Open-mid back unrounded vowel

Open-mid back unrounded vowel
ʌ
IPA number	314
Encoding
Entity (decimal)	ʌ
Unicode (hex)	U+028C
X-SAMPA	V
Kirshenbaum	V
Braille
Image
Sound
source · help

The open-mid back unrounded vowel, or low-mid back unrounded vowel, is a type of vowel sound, used in some spoken languages. Acoustically it is an open-mid back-central unrounded vowel.^[1] The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨ʌ⟩, graphically a rotated lowercase "v" (called a turned V, though it was created as a small-capital ⟨ᴀ⟩ without the crossbar), and both the symbol and the sound are commonly referred to as either a wedge, a caret, or a hat. In transcriptions for English, this symbol is commonly used for the near-open central unrounded vowel, whereas in transcriptions for Danish, it is used for the (somewhat mid-centralized) open back rounded vowel.

The IPA prefers the terms "close" and "open" for vowels, and the name of the article follows this. However, linguists are known to use the terms "high" and "low".

Features

IPA vowel chart
Front Near-​front Central Near-​back Back Close i • y ɨ • ʉ ɯ • u ɪ • ʏ ɪ̈ • ʊ̈ ɯ̽ • ʊ e • ø ɘ • ɵ ɤ • o e̞ • ø̞ ə • ɵ̞ ɤ̞ • o̞ ɛ • œ ɜ • ɞ ʌ • ɔ æ •  ɐ • ɞ̞ a • ɶ ä • ɒ̈ ɑ • ɒ 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

• Its vowel height is open-mid, also known as low-mid, which means the tongue is positioned halfway between an open vowel (a low vowel) and a mid vowel.

• 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
English	Cape Town[2]	lot	[lʌ̟t]	'lot'	Near-back.[2] It corresponds to a weakly rounded [ɒ̈] in all other South African dialects.
	Natal[2]
	Cardiff[3]	thought	[θʌ̟ːt]	'thought'	Near-back,[3] for some speakers it may be rounded and closer. See English phonology
	General South African[4]	no	[nʌː]	'no'	May be a diphthong [ʌʊ̯] instead.[5]
	General American[6]	gut	[ɡʌt]	'gut'	In most dialects, fronted to [ɜ], or fronted and lowered to [ɐ]. See English phonology and Northern Cities Vowel Shift
	Inland Northern American[7]
	Multicultural London[8]
	Newfoundland[9]
	Philadelphia[10]
	Scottish[11]
	Some Estuary English speakers[12]
French	Picardy[13]	alors	[aˈlʌʀ̥]	'so'	Corresponding to /ɔ/ in standard French.
German	Chemnitz dialect[14]	machen	[ˈmʌχɴ̩]	'to do'	Allophone of /ʌ, ʌː/ (which phonetically are central [ɜ, ɜː])[15] before and after /ŋ, kʰ, k, χ, ʁ/. Exact backness varies; it is most posterior before /χ, ʁ/.[16] See Chemnitz dialect phonology
Haida[17]		[qʰwʌʔáːj]		'the rock'	Allophone of /a/ (sometimes also /aː/) after uvular and epiglottal consonants.[18]
Irish	Ulster dialect[19]	ola	[ʌl̪ˠə]	'oil'	See Irish phonology
Kaingang[20]		[ˈɾʌ]		'mark'	Varies between back [ʌ] and central [ɜ].[21]
Kensiu[22]		[hʌ̟ʎ]		'stream'	Near-back.[22]
Korean[23]		별/byeol	[pjʌl]	'star'	See Korean phonology
Lillooet					Retracted counterpart of /ə/.
Russian	Standard Saint Petersburg[24]	голова	[ɡəɫ̪ʌˈvä]	'head'	Corresponds to [ɐ] in standard Moscow pronunciation;[24] occurs mostly immediately before stressed syllables. See Russian phonology
Tamil[25]					Nasalized. Phonetic realization of the sequence /am/, may be [õ] or [ã] instead.[25] See Tamil phonology

Before World War II, the /ʌ/ of Received Pronunciation was phonetically close to a back vowel [ʌ]; this sound has since shifted forward towards [ɐ] (a near-open central unrounded vowel). Daniel Jones reports his speech (southern British), as having an advanced back vowel [ʌ̟] between his central /ə/ and back /ɔ/; however, he also reports that other southern speakers had a lower and even more advanced vowel approaching cardinal [a].^[26] In American English varieties, e.g. the West and Midwest, and the urban South, the typical phonetic realization of the phoneme /ʌ/ is an open-mid central [ɜ].^[27][28] Truly backed variants of /ʌ/ that are phonetically [ʌ] can occur in Inland Northern American English, Newfoundland English, Philadelphia English, some African-American Englishes, and (old-fashioned) white Southern English in coastal plain and Piedmont areas.^[29][30] Despite this, the letter ⟨ʌ⟩ is still commonly used to indicate this phoneme, even in the more common varieties with central variants [ɐ] or [ɜ]. This may be due to both tradition as well as the fact that some other dialects retain the older pronunciation.^[31]

References

1. Geoff Lindsey (2013) The vowel space, Speech Talk
2. Lass (2002), p. 115.
3. Collins & Mees (1990), p. 95.
4. Wells (1982), pp. 614, 621.
5. Wells (1982), p. 614.
6. Wells (1982), p. 485.
7. W. Labov, S. Ash and C. Boberg (1997), A national map of the regional dialects of American English, Department of Linguistics, University of Pennsylvania, retrieved May 27, 2013
8. Gimson (2014), p. 91.
9. Thomas (2001), pp. 27–28, 61–63.
10. Thomas (2001), pp. 27–28, 73–74.
11. Scobbie, Gordeeva & Matthews (2006), p. 7.
12. Altendorf & Watt (2004), p. 188.
13. "Picardie : phonétique". Retrieved 29 January 2015.
14. Khan & Weise (2013), pp. 235, 238.
15. Khan & Weise (2013), p. 236.
16. Khan & Weise (2013), p. 238.
17. Lawrence (1977), pp. 32–33.
18. Lawrence (1977), pp. 32–33, 36.
19. Ní Chasaide (1999), pp. 114–115.
20. Jolkesky (2009), pp. 676–677, 682.
21. Jolkesky (2009), pp. 676, 682.
22. Bishop (1996), p. 230.
23. Lee (1999).
24. Yanushevskaya & Bunčić (2015), p. 225.
25. Keane (2004), p. 114.
26. Jones (1972), pp. 86–88.
27. Gordon (2004b), p. 340.
28. Tillery & Bailey (2004), p. 333.
29. Thomas (2001), pp. 27–28, 112–115, 121, 134, 174.
30. Gordon (2004a), pp. 294–296.
31. Roca & Johnson (1999), p. 135.

Bibliography

• Altendorf, Ulrike; Watt, Dominic (2004), "The dialects in the South of England: 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. 181–196, ISBN 3-11-017532-0
• Bishop, Nancy (1996), "A preliminary description of Kensiu (Maniq) phonology" (PDF), Mon–Khmer Studies Journal, 25
• Collins, Beverley; Mees, Inger M. (1990), "The Phonetics of Cardiff English", in Coupland, Nikolas; Thomas, Alan Richard, English in Wales: Diversity, Conflict, and Change, Multilingual Matters Ltd., pp. 87–103, ISBN 1-85359-032-0
• Gimson, Alfred Charles (2014), Cruttenden, Alan, ed., Gimson's Pronunciation of English (8th ed.), Routledge, ISBN 9781444183092
• Gordon, Matthew (2004a), "New York, Philadelphia and other Northern Cities", in Kortmann, Bernd; Schneider, Edgar W., A Handbook of Varieties of English: Volume 1: Phonology, Walter de Gruyter, pp. 294–296, ISBN 3-11-017532-0
• Gordon, Matthew (2004b), "The West and Midwest: phonology", in Kortmann, Bernd; Schneider, Edgar W., A Handbook of Varieties of English: Volume 1: Phonology, Walter de Gruyter, p. 340, ISBN 3-11-017532-0
• 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
• Jones, Daniel (1972), An outline of English phonetics (9th ed.), Cambridge: W. Heffer & Sons Ltd.
• Keane, Elinor (2004), "Tamil", Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 34 (1): 111–116, doi:10.1017/S0025100304001549
• Khan, Sameer ud Dowla; Weise, Constanze (2013), "Upper Saxon (Chemnitz dialect)" (PDF), Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 43 (2): 231–241, doi:10.1017/S0025100313000145
• Lass, Roger (2002), "South African English", in Mesthrie, Rajend, Language in South Africa, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 9780521791052
• Lawrence, Erma (1977), Haida dictionary, Fairbanks: Alaska Native Language Center
• Lee, Hyun Bok (1999), "Korean", Handbook of the International Phonetic Association, Cambridge University Press, pp. 120–122, ISBN 0-521-63751-1
• Ní Chasaide, Ailbhe (1999). "Irish". Handbook of the International Phonetic Association. Cambridge University Press. pp. 111–116. ISBN 0-521-63751-1.
• Roca, Iggy; Johnson, Wyn (1999), Course in Phonology, Blackwell Publishing
• Scobbie, James M; Gordeeva, Olga B.; Matthews, Benjamin (2006), Acquisition of Scottish English Phonology: an overview, Edinburgh: QMU Speech Science Research Centre Working Papers
• Thomas, Erik R. (2001), "An acoustic analysis of vowel variation in New World English", Publication of the American Dialect Society, Duke University Press for the American Dialect Society, 85, ISSN 0002-8207
• Tillery, Jan; Bailey, Guy (2004), "The urban South: phonology", in Kortmann, Bernd; Schneider, Edgar W., A Handbook of Varieties of English: Volume 1: Phonology, Walter de Gruyter, p. 333, ISBN 3-11-017532-0
• Wells, J.C. (1982). Accents of English 3: Beyond the British Isles. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-28541-0.
• Yanushevskaya, Irena; Bunčić, Daniel (2015), "Russian", Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 45 (2): 221–228, doi:10.1017/S0025100314000395