Near-open front unrounded vowel

Near-open front unrounded vowel
æ
IPA Number	325
Encoding
Entity (decimal)	æ
Unicode (hex)	U+00E6
X-SAMPA	{
Braille

The near-open front unrounded vowel, or near-low front unrounded vowel, is a type of vowel sound, used in some spoken languages. Acoustically it is simply an open or low front unrounded vowel. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨æ⟩, a lowercase of the ⟨Æ⟩ ligature. Both the symbol and the sound are commonly referred to as "ash".

The rounded counterpart of [æ], the near-open front rounded vowel (for which the IPA provides no separate symbol) has been reported to occur allophonically in Danish; see open front rounded vowel for more information.

In practice, ⟨æ⟩ is sometimes used to represent the open front unrounded vowel; see the introduction to that page for more information.

Features

IPA: Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i y	ɨ ʉ	ɯ u
Near-close	ɪ ʏ		ʊ
Close-mid	e ø	ɘ ɵ	ɤ o
Mid	e̞ ø̞	ə	ɤ̞ o̞
Open-mid	ɛ œ	ɜ ɞ	ʌ ɔ
Near-open	æ	ɐ
Open	a ɶ	ä	ɑ ɒ

---

• IPA help
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Legend: unrounded • rounded

• Its vowel height is near-open, also known as near-low, which means the tongue is positioned similarly to an open vowel, but is slightly more constricted – that is, the tongue is positioned similarly to a low vowel, but slightly higher.
• Its vowel backness is front, which means the tongue is positioned forward in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant.
• It is unrounded, which means that the lips are not rounded.

Occurrence

Language		Word	IPA	Meaning	Notes
Afrikaans	Standard	perd	[pæːrt]	'horse'	Allophone of /ɛ/ before sequences /rs/, /rt/, /rd/ and, in some dialects, before /k x l r/. See Afrikaans phonology
Arabic	Standard	كتاب		'book'	Allophone of /a/ in the environment of plain labial and coronal consonants as well as /j/ (depending on the speaker's accent). See Arabic phonology
Catalan	Valencian	tesi	[ˈt̪æzi]	'thesis'	Main realization of /ɛ/. See Catalan phonology
		set	[s̠æ̠t̪]	'seven'	Near-front. Allophone of /ɛ/ found in contact with liquids and in monosyllabic terms. Typically transcribed in IPA with ⟨ɛ⟩
	Majorcan
	Minorcan
	Some Valencian and Balearic speakers	llamp	[ʎ̟æmp]	'lightning'	Allophone of /a/ in contact with palatal consonants. In some variants it can merge with /ɛ/.
	Western Catalan	taula	[ˈt̪ɑ̟wɫæ̝]	'table'	Somewhat retracted. Unstressed allophone of /a/ in the coda. It can alternate with rounded allophones in the Valencian dialects.
Danish	Standard	[[[Danish alphabet|Dansk]]] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)	[ˈd̥ænsɡ̊]	'Danish'	Most often transcribed in IPA with ⟨a⟩ - the way it is realized by certain older or upper-class speakers. See Danish phonology
English	Australian	cat		'cat'	Many younger speakers realize it as fully open [a], whereas in broader accents it may be open-mid [ɛ]. See English phonology and Australian English phonology
	Cultivated New Zealand				Higher in other New Zealand varieties. See New Zealand English phonology
	General American
	Received Pronunciation				Lower [a] for many younger speakers
	Norfolk		[kʰæ̠t]		Near-front.
	Cockney	town	[tˢæːn]	'town'	May be lower [aː] or a diphthong [æə̯] instead. It corresponds to /aʊ̯/ in other dialects
Estonian		väle	[ˈvæ̠le̞ˑ]	'agile'	Near-front. See Estonian phonology
Finnish		mäki	[ˈmæki]	'hill'	See Finnish phonology
French	Parisian	bain	[bæ̃]	'bath'	Nasalized; typically transcribed in IPA with ⟨ɛ̃⟩. See French phonology
	Quebec	ver	[væːʁ]	'worm'	Allophone of /ɛ/ before /ʁ/ or in open syllables, and of /a/ in closed syllables. See Quebec French phonology
German	Standard	Teint	[tʰæ̃ː]	'complexion'	Nasalized; also described as open-mid [ɛ̃ː]. Typically transcribed in IPA with ⟨ɛ̃ː⟩. Present only in loanwords. See Standard German phonology
	Northern accents	alles	[ˈæləs]	'everything'	Lower and often also more back in other accents. See Standard German phonology
	Standard Austrian	oder	[ˈoːdæ]	'or'	Used by some speakers instead of [ɐ]. See Standard German phonology
	West Central German accents				Used instead of [ɐ]. See Standard German phonology
	Western Swiss accents	spät	[ʃpæːt]	'late'	Open-mid [ɛː] or close-mid [eː] in other accents; contrasts with the open-mid /ɛː/. See Standard German phonology
Greek	Macedonia	γάτα/gáta	[ˈɣætæ]	'cat'	See Modern Greek phonology
	Thessaly
	Thrace
	Pontic	καλάθια/kaláthia	[kaˈlaθæ]	'baskets'
Hungarian		nem	[næm]	'no'	Typically transcribed in IPA with ⟨ɛ⟩. See Hungarian phonology
Lakon		rävräv	[ræβræβ]	'evening'
Limburgish	Hasselt dialect	mès	[mæs²]	'knife'
	Maastrichtian	twelf	[ˈtβ̞æ̠ləf]	'twelve'	Near-front.
Luxembourgish	Standard	Käpp	[kʰæpʰ]	'heads'	See Luxembourgish phonology
	Some speakers	Kap	[kʰæːpʰ]	'cap'	Possible phonetic realization of /aː/; more often open near-front [a̠ː] instead. See Luxembourgish phonology
Norwegian	Urban East	lær	[læːɾ]	'leather'	See Norwegian phonology
Portuguese	Some dialects	pedra	[ˈpæðɾɐ]	'stone'	Stressed vowel. In other dialects closer /ɛ/. See Portuguese phonology
	Some European speakers	também	[tɐˈmæ̃]	'also'	Stressed vowel, allophone of nasal vowel /ẽ̞/.
Ripuarian	Kerkrade dialect	dem	[dæm]		Allophone of /ɛ/ before /m, n, ŋ, l, ʀ/.
Romanian	Bukovinian dialect	piele	[pæle]	'skin'	Corresponds to [je] in standard Romanian. Also identified in some Central Transylvanian sub-dialects. See Romanian phonology
Russian		пять		'five'	Allophone of /a/ between palatalized consonants. See Russian phonology
Slovak		väzy	[ˈʋæzɪ]	'ligaments'	Somewhat rare pronunciation, with [ɛ] being more common. See Slovak phonology
Swedish	Central Standard	[[[Swedish alphabet|ära]]] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)		'honour'	Allophone of /ɛː, ɛ/ before /r/. See Swedish phonology
	Stockholm	läsa	[²læːsä]	'to read'	Realization of /ɛː, ɛ/ for younger speakers. Higher [ɛː, ɛ̝ ~ ɛ] for other speakers
Turkish		sen	[s̪æn̪]	'you'	Allophone of /e/ before syllable-final /m, n, l, r/. In a limited number of words (but not before /r/), it is in free variation with [e̞]. See Turkish phonology

See also

• Index of phonetics articles

Bibliography

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