Central 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 | |||||
A central vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a central vowel is that the tongue is positioned halfway between a front vowel and a back vowel. The central vowels identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet are:
- close central unrounded vowel [ɨ]
- close central rounded vowel [ʉ]
- close-mid central unrounded vowel [ɘ]
- close-mid central rounded vowel [ɵ]
- mid central vowel [ə]
- open-mid central unrounded vowel [ɜ]
- open-mid central rounded vowel [ɞ]
- near-open central vowel [ɐ]