Close central rounded vowel

Close central rounded vowel
ʉ
IPA Number318
Audio sample
Encoding
Entity (decimal)ʉ
Unicode (hex)U+0289
X-SAMPA}
Braille⠴ (braille pattern dots-356)⠥ (braille pattern dots-136)
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A spectrogram of /ʉ/.

The close central rounded vowel, or high central rounded vowel,[1] is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨ʉ⟩, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is }. The sound is also commonly referred to by the name of its symbol, "barred u".

The close central rounded vowel is the vocalic equivalent of the rare labialized post-palatal approximant [ẅ].[2]

In most languages this rounded vowel is pronounced with protruded lips (endolabial). However, in a few cases the lips are compressed (exolabial).

Some languages feature the near-close central rounded vowel (listen), which is slightly lower. It is most often transcribed in IPA with ⟨ʉ̞⟩, ⟨ʊ̈⟩ and ⟨ʊ̟⟩, but ⟨ɵ̝⟩ is also a possible transcription. The symbol ⟨ᵿ⟩, a conflation of ⟨ʊ⟩ and ⟨ʉ⟩, is used as an unofficial extension of the IPA to represent this sound by a number of publications, such as Accents of English by John C. Wells. In the third edition of the Oxford English Dictionary, ⟨ᵿ⟩ represents free variation between /ʊ/ and /ə/.

  1. ^ While the International Phonetic Association prefers the terms "close" and "open" for vowel height, many linguists use "high" and "low".
  2. ^ Instead of "post-palatal", it can be called "retracted palatal", "backed palatal", "palato-velar", "pre-velar", "advanced velar", "fronted velar" or "front-velar".