Close front unrounded vowel
| Vowels | |||||
| front | near-front | central | near-back | back | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 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 | |||||
| IPA – text | i |
| IPA – image | |
| entity | i |
| X-SAMPA | i |
| Kirshenbaum | i |
| Sound sample | |
|---|---|
The close front 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 i, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is i.
Features
- Its vowel height is close, which means the tongue is positioned as close as possible to the roof of the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant.
- Its vowel backness is front, which means the tongue is positioned as far forward 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.
Occurs in
The vowel [i] is a very common vowel, as it occurs in most languages – even languages that have only three vowels almost always include [i]. A languages that lacks [i] is one with an extremely marginal vowel phonology.
- English: (RP, GA and AuE) beet [biːt]
- French: fini [fiˈni], 'finished'
- German: Ziel [tsiːl], 'goal'
- Spanish: tipo [ˈtipo], 'type'
- Swedish: is [iːʲs], 'ice'
Categories: Vowel