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Close-mid front unrounded vowel

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Vowels

Edit - 2×

Front

N.-front

Central

N.-back

Back

Close

Image:Blank vowel trapezoid.png

i • y

ɨ • ʉ

ɯ • u

ɪ • ʏ

• ʊ

e • ø

ɘ • ɵ

ɤ • o

ɛ • œ

ɜ • ɞ

ʌ • ɔ

a • ɶ

ɑ • ɒ

Near-close

Close-mid

Mid

Open-mid

Near-open

Open

Where symbols appear in pairs, the one to the right
represents a rounded vowel.

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

1 Close-mid front unrounded vowel
- 1.1 Features
- 1.2 Occurs in
2 Mid front unrounded vowel
- 2.1 Occurs in
3 Reference

[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] Occurs in

Dutch: één [eːn], "one"
English: (AuE) bed [bed] and bared [beːd]; (NZE) bed [be̝d]
- In RP, this vowel occurs only as the first part of the diphthong [eɪ], as in late [leɪt], play [pleɪ].
- In CaE, this vowel may occur alone in words like bait during rapid speech.
Faroese: eg [eː], "I"
French: beauté [bote], "beauty"
German: Seele [ˈzeːlə], "soul"
Hungarian: hét [heːt], "week, seven"
Norwegian: le [leː], "laugh"
Polish: dzień [dʑeɲ], "day"
Russian: шея [ˈʂejə], "neck"
Vietnamese: tê [tē], "numb"

[edit] Mid front unrounded vowel

Many languages, such as Spanish, Japanese, Korean, and Turkish, have a mid front unrounded vowel, which to speakers is clearly distinct from both the close-mid and open-mid vowels. 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].

Note that just because a language has only one non-close, non-open front vowel, that doesn't mean it's a cardinal mid vowel. Igbo, for example, has a close-mid [e], whereas Bulgarian has an open-mid [ɛ]; in neither language does this contrast with another open/close-mid vowel.

[edit] Occurs in

Albanian: keq [kec], "bad"
Croatian: deset [deset], "ten"
English: in GA, the first part of the diphthong [eɪ], as in late [leɪt]
Greek: επέτρεψε [eˈpetrepse], "s/he allowed"
Italian: benché [beŋˈke*], "though"; pesca (pésca) ['peska], "fishing" (as opposed to pesca, or pèsca, ['pɛska], "peach")
Japanese: 笑み [emi], "smile"
Romanian: fete [ˈfete], "girls"
Russian: человек [ʨɪlʌˈvʲek],
Spanish: bebé [beˈβe], "baby"
Turkish: kel [kel], "bald"