Back vowel

	front	near-front	central	near-back	back
Vowels

close	i • y		ɨ • ʉ		ɯ • u
near-close		ɪ • ʏ		ʊ
close-mid	e • ø		ɘ • ɵ		ɤ • o
mid			ə
open-mid	ɛ • œ		ɜ • ɞ		ʌ • ɔ
near-open	æ		ɐ
open	a • ɶ				ɑ • ɒ

Table of vowels – List of vowels

A back vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a back vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far back as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. The back vowels identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet are:

close back unrounded vowel [ɯ]
close back rounded vowel [u]
close-mid back unrounded vowel [ɤ]
close-mid back rounded vowel [o]
open-mid back unrounded vowel [ʌ]
open-mid back rounded vowel [ɔ]
open back unrounded vowel [ɑ]
open back rounded vowel [ɒ]