Near-open front unrounded vowel | |
---|---|
æ | |
IPA Number | 325 |
Encoding | |
Entity (decimal) | æ |
Unicode (hex) | U+00E6 |
X-SAMPA | { |
Braille | ![]() |
Audio sample | |
IPA: Vowels |
---|
Vowels beside dots are: unrounded • rounded |
The near-open front unrounded vowel, or near-low front unrounded vowel,[1] is a type of vowel sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨æ⟩, a lowercase of the ⟨Æ⟩ ligature. Both the symbol and the sound are commonly referred to as "ash".
The rounded counterpart of [æ], the near-open front rounded vowel (for which the IPA provides no separate symbol) has been reported to occur allophonically in Danish;[2][3] see open front rounded vowel for more information.
In practice, ⟨æ⟩ is sometimes used to represent the open front unrounded vowel; see the introduction to that page for more information.
In IPA transcriptions of Hungarian and Valencian, this vowel is typically written with ⟨?⟩.
Language | Word | IPA | Meaning | Notes | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Afrikaans | Standard[4] | perd | [pæ:rt] | 'horse' | Allophone of /?/, in some dialects, before /k ? l r/. See Afrikaans phonology |
Arabic | Standard[5] | ? / kit?b | [ki'tæ:b] | 'book' | Allophone of /a/ in the environment of plain labial and coronal consonants as well as /j/ (depending on the speaker's accent). See Arabic phonology |
Bashkir[6] | ??? / yäy | 'summer' | |||
Bengali[7] | ??/ek | [æk] | 'one' | Allophone of /?/ or /e/. See Bengali phonology | |
Catalan | Majorcan[8] | tesi | ['t?æzi] | 'thesis' | Main realization of /?/. See Catalan phonology |
Valencian[8] | |||||
Danish | Standard[2][9] | dansk | ['tænsk] | 'Danish' | Most often transcribed in IPA with ⟨a⟩ - the way it is realized by certain older or upper-class speakers.[10] See Danish phonology |
Dutch[11] | pen | [pæn] | 'pen' | Allophone of /?/ before /n/ and the velarized or pharyngealized allophone of /l/. In non-standard accents this allophone is generalized to other positions, where is used in Standard Dutch.[12] See Dutch phonology | |
English | Cultivated New Zealand[13] | cat | 'cat' | Higher in other New Zealand varieties. See New Zealand English phonology | |
General American[14] | See English phonology | ||||
Conservative Received Pronunciation[15] | Fully open in contemporary RP.[15] See English phonology | ||||
Estonian[16] | väle | ['væ?le] | 'agile' | Near-front.[16] See Estonian phonology | |
Finnish[17] | mäki | ['mæki] | 'hill' | See Finnish phonology | |
French | Parisian[18] | bain | [bæ?] | 'bath' | Nasalized; typically transcribed in IPA with ⟨⟩. See French phonology |
Quebec[19] | ver | [væ:?] | 'worm' | Allophone of /?/ before /?/ or in open syllables, and of /a/ in closed syllables.[19] See Quebec French phonology | |
German | Standard Austrian[20] | erlauben | [æ'lbm?] | 'allow' | Variant of pretonic .[20] See Standard German phonology |
West Central German accents[21] | oder | ['o:dæ] | 'or' | Used instead of .[21] See Standard German phonology | |
Northern accents[22] | alles | ['a?l?s] | 'everything' | Lower and often also more back in other accents.[22] See Standard German phonology | |
Western Swiss accents[23] | spät | [?pæ:t] | 'late' | Open-mid or close-mid in other accents; contrasts with the open-mid .[24] See Standard German phonology | |
Greek | Macedonia[25] | ????/gáta | ['?ætæ] | 'cat' | See Modern Greek phonology |
Thessaly[25] | |||||
Thrace[25] | |||||
Pontic[26] | /kaláthia | [ka'la?æ] | 'baskets' | ||
Hungarian[27] | nem | [næm] | 'no' | Typically transcribed in IPA with ⟨?⟩. See Hungarian phonology | |
Kurdish | Sorani (Central) | / gältyä | [gä:?t?æ] | 'joke' | Equal to Palewani (Southern) front . See Kurdish phonology |
Lakon[28] | rävräv | [ræ?ræ?] | 'evening' | ||
Limburgish[29][30][31] | twelf | ['tæ?l?f] | 'twelve' | Front[30][31] or near-front,[29] depending on the dialect. The example word is from the Maastrichtian dialect, in which the vowel is near-front. | |
Lithuanian | jacht? | ['jæ:xt?a:] | 'yacht' (accusative) | See Lithuanian phonology | |
Luxembourgish[32] | Käpp | [k?æp?] | 'heads' | See Luxembourgish phonology | |
Norwegian | Urban East[33][34] | lær | [læ:?] | 'leather' | See Norwegian phonology |
Persian[35][36] | /ha?t | [hæ?t] | 'eight' | ||
Portuguese | Some dialects[37] | pedra | ['pæd] | 'stone' | Stressed vowel. In other dialects closer . See Portuguese phonology |
Some European speakers[38] | também | [t?'mæ?] | 'also' | Stressed vowel, allophone of nasal vowel //. | |
Romanian | Bukovinian dialect[39] | piele | ['pæle] | 'skin' | Corresponds to [je] in standard Romanian. Also identified in some Central Transylvanian sub-dialects.[39] See Romanian phonology |
Russian[40][41] | ?? / pjat? | 'five' | Allophone of /a/ between palatalized consonants. See Russian phonology | ||
Serbo-Croatian | Zeta-Ra?ka dialect[42] | ???/dan | [d?æn?] | 'day' | Regional reflex of Proto-Slavic *? and *?. Sometimes nasalised.[42] |
Sinhala[43] | /æya | [æj?] | 'she' | ||
Slovak | Some speakers[44] | väzy | ['?æzi?] | 'ligaments' | Many speakers pronounce it the same as . See Slovak phonology |
Swedish | Central Standard[45][46][47] | ära | 'hono(u)r' | Allophone of /?:, ?/ before /r/. See Swedish phonology | |
Stockholm[47] | läsa | [²læ:sä] | 'to read' | Realization of /?:, ?/ for younger speakers. Higher [?:, ~ ?] for other speakers | |
Turkish[48] | sen | [s?æn?] | 'you' | Allophone of /e/ before syllable-final /m, n, l, r/. In a limited number of words (but not before /r/), it is in free variation with .[48] See Turkish phonology |