Near-open vowel

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A near-open vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a near-open vowel is that the tongue is positioned similarly to an open vowel, but slightly more constricted. Near-open vowels are sometimes described as lax variants of the fully-open vowels. The near-open vowels for which separate symbols exist in the International Phonetic Alphabet are:

• near-open front unrounded vowel [æ]
• near-open central vowel [ɐ]

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Last updated on Saturday May 19, 2007 at 16:15:30 PDT (GMT -0700)
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