents[33]
	Swabian accent[34]	fett	[fɛt]	'fat'	Contrasts with the close-mid [e].[34] See Standard German phonology
	Western Swiss accents[35]	See	[z̥ɛː]	'lake'	Close-mid [eː] in other accents; contrasts with the near-open [æː].[36] See Standard German phonology
Hindustani	Hindi	रहना	[ˈɾɛɦna]	'to stay'	See Hindustani phonology
	Urdu	رہنا
Hungarian		lesz	[ˈlɛsː]	'will be'	Allophone of [æ].
Italian[37]		bene	[ˈbɛːne]ⓘ	'good'	See Italian phonology
Kaingang[38]		mbre	[ˈᵐbɾɛ]	'with'
Korean		매미 / maemi	[mɛːmi]	'cicada'	Merged with /e/ for many speakers. See Korean phonology
Kurdish	Kurmanji (Northern)	hevde	[hɛvdɛ]	'seventeen'	See Kurdish phonology
	Sorani (Central)	هه‌ڤده/hevde	[hɛvdæ]
	Pehlewî (Southern)		[hɛvdæ]
Limburgish[39][40][41]		crème	[kʀ̝ɛːm]	'cream'	The example word is from the Maastrichtian dialect.
Lithuanian		mesti	[mɛs̪t̪ɪ]	'throw'	See Lithuanian phonology
Lower Sorbian[42]		serp	[s̪ɛrp]	'sickle'
Luxembourgish[43]		Stär	[ʃtɛːɐ̯]	'star'	Allophone of /eː/ before /ʀ/.[43] See Luxembourgish phonology
Macedonian[44][45]	Standard	мед/med	[ˈmɛd̪]	'honey'	See Macedonian language § Vowels
Malay	Standard	paling	[pälɛŋ]	'to play'	Possible realisation of /i/ and /e/ in closed final syllables. See Malay phonology
	Negeri Sembilan	cepat	[cɔpɛɁ]	'quick'	See Negeri Sembilan Malay
	Kelatan-Pattani	ayam	[äjɛː]	'chicken'	See Kelatan-Pattani
	Terengganu	biasa	[bɛsə]	'normal'	See Terengganu Malay
	Perak	mata	[matɛ]	'eye'	See Perak Malay
Norman	Jersey	affaûrder	[afɔrˈdɛ]	'to afford'
Norwegian	Sognamål[46]	pest	[pʰɛst]	'plague'	See Norwegian phonology
Occitan		grèga	[ˈɣɾɛɣɔ]	'Greek'	See Occitan phonology
Polish[47]		ten	[t̪ɛn̪]ⓘ	'this one' (nom. m.)	See Polish phonology
Portuguese	Most dialects[48][49]	pé	[ˈpɛ]	'foot'	Stressed vowel might be lower [æ]. The presence and use of other unstressed ⟨e⟩ allophones, such as [e̞ e ɪ i ɨ], varies according to dialect.
	Some speakers[50]	tempo	[ˈt̪ɛ̃mpu]	'time'	Timbre differences for nasalized vowels are mainly kept in European Portuguese. See Portuguese phonology
Romanian	Transylvanian dialects[51]	vede	[ˈvɛɟe]	'(he) sees'	Corresponds to mid [e̞] in standard Romanian. See Romanian phonology
Russian[52]		это/eto	[ˈɛt̪ə]ⓘ	'this'	See Russian phonology
Shiwiar[53]		[example needed]			Allophone of /a/.
Slovene		met	[mɛ́t]	'throw' (n.)	See Slovene phonology
Spanish	Eastern Andalusian[54]	las madres	[læ̞ː ˈmæ̞ːð̞ɾɛː]	'the mothers'	Corresponds to [e̞] in other dialects, but in these dialects they are distinct. See Spanish phonology
	Murcian[54]
Swahili		shule	[ʃulɛ]	'school'
Swedish	Central Standard[55]	ät	[ɛ̠ːt̪]	'eat' (imp.)	Somewhat retracted.[55] See Swedish phonology
Tagalog		peke	[ˈpɛxɛʔ]	'fake'	See Tagalog phonology
Telugu		చేప	[tʃɛːa]	'Fish'
		మేక	[mɛːka]	'Goat'
Thai		แตร / trae	[trɛː˧]	'horn (instrument)'
Turkish[56][57]		ülke	[y̠l̠ˈkɛ]	'country'	Allophone of /e/ described variously as "word-final"[56] and "occurring in final open syllable of a phrase".[57] See Turkish phonology
Ukrainian[58]		день/den'	[dɛnʲ]	'day'	See Ukrainian phonology
Upper Sorbian[42][59]		čelo	[ˈt͡ʃɛlɔ]	'calf'
Welsh		nesaf	[nɛsav]	'next'	See Welsh phonology
West Frisian[60]		beppe	[ˈbɛpə]	'grandma'	See West Frisian phonology
Yoruba[61]		ẹsẹ̀	[ɛ̄sɛ]	'leg'

See also

• Index of phonetics articles