Close-mid front unrounded vowel

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IPA – number	302
IPA – text	e
IPA – image
Entity	e
X-SAMPA	e
Kirshenbaum	e
Sound sample (help·info)

Contents 1 Close-mid front unrounded vowel 1.1 Features 1.2 Occurrence 2 Mid front unrounded vowel 2.1 Occurrence 3 References 4 Bibliography

[edit] Close-mid front unrounded vowel

The close-mid front unrounded vowel is a type of vowel sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is e, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is e.

[edit] Features

• Its vowel height is close-mid, which means the tongue is positioned halfway between close vowel and a mid vowel.
• Its vowel backness is front, which means the tongue is positioned as far forward as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant.
• Its vowel roundedness is unrounded, which means that the lips are not rounded.

[edit] Occurrence

Language		Word	IPA	Meaning	Notes
Catalan[1]		cec	[sek]	'blind'	See Catalan phonology
Dutch		vreemd	[vreːmt]	'strange'	See Dutch phonology
English	Australian	bed	[bed]	'bed'	See Australian English phonology
	New Zealand
	Canadian	play	[pleː]	'play'	In more careful speech, may be diphthongized as in RP: [eɪ][citation needed]
Faroese		eg	[eː]	'I'
French[2]		beauté	[bote]	'beauty'	See French phonology
Georgian[3]		მეფჱ	[mɛpʰej]	'king'
German		Seele	[ˈzeːlə]	'soul'	See German phonology
Hungarian		hét	[heːt]	'week, seven'	See Hungarian phonology
Italian[4]		stelle	[ˈstelle]	'stars'	See Italian phonology
Korean		베다/peda	[ˈpeːda]	'to cut'	See Korean phonology
Norwegian		le	[leː]	'laugh'	See Norwegian phonology
Polish		dzień	[dʑeɲ]	'day'	See Polish phonology
Portuguese[5]		mesa	[meza]	'table'	See Portuguese phonology
Russian[6]		шея	[ˈʂejə]	'neck'	Occurs only before soft consonants. See Russian phonology
Swedish		se	[seː]	'see'	See Swedish phonology
Vietnamese		tê	[tē]	'numb'	See Vietnamese phonology

[edit] Mid front unrounded vowel

Many languages, Spanish, Japanese, Korean, Greek and Turkish, have a mid front unrounded vowel that is clearly distinct to speakers from both the close-mid and open-mid vowels. A number of dialects of such as English also have such a mid-front vowel. However, since no language is known to distinguish all three, there is no separate IPA symbol for the mid vowel, and [e] is generally used. If precision is desired, the lowering diacritic can be used: [e̞].

Although many languages have only one non-close, non-open front vowel, there is no predisposition for it being mid. Igbo, for example, has a close-mid [e], whereas Bulgarian has an open-mid [ɛ] even though these languages don't contrast said vowels with another front mid vowel.

[edit] Occurrence

In the following transcriptions, the lowering diacritic has been omitted for the sake of simplicity.

Language		Word	IPA	Meaning	Notes
Albanian		keq	[kec]	'bad'
Croatian		deset	[deset]	'ten'
English	Yorkshire[7]	play	[pleː]	'play'	See English phonology
Finnish		menen	[menen]	'I (will) go'
Greek		φαινόμενο	[feˈnomeˌno]	'phenomenon'	See Modern Greek phonology
Japanese		笑み	[emi]	'smile'	See Japanese phonology
Korean		베개	[peˈɡɛ]	'pillow'	See Korean phonology
Romanian		fete	[ˈfete]	'girls'	See Romanian phonology
Russian[8]		человек	[ʨɪlɐˈvʲek]	'person'	Occurs only after soft consonants. See Russian phonology
Serbian		жена/žena	[ʒena]	'woman'
Spanish[9]		bebé	[beˈβ̞e]	'baby'	See Spanish phonology
Turkish		kel	[kel]	'bald'	See Turkish phonology

[edit] References

[edit] Bibliography

• Carbonell, Joan F. & Joaquim Llisterri (1992), "Catalan", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 22 (1-2): 53-56
• Cruz-Ferreira, Madalena (1995), "European Portuguese", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 25 (2): 90-94
• Fougeron, Cecile & Caroline L Smith (1993), "Illustrations of the IPA:French", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 23 (2): 73-76
• Jones, Daniel & Ward Dennis (1969), The Phonetics of Russian, Cambridge University Press
• Martínez-Celdrán, Eugenio; Ana Ma. Fernández-Planas & Josefina Carrera-Sabaté (2003), "Castilian Spanish", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 33 (2): 255-259
• Roca, Iggy & Wyn Johnson (1999), A Course in Phonology, Blackwell Publishing
• Rogers, Derek & Luciana d'Arcangeli (2004), "Italian", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 34 (1): 117-121
• Shosted, Ryan K. & Chikovani Vakhtang (2006), "Standard Georgian", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 36 (2): 255-264