Open back unrounded vowel

Open back unrounded vowel
ɑ
IPA number	305
Encoding
Entity (decimal)	ɑ
Unicode (hex)	U+0251
X-SAMPA	A
Kirshenbaum	A
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Sound
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The open back unrounded vowel, or low back 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 ⟨ɑ⟩, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is A. The letter ⟨ɑ⟩ is called script a because it lacks the extra hook on top of a printed letter a, which corresponds to a different vowel, the open front unrounded vowel. Script a, which has its linear stroke on the bottom right, should not be confused with turned script a, ɒ, which has its linear stroke on the top left and corresponds to a rounded version of this vowel, the open back rounded vowel.

The Hamont dialect of Limburgish has been reported to contrast long open front, central and back unrounded vowels,^[1] which is extremely unusual.

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".

Features

IPA vowel chart
Front Near-​front Central Near-​back Back Close •iy •ɨʉ •ɯu •ɪʏ •ɪ̈ʊ̈ •ɯ̽ʊ •eø •ɘɵ •ɤo •e̞ø̞ •əɵ̞ •ɤ̞o̞ •ɛœ •ɜɞ •ʌɔ •æ •ɐɞ̞ •aɶ •äɒ̈ •ɑɒ Near-close Close-mid Mid Open-mid Near-open Open
Paired vowels are: unrounded • rounded
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IPA help • IPA key • chart •  chart with audio • view

• Its vowel height is open, also known as low, which means the tongue is positioned as far as possible from the roof of the mouth – that is, as low as possible in the mouth.

• Its vowel backness is back, which means the tongue is positioned as far back as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Note that 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.

Occurrence

Language		Word	IPA	Meaning	Notes
Afrikaans	Standard[2][3]	daar	[dɑːr]	'there'	See Afrikaans phonology
Angor		ape	[ɑpe]	'father'
Arabic	Standard[4]	طويل	[tˤɑˈwiːl]	'tall'	Allophone of long and short /a/ near emphatic consonants, depending on the speaker's accent. See Arabic phonology
Armenian	Eastern[4]	հաց	[hɑt͡sʰ]	'bread'
Assyrian Neo-Aramaic	Tyari dialects	baba	[bɑːba]	'father'	Corresponds to [a ~ ä] in other varieties.
Catalan	Many dialects[5]	pal	[ˈpɑɫ]	'stick'	Allophone of /a/ in contact with velar consonants.[5] See Catalan phonology
	Some dialects[6][7]	mà	[ˈmɑ]	'hand'	More central ([ɑ̟], [ä]) in other dialects; fully front [a] in Majorcan Catalan.[7]
	Some Valencian and Majorcan speakers[5]	lloc	[ˈl̠ʲɑk]	'place'	Unrounded allophone of /ɔ/ in some accents.[5] Can be centralized.
	Some southern Valencian speakers[8]	bou	[ˈbɑw]	'bull'	Pronunciation of the vowel /ɔ/ before [w].[8] Can be centralized.
Chinese	Mandarin	棒/bàng	[pɑŋ˥˩]	'stick'	Allophone of /a/ before /u, ŋ/. See Standard Chinese phonology
Danish	Conservative[9]	barn	[ˈb̥ɑːˀn]	'child'	Near-open;[9] realized as open central [äː] in contemporary Standard Danish.[10][11] See Danish phonology
Dutch	Standard[12][13]	bad	[bɑt]	'bath'	Backness varies among dialects; in the Standard Netherlandic accent it is fully back.[14][12] In the Standard Belgian accent it is raised and fronted to [ɑ̝̈].[13] See Dutch phonology
	Leiden[14]		[bɑ̝t]		Near-open fully back; can be rounded [ɒ̝] instead.[14] See Dutch phonology
	Rotterdam[14]
	Amsterdam[15]	aap	[ɑːp]	'monkey'	Corresponds to [aː ~ äː] in standard Dutch.
	Antwerp[16]
	Utrecht[16]
	The Hague[17]	nauw	[nɑː]	'narrow'	Corresponds to [ʌu] in standard Dutch.
English	Cardiff[18]	hot	[hɑ̝̈t]	'hot'	Somewhat raised and fronted.
	Norfolk[19]
	General American[20]		[hɑt]		May be more front [ɑ̟ ~ ä], especially in accents without the cot-caught merger. See English phonology
	Cockney[21]	bath	[bɑːθ]	'bath'	Fully back. It can be more front [ɑ̟ː] instead.
	General South African[22]				Fully back. Broad varieties usually produce a rounded vowel [ɒː ~ ɔː] instead, while Cultivated SAE prefers a more front vowel [ɑ̟ː ~ äː].
	Cultivated South African[23]		[bɑ̟ːθ]		Typically more front than cardinal [ɑ]. It may be as front as [äː] in some Cultivated South African and southern English speakers. See English phonology
	Received Pronunciation[24]
	Non-local Dublin[25]	back	[bɑq]	'back'	Allophone of /æ/ before velars for some speakers.[25]
Estonian[26]		vale	[ˈvɑ̝lɛˑ]	'wrong'	Near-open.[26] See Estonian phonology
Faroese	Some dialects[27]	vátur	[ˈvɑːtʊɹ]	'water'	Corresponds to /ɔɑ/ in standard language.[27] See Faroese phonology
Finnish[28]		kana	[ˈkɑ̝nɑ̝]	'hen'	Near-open,[28] also described as open central [ä].[29] See Finnish phonology
French	Conservative Parisian[30]	pas	[pɑ]	'not'	Contrasts with [a], but many speakers have only one open vowel [ä]. See French phonology
	Quebec	pâte	[pɑːt]	'paste'	See Quebec French phonology
Galician[31][32]		irmán	[iɾˈmɑŋ]	'brother'	Allophone of /a/ in contact with velar consonants.[31][32] See Galician phonology
Georgian[33]		გუდა	[ɡudɑ]	'leather bag'
German	Standard Austrian[34]	Tag	[tʰɑːɡ̊]	'day'	For other speakers it is more front. See Standard German phonology.
	Some Swiss speakers
	Some Northern German speakers		[tʰɑːx]
	Zurich dialect[35]	mane	[ˈmɑːnə]	'remind'	Allophone of /ɒ/, in free variation with [ɒ].[35]
Hungarian	Some dialects[36]	magyar	[ˈmɑɟɑr]	'Hungarian'	Weakly rounded [ɒ] in standard Hungarian.[37] See Hungarian phonology
Inuit	West Greenlandic[38]				Allophone of /a/ before and especially between uvulars.[38] See Inuit phonology
Kaingang[39]		[ˈᵑɡɑ]		'terra'	Varies between back [ɑ] and central [ɐ].[40]
Limburgish[1][41][42][43]		bats	[bɑts]	'buttock'	Backness varies from fully back [ɑ] to almost central [ɑ̟], depending on the dialect. The example word is from the Maastrichtian dialect.[43]
Luxembourgish[44][45]		Kapp	[kʰɑp]	'head'	Described variously as open near-back[44] and near-open back.[45] See Luxembourgish phonology
Malay	Kedah dialect[46]	mata	[matɑ]	'eye'	See Malay phonology
Navajo		ashkii	[ɑʃkɪː]	'boy'	See Navajo phonology
Norwegian	Standard Eastern[47][48][49]	hat	[hɑːt̻]	'hate'	See Norwegian phonology
	Fredrikstad[50]
	Stavangersk[51]
	Trondheimsk[50]
Plautdietsch		Gott	[ɡɑ̽t]	'God'
Russian[52]		палка	[ˈpɑɫkə]	'stick'	Occurs only before the hard /l/, but not when a palatalized consonant precedes. See Russian phonology
Sema[53]		amqa	[à̠mqɑ̀]	'lower back'	Possible realization of /a/ after uvular stops.[53]
Slovak[54][55]		a	[ɑ̟]	'and'	Near-back; possible realization of /a/.[54][56] See Slovak phonology
Swedish	Some dialects	jаg	[jɑːɡ]	'I'	Weakly rounded [ɒ̜ː] in Central Standard Swedish.[57] See Swedish phonology
Turkish[58]		at	[ɑt̪]	'horse'	Also described as central [ä].[59] See Turkish phonology
Ukrainian[60]		мати	[ˈmɑtɪ]	'mother'	See Ukrainian phonology
West Frisian		lang	[ɫɑŋ]	'long'

See also

• Index of phonetics articles

References

1. Verhoeven (2007), p. 221.
2. Lass (1984), pp. 76, 93–94 and 105.
3. Donaldson (1993), p. 7.
4. Thelwall & Sa'Adeddin (1990), p. 39.
5. Saborit (2009), p. 10.
6. Rafel (1999), p. 14.
7. Recasens (1996), pp. 90–92.
8. Recasens (1996), pp. 131–132.
9. Ladefoged & Johnson (2010:227)
10. Grønnum (1998:100)
11. Basbøll (2005:46)
12. Gussenhoven (1992), p. 47.
13. Verhoeven (2005), p. 245.
14. Collins & Mees (2003), p. 131.
15. Collins & Mees (2003), pp. 78, 104, 133.
16. Collins & Mees (2003), pp. 104, 133.
17. Collins & Mees (2003), p. 136.
18. Coupland (1990), p. 95.
19. Lodge (2009), p. 168.
20. Mannell, Cox & Harrington (2009).
21. Wells (1982), p. 305.
22. Lass (2002), p. 117.
23. Lass (2002), p. 116-117.
24. Roach (2004), p. 242.
25. "Glossary". Retrieved 10 February 2015.
26. Asu & Teras (2009:368)
27. Árnason (2011:69, 79)
28. Suomi, Toivanen & Ylitalo (2008), p. 21.
29. Maddieson (1984), cited in Suomi, Toivanen & Ylitalo (2008:21)
30. Ashby (2011), p. 100.
31. Regueira (1996), p. 122.
32. Freixeiro Mato (2006), pp. 72–73.
33. Shosted & Chikovani (2006), pp. 261–262.
34. Moosmüller, Schmid & Brandstätter (2015), pp. 342–344.
35. Fleischer & Schmid (2006), p. 248.
36. Vago (1980:1)
37. Szende (1994:92)
38. Fortescue (1990), p. 317.
39. Jolkesky (2009), pp. 676–677 and 682.
40. Jolkesky (2009), pp. 676 and 682.
41. Peters (2006), p. 119.
42. Heijmans & Gussenhoven (1998), p. 110.
43. Gussenhoven & Aarts (1999), p. 159.
44. Trouvain & Gilles (2009), p. 75.
45. Gilles & Trouvain (2013), p. 70.
46. Zaharani Ahmad (1991).
47. Berulfsen (1969), p. 10.
48. Skaug (2003), pp. 15–19.
49. Popperwell (2010), pp. 16, 23–24.
50. Vanvik (1979), p. 16.
51. Vanvik (1979), p. 17.
52. Jones & Ward (1969), p. 50.
53. Teo (2014:28)
54. Kráľ (1988:54)
55. Pavlík (2004:95)
56. Pavlík (2004:94–95)
57. Engstrand (1999), p. 141.
58. Göksel & Kerslake (2005), p. 10.
59. Zimmer & Orgun (1999), p. 155.
60. Danyenko & Vakulenko (1995), p. 4.

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