Vowels

v • d • e

See also: IPA, Consonants

e•d (enlarge)	Front	Near-front	Central	Near-back	Back
Close	i • y ɨ • ʉ ɯ • u ɪ  ʏ   ʊ e • ø ɘ • ɵ ɤ • o ə ɛ • œ ɜ • ɞ ʌ • ɔ æ ɐ a • ɶ ɑ • ɒ
Near‑close
Close‑mid
Mid
Open‑mid
Near‑open
Open

Where symbols appear in pairs, the one to the right
represents a rounded vowel.

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 an open vowel, but slightly more constricted. Near-open vowels are sometimes described as lax variants of the fully-open vowels^{citation needed}. The near-open vowels for which separate symbols exist in the International Phonetic Alphabet are:

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