Open front rounded vowel

"ɶ" redirects here and is not to be confused with Œ. For other uses, see oe (disambiguation).

The (near-)open front rounded vowel, or (near-)low front rounded vowel,^[1] is a type of vowel sound that has not been confirmed to be phonemic in any spoken language.^{[citation needed]} The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨ɶ⟩, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is &. The letter ⟨ɶ⟩ is the small caps rendition of ⟨Œ⟩. ⟨œ⟩, the lowercase version of the ligature, is used for the open-mid front rounded vowel.

Open front rounded vowel
ɶ
IPA number	312
Audio sample
source · help
Encoding
Entity (decimal)	ɶ
Unicode (hex)	U+0276
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

While the IPA chart lists it as a fully open vowel, the rounded equivalent of [a], Ladefoged^[2] characterizes it as near-open, the rounded equivalent of [æ].

A phoneme generally transcribed by this symbol is reported from the Bavarian dialect of Amstetten. However, it is phonetically open-mid, [œ].^[3]

It occurs allophonically in Weert Limburgish^[4] as well as in some speakers of Danish^[5] and Swedish.^[6] Certain transcriptions of Danish use ⟨ɶ⟩ to denote an open-mid front rounded vowel [œ].^[5]

In Maastrichtian Limburgish, the vowel transcribed with ⟨ɶː⟩ in the Mestreechter Taol dictionary is phonetically near-open central [ɐ̹ː]. It is a phonological open-mid front rounded vowel, the long counterpart of /œ/.^[7]

Riad (2014) reports that [ɶː] in Stockholm Swedish is sometimes difficult to distinguish from [ɒː], which is the main realization of the /ɑː/ phoneme, a sign that both vowels are phonetically very close.^[6]

Features

• Its vowel height is open, also known as low, which means the tongue is positioned far from the roof of the mouth – that is, low in the mouth.
• 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. Rounded front vowels are often centralized, which means that often they are in fact near-front.
• It is rounded, which means that the lips are rounded rather than spread or relaxed.

Occurrence

Language		Word	IPA	Meaning	Notes
Danish	Some speakers[5]	grøn	[ˈkʁɶ̝nˀ]	'green'	Near-open;[8] allophone of /ø/ between /ʁ/ and /v/ as well as an allophone of /œ/ between /ʁ/ and a nasal.[9] Other speakers pronounce it the same as [œ].[5] See Danish phonology
Limburgish	Weert dialect[4]	bui	[bɶj]	'shower'	Allophone of /œ/ before /j/.[4] See Weert dialect phonology
Swedish	Stockholm[6]	öra	[ˈɶ̂ːra̠]	'ear'	Pre-/r/ allophone of /øː/ (sometimes also /œ/) for younger speakers.[6] Open-mid [œː, œ] for other speakers.[6] See Swedish phonology

See also

• Index of phonetics articles