Near-open 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 near-open vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a near-open vowel is that the tongue is positioned similarly to a open vowel, but slightly more constricted. Near-open vowels are sometimes described as lax variants of the fully-open vowels. The near-open vowels identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet are:

• near-open front unrounded vowel [æ]
• near-open central vowel [ɐ]

See also: Near-open vowel, Back vowel, Central vowel, Close-mid back rounded vowel, Close-mid back unrounded vowel, Close-mid central rounded vowel, Close-mid central unrounded vowel, Close-mid front rounded vowel