Close front unrounded vowel

The close front unrounded vowel(also called high front unrounded vowel), is a type of vowel. It is an i in the International Phonetic Alphabet. It sounds like the English word meet. It is also called a long-e in American English.^[1] In English this sound has more length then it should and is not usually pronounced as a pure vowel(it is a diphthong).^[2] A pure [i] sound can be heard in languages such as French with words like chic.

Close front unrounded vowel
i
IPA Number	301
Audio sample
source · help
Encoding
Entity (decimal)	i
Unicode (hex)	U+0069
X-SAMPA	i
Braille

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 Vowels beside dots are: unrounded • rounded

In languages

Language		Word	IPA	Meaning	Notes
Afrikaans[3]		dief	[dif]	'thief'	See Afrikaans phonology
Arabic	Standard[4]	دين/diin	[d̪iːn]	'religion'	See Arabic phonology
Catalan[5]		sic	[ˈsik]	'sic'	See Catalan phonology
Chinese	Mandarin[6][7]	七 / qī	[tɕʰi˥]	'seven'	See Standard Chinese phonology
Chuvash		çип	[ɕ̬ip]	'thread'
Czech[8][9]		bílý	[ˈbiːliː]	'white'	See Czech phonology
Dutch[10][11]		biet	[bit]	'beet'	See Dutch phonology
English[12]	All dialects	free	[fɹiː]	'free'	In certain dialects, it can be pronunced as a diphthong. See English phonology
	Australian[13]	bit	[bit]	'bit'	Also described as near-close front [ɪ̟].[14] See Australian English phonology
French[15][16]		fini	[fini]	'finished'	See French phonology
German[17][18]		Ziel	[t͡siːl]	'goal'	See Standard German phonology
Greek	Modern Standard[19][20]	κήπος / kípos	[ˈc̠ipo̞s̠]	'garden'	See Modern Greek phonology
Hungarian[21]		ív	[iːv]	'arch'	See Hungarian phonology
Italian[22]		bile	[ˈbiːle̞]	'rage'	See Italian phonology
Japanese[23]		銀/gin	[ɡʲiɴ]	'silver'	See Japanese phonology
Khmer		លទ្ធិ / lôtthĭ	[lattʰiʔ]	'doctrine'	See Khmer phonology
Korean[24]		아이 / ai	[ɐi]	'child'	See Korean phonology
Kurdish[25][26]	Kurmanji (Northern)	şîr	[ʃiːɾ]	'milk'	See Kurdish phonology
	Sorani (Central)	شیر/šîr
	Palewani (Southern)
Lithuanian		vyras	[viːrɐs̪]	'man'	See Lithuanian orthography
Malay	Malaysian Malay	ikut	[i.kʊt]	'to follow'	See Malay phonology
Polish[27]		miś	[ˈmʲiɕ]	'teddy bear'	See Polish phonology
Portuguese[28]		fino	[ˈfinu]	'thin'	Also occurs as an unstressed allophone of other vowels. May be represented by ⟨y⟩. See Portuguese phonology
Romanian[29]		insulă	[ˈin̪s̪ulə]	'island'	See Romanian phonology
Rungus[30]		rikot	[ˈri.kot]	'to come'
Russian[31]		лист/list	[lʲis̪t̪]	'leaf'	Will only be used after palatalized consonants. See Russian phonology
Serbo-Croatian[32]		vile	[ʋîle̞]	'hayfork'	See Serbo-Croatian phonology
Spanish[33]		tipo	[ˈt̪ipo̞]	'type'	Can be written by ⟨y⟩. See Spanish phonology
Sotho[34]		ho bitsa	[huˌbit͡sʼɑ̈]	'to call'	Contrasts close, near-close and close-mid front unrounded vowels.[34] See Sotho phonology
Swedish	Central Standard[35][36]	bli	[bliː]	'to stay'	See Swedish phonology
Thai[37]		กริช/krit	[krìt]	'dagger'
Turkish[38][39]		ip	[ip]	'rope'	See Turkish phonology
Ukrainian[40]		місто/misto	['misto]	'city, town'	See Ukrainian phonology
Welsh		es i	[eːs iː]	'I went'	See Welsh phonology
Yoruba[41]		síbí	[síbí]	'spoon'