Mid back unrounded vowel

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Legend: unrounded • rounded

The mid back unrounded vowel is a type of vowel sound, used in some spoken languages. There is no dedicated symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents the exact mid back unrounded vowel between close-mid and open-mid , because no language is known to distinguish all three, but ⟨⟩ is normally used. If more precision is desired, diacritics can be used, such as ⟨⟩ or ⟨⟩.

Some of the vowels listed in the table below may phonetically be more front than typical back vowels, as near-back vowels. If precision is required, this may instead be called a mid near-back unrounded vowel.

Features

• Its vowel height is mid, which means the tongue is positioned halfway between a close vowel and an open vowel.
• Its vowel backness is back, which means the tongue is positioned back in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Unrounded back vowels tend to be centralized, which means that often they are in fact near-back.
• It is unrounded, which means that the lips are not rounded.