Close-mid back unrounded vowel

Close-mid back unrounded vowel
ɤ
IPA number 315
Encoding
Entity (decimal) ɤ
Unicode (hex) U+0264
X-SAMPA 7
Kirshenbaum o-
Braille ⠲ (braille pattern dots-256)⠕ (braille pattern dots-135)
Sound
source · help

The close-mid back unrounded vowel, or high-mid back unrounded vowel, is a type of vowel sound, used in some spoken languages. Acoustically it is a close-mid back-central unrounded vowel.[1] Its symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet is ɤ, called "ram's horns". It is distinct from the symbol for the voiced velar fricative, ɣ, which has a descender. Despite that, some writings[2] use this symbol for the voiced velar fricative, anyway.

The IPA prefers terms "close" and "open" for vowels, and the name of the article follows this. However, a large number of linguists, perhaps a majority, prefer the terms "high" and "low".

Before the 1989 IPA Convention, the symbol for the close-mid back unrounded vowel was , sometimes called "baby gamma", which has a flat top. The symbol was revised to be , "ram's horns", with a rounded top, in order to better differentiate it from the Latin gamma ɣ.[3] Unicode provides only U+0264 ɤ LATIN SMALL LETTER RAMS HORN (HTML ɤ), but in some fonts this character may appear as a "baby gamma" instead.

Features

IPA vowel chart
Front Near-front Central Near-back Back
Close
iy
ɨʉ
ɯu
ɪʏ
eø
ɘɵ
ɤo
ɛœ
ɜɞ
ʌɔ
æ
aɶ
ɑɒ
Near-close
Close-mid
Mid
Open-mid
Near-open
Open
Paired vowels are: unrounded  rounded
This table contains phonetic symbols, which may not display correctly in some browsers. [Help]

IPA help  IPA key  chart   chart with audio  view

Occurrence

Language Word IPA Meaning Notes
Alekano gamó [ɣɑmɤʔ] 'cucumber'
Chinese Mandarin /hē  [xɤ˥]  'to drink' See Standard Chinese phonology
Taiwanese Hokkien /ô [ɤ˧] 'oyster' Mostly southern Taiwanese speech
English Cape Flats dialect[4] foot [fɤt] 'foot' Possible realization of /ʊ/; may be [u] or [ʉ] instead.[4]
Indian South African[5] Possible realization of /ʊ/; may be a weakly rounded [ʊ] instead.[5]
Received Pronunciation[6] long ago [lɒŋ ɤ̟ˈɡəʊ̯] 'long ago' Near-back; possible allophone of /ə/ between velar consonants.[6] See English phonology
White South African[7] pill [pʰɤ̟ɫ] 'pill' Near-back; allophone of /ɪ/ before the velarised allophone of /l/.[7] Also described as close [ɯ̟].[8]
Irish Ulster[9] Uladh [ɤ̟l̪ˠu] 'Ulster' Near-back.[10] See Irish phonology
Kaingang[11] [ˈᵐbɤ] 'tail' Varies between back [ɤ] and central [ɘ][12]
Korean Gyeongsang dialect 거기/geogi [ˈkɤ̘ɡɪ] 'there' See Korean phonology
Northern Tiwa Taos dialect [ˌmã̀ˑˈpɤ̄u̯mã̄] 'it was squeezed' May be central [ɘ] instead. See Taos phonology
Önge önge [ˈɤŋe] 'man'
Scottish Gaelic doirbh [d̪̊ɤrʲɤv] 'difficult' See Scottish Gaelic phonology
Sundanese ieu [iɤ] 'this'
Thai[13] ธอ/thoe [tʰɤ̟ː] 'you' Near-back[13]
Xumi Upper[14] [Htsɤ] 'crown of a head' Occasional realization of /o/.[14]

See also

References

  1. Geoff Lindsey (2013) The vowel space, Speech Talk
  2. Such as Booij (1999) and Nowikow (2012).
  3. Nicholas, Nick (2003). "Greek-derived IPA symbols". Greek Unicode Issues. University of California, Irvine.
  4. 1 2 Finn (2004), p. 970.
  5. 1 2 Mesthrie (2004), p. 956.
  6. 1 2 Gimson (2014), p. 138.
  7. 1 2 Wells (1982), p. 617.
  8. Bowerman (2004), p. 936.
  9. Ní Chasaide (1999:114–115)
  10. Ní Chasaide (1999:114)
  11. Jolkesky (2009), pp. 676–677 and 682.
  12. Jolkesky (2009), pp. 676 and 682.
  13. 1 2 Tingsabadh & Abramson (1993), p. 25.
  14. 1 2 Chirkova, Chen & Kocjančič Antolík (2013), p. 389.

Bibliography

  • Booij, Geert (1999), The phonology of Dutch, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-823869-X 
  • Bowerman, Sean (2004), "White South African English: phonology", in Schneider, Edgar W.; Burridge, Kate; Kortmann, Bernd; Mesthrie, Rajend; Upton, Clive, A handbook of varieties of English, 1: Phonology, Mouton de Gruyter, pp. 931–942, ISBN 3-11-017532-0 
  • Chirkova, Katia; Chen, Yiya; Kocjančič Antolík, Tanja (2013), "Xumi, Part 2: Upper Xumi, the Variety of the Upper Reaches of the Shuiluo River" (PDF), Journal of the International Phonetic Association 43 (3): 381–396, doi:10.1017/S0025100313000169 
  • Finn, Peter (2004), "Cape Flats English: phonology", in Schneider, Edgar W.; Burridge, Kate; Kortmann, Bernd; Mesthrie, Rajend; Upton, Clive, A handbook of varieties of English, 1: Phonology, Mouton de Gruyter, pp. 934–984, ISBN 3-11-017532-0 
  • Gimson, Alfred Charles (2014), Cruttenden, Alan, ed., Gimson's Pronunciation of English (8th ed.), Routledge, ISBN 9781444183092 
  • Jolkesky, Marcelo Pinho de Valhery (2009), "Fonologia e prosódia do Kaingáng falado em Cacique Doble", Anais do SETA (Campinas: Editora do IEL-UNICAMP) 3: 675–685 
  • Mesthrie, Rajend (2004), "Indian South African English: phonology", in Schneider, Edgar W.; Burridge, Kate; Kortmann, Bernd; Mesthrie, Rajend; Upton, Clive, A handbook of varieties of English, 1: Phonology, Mouton de Gruyter, pp. 953–963, ISBN 3-11-017532-0 
  • Ní Chasaide, Ailbhe (1999), "Irish", Handbook of the International Phonetic Association, Cambridge University Press, pp. 111–16, ISBN 0-521-63751-1 
  • Nowikow, Wieczysław (2012) [First published 1992], Fonetyka hiszpańska (3rd ed.), Warsaw: Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN, ISBN 978-83-01-16856-8 
  • Tingsabadh, M. R. Kalaya; Abramson, Arthur S. (1993), "Thai", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 23 (1): 24–28, doi:10.1017/S0025100300004746 
  • Wells, John C. (1982), Accents of English 3: Beyond The British Isles, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0-521-28541-0 
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