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Open back unrounded vowel
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - Cite This SourceThe open 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 symbol 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.
Features
- Its vowel height is open, which means the tongue is positioned as far as possible from the roof of 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
- Its vowel roundedness is unrounded, which means that the lips are not rounded.
Occurrence
| Language | Word | IPA | Meaning | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Angor | ape | 'father' | |||
| Dutch | bad | 'bath' | Backness varies among dialects. See Dutch phonology | ||
| English | Canadian | ball | 'ball' | See English phonology | |
| GA | spa | 'spa' | |||
| RP | |||||
| Finnish | kana | 'hen' | See Finnish phonology | ||
| French | pâte | 'dough' | Only in dialects that distinguish pâte from patte. See French phonology | ||
| Georgian | გუდა | [gudɑ] | 'leather bag' | ||
| Hungarian | bal | 'left' | See Hungarian phonology | ||
| Navajo | ashkii | 'boy' | |||
| Norwegian | hat | 'hate' | See Norwegian phonology | ||
| Plautdietsch | Gott | [gɑ̽t] | 'God' | ||
| Russian | палка | 'stick' | Only occurs both before /ɫ/ and after an unpalatalized consonant. See Russian phonology | ||
| Swedish | hаt | 'hate' | See Swedish phonology | ||
See also
References
Bibliography
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Last updated on Saturday March 08, 2008 at 16:44:01 PST (GMT -0800)
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