Close-mid front unrounded vowel: Encyclopedia II - Close-mid front unrounded vowel - Mid front unrounded vowel

Close-mid front unrounded vowel - Mid front unrounded vowel

Many languages, such as Spanish, Japanese, Korean, and Turkish, have a mid front unrounded vowel, which to speakers is clearly distinct from both the close-mid and open-mid vowels. However, since no language is known to distinguish all three, there is no separate IPA symbol for the mid vowel, and [e] is generally used. If precision is desired, the lowering diacritic can be used: [e̞].

Note that just because a language has only one non-close, non-open front vowel, that doesn't mean it's a cardinal mid vowel. Igbo, for example, has a close-mid [e], whereas Bulgarian has a open-mid [ɛ]; in neither language does this contrast with another open/close-mid vowel.

Close-mid front unrounded vowel - Occurs in

• Albanian: keq [ke̞c], 'bad'
• English: in GA, the first part of the diphthong [e̞ɪ], as in late [le̞ɪt], play [ple̞ɪ].
• Greek: επέτρεψε [e̞ˈpe̞tɾe̞pse̞], 's/he allowed'
• Italian: benché [be̞n'ke*], 'though'
• Japanese: 笑み [e̞mi], 'smile'
• Romanian: fete ['fe̞.te̞], 'girls'
• Spanish: bebé [be̞ˈβ̞e̞], 'baby'
• Turkish: kel [ke̞l], 'bald'

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Mid front unrounded vowel", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki