Open front unrounded vowel

For the letter, see A.

The open front unrounded vowel, or low front unrounded vowel,^[1] is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. It is one of the eight primary cardinal vowels, not directly intended to correspond to a vowel sound of a specific language but rather to serve as a fundamental reference point in a phonetic measuring system.^[2]

Open front unrounded vowel
a
IPA number	304
Audio sample
source · help
Encoding
Entity (decimal)	a
Unicode (hex)	U+0061
X-SAMPA	a
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 ⟨a⟩. A wavy glottis in this diagram indicates a voiced sound.

The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) that represents this sound is ⟨a⟩, a double-story lowercase a. In the IPA vowel chart it is positioned at the lower-left corner. However, the accuracy of the quadrilateral vowel chart is disputed, and the sound has been analyzed acoustically as extra-open at a position where the front/back distinction has lost its significance. There are also differing interpretations of the exact quality of the vowel: the classic sound recording of [a] by Daniel Jones is slightly more front but not quite as open as that by John Wells.^[3]

In practice, the symbol ⟨a⟩ is often used to represent an open central unrounded vowel.^[4] This is the usual practice, for example, in the historical study of the English language. The loss of separate symbols for open and near-open front vowels is usually considered unproblematic, because the perceptual difference between the two is quite small, and very few languages contrast the two. If there is a need to specify the backness of the vowel as fully front one can use the symbol ⟨æ̞⟩, which denotes a lowered near-open front unrounded vowel, or ⟨a̟⟩ with the IPA "advanced" diacritic.

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. This subsumes central open (central low) vowels because the tongue does not have as much flexibility in positioning as it does in the mid and close (high) vowels; the difference between an open front vowel and an open back vowel is similar to the difference between a close front and a close central vowel, or a close central and a close back vowel.
• It is unrounded, which means that the lips are not rounded.

Occurrence

Many languages have some form of an unrounded open vowel. For languages that have only a single open vowel, the symbol for this vowel ⟨a⟩ may be used because it is the only open vowel whose symbol is part of the basic Latin alphabet. Whenever marked as such, the vowel is closer to a central [ä] than to a front [a]. However, there may not actually be much of a difference. (See Vowel#Acoustics.)

Language		Word	IPA	Meaning	Notes
Afrikaans	Standard[5]	dak	[da̠k]	'roof'	Near-front.[5] See Afrikaans phonology
Arabic	Standard[6]	أنا/anā	[ana(ː)]	'I' 1st person singular pronoun	See Arabic phonology
Azerbaijani[7]	Standard	səs	[s̪æ̞s̪]	'sound'	Typically transcribed with ⟨æ⟩.
Bulgarian[8]		най/nay	[n̪a̠j]	'most'	Near-front.[8]
Chinese	Mandarin[9]	安 / ān	[ʔan˥]ⓘ	'safe'	Allophone of /a/ before /n/.[9] See Standard Chinese phonology
Dutch	Standard[10][11]	aas	[aːs]	'bait'	Ranges from front to central.[12] See Dutch phonology
	Utrecht[13]	bad	[bat]	'bath'	Corresponds to [ɑ] in Northern Standard Dutch. See Dutch phonology
English	Australian[14]	hat	[hat]ⓘ	'hat'	Most common pronunciation among younger speakers.[14] Older speakers typically use [æ]. See Australian English phonology
	California[15][16]				Less open [æ] in other North American varieties. See English phonology and Canadian Shift
	Canadian[16][17]
	Some Central Ohioan speakers[16]
	Some Texan speakers[16]
	Northern Suburbs of Johannesburg[18]				Closer [æ] in General South African English. See South African English phonology
	Received Pronunciation[19]				Closer [æ] in Conservative Received Pronunciation. See English phonology
	Scouse[20]		[haθ̠]
	East Anglian[21]	bra	[bɹaː]	'bra'	Realized as central [äː] by middle-class speakers.[21]
	Inland Northern American[22]				Less front [ɑ ~ ä] in other American dialects. See Northern cities vowel shift
	New Zealand[23]		[bɹa̠ː]		Varies between open near-front [a̠ː], open central [äː], near-open near-front [ɐ̟ː] and near-open central [ɐː].[23] May be transcribed in IPA with ⟨ɐː⟩. See New Zealand English phonology
French	Conservative Parisian[11][24]	patte	[pat̪]	'paw'	Contrasts with /ɑ/, but many speakers have only one open vowel (phonetically central [ä]).[25] See French phonology
	Quebec[26]	arrêt	[aʁɛ]	'stopping'	Contrasts with /ɑ/.[26] See Quebec French phonology
German	Altbayern accent[27]	Wassermassen	[ˈʋɑsɐmasn̩]	'water masses'	Also illustrates the back /ɑ/, with which it contrasts.[27] See Standard German phonology
	Many Austrian accents[27]	nah	[naː]	'near'	Less front in other accents.[27] See Standard German phonology
Igbo[28]		ákụ	[ákú̙]	'kernel'
Khmer		បាត់ / băt	[ɓat]	'to disappear'	See Khmer phonology
		បាត / bat	[ɓaːt]	'bottom'
Kurdish	Palewani (Southern)	گه‌ن/gen	[gan]	'bad'	Equal to Sorani (Central) near-front [æ]. See Kurdish phonology
Limburgish	Many dialects[29][30][31]	baas	[ˈba̠ːs]	'boss'	Near-front;[29][30][31] realized as central [äː] in some other dialects.[32] The example word is from the Maastrichtian dialect.
Low German[33]		Daag / Dag	[dax]	'day'	Backness may vary among dialects.[33]
Luxembourgish[34]		Kap	[kʰa̠ːpʰ]	'cap'	Near-front; sometimes fronted and raised to [a̝ː].[35] See Luxembourgish phonology
Malay	Kedah	beras	[bəɣaʲh]	'raw rice'	Considerably more front than in Standard Malay where it is usually central [ä]. In final syllables that are open ended or end in a glottal stop, it is realised as a back [ɒ]. See Kedah Malay
Norwegian	Stavangersk[36]	hatt	[hat]	'hat'	See Norwegian phonology
	Trondheimsk[37]	lær	[læ̞ːɾ]	'leather'
Polish[38]		jajo	[ˈjajɔ]ⓘ	'egg'	Allophone of /ä/ between palatal or palatalized consonants. See Polish phonology
Spanish	Eastern Andalusian[39]	las madres	[læ̞ˑ ˈmæ̞ːð̞ɾɛˑ]	'the mothers'	Corresponds to [ä] in other dialects, but in these dialects they are distinct. See Spanish phonology
	Murcian[39]
Swedish	Central Standard[40][41]	bank	[baŋk]	'bank'	The backness has been variously described as front [a],[40] near-front [a̠][41] and central [ä].[42] See Swedish phonology
West Frisian	Aastersk[43]	kaaks	[kaːks]	'ship's biscuit'	Contrasts with a back /ɑː/.[43] See West Frisian phonology