Encyclopedia
Close-mid front unrounded vowel
Vowel sound represented by ⟨e⟩ in IPA
IPA: Vowels
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | i y | ɨ ʉ | ɯ u |
| Near-close | ɪ ʏ | ʊ | |
| Close-mid | e ø | ɘ ɵ | ɤ o |
| Mid | e̞ ø̞ | ə | ɤ̞ o̞ |
| Open-mid | ɛ œ | ɜ ɞ | ʌ ɔ |
| Near-open | æ | ɐ | |
| Open | a ɶ | ä | ɑ ɒ |
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Legend: unrounded • rounded
The close-mid front unrounded vowel, or high-mid 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 ⟨e⟩.
For the close-mid front unrounded vowel that is usually transcribed with the symbol ⟨ɪ⟩ or ⟨i⟩, see near-close front unrounded vowel. If the usual symbol is ⟨e⟩, the vowel is listed here.
01Features
- Its vowel height is close-mid, also known as high-mid, which means the tongue is positioned halfway between a close vowel (a high vowel) and a mid vowel.
- Its vowel backness is front, which means the tongue is positioned forward in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant.
- It is unrounded, which means that the lips are not rounded.
![Spectrogram of [e]](https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d1/Spectrogram_close-mid_front_unrounded_vowel_%28IPA_e%29.png/960px-Spectrogram_close-mid_front_unrounded_vowel_%28IPA_e%29.png)
02Occurrence
| Language | Word | IPA | Meaning | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Afrikaans | Standard | bed | [bet] | 'bed' | Typically transcribed in IPA with ⟨ɛ⟩. The height varies between close-mid [e] and mid [ɛ̝]. See Afrikaans phonology |
| Arabic | Standard | مَجۡر۪ىٰهَا/majrēhā | [mad͡ʒ.reː.haː] | See imalah | |
| Azerbaijani | gecə/گئجه | [ɟeˈd͡ʒæ] | 'night' | ||
| Bengali | ভেজা | [bʱeʒɐ] | 'wet' | See Bengali phonology | |
| Bavarian | Amstetten dialect | ||||
| Breton | eget | [eˈɡet] | 'than' | ||
| Catalan | Most dialects | séc | [ˈs̺ek] | 'fold' | See Catalan phonology |
| Western | sec | 'dry' | Historical pronunciation, corresponding to /ɛ/ in Central Catalan and /ə/ in many Balearic subdialects. See Catalan phonology | ||
| Chinese | Shanghainese | 该/kè | [ke̠ʔ˩] | 'should' | Near-front; realization of /ɛ/, which appears only in open syllables. Phonetically, it is nearly identical to /ɪ/ ([ɪ̞]), which appears only in closed syllables. |
| Chuvash | эрешмен/ereşmen | [erɛʃ'mɛnʲ] | 'spider' | ||
| Danish | Standard | hæl | [ˈheːˀl] | 'heel' | Typically transcribed in IPA with ⟨ɛː⟩. See Danish phonology |
| Dutch | Belgian | vreemd | [vreːmt] | 'strange' | In the Netherlands often diphthongized to [eɪ]. See Dutch phonology |
| English | Australian | bed | [bed] | 'bed' | See Australian English phonology |
| New Zealand | The height varies from near-close in broad varieties to mid in the Cultivated variety. See New Zealand English phonology | ||||
| General American | may | [meː] | 'may' | Most often a closing diphthong [eɪ]. | |
| General Indian | Realized closer to [j̚e]. | ||||
| General Pakistani | Can be a diphthong [eɪ] instead, depending on speaker. | ||||
| Geordie | |||||
| Scottish | |||||
| Singaporean | |||||
| Ulster | Pronounced [ɛː~iə] in Belfast. | ||||
| Some Cardiff speakers | square | [skweː] | 'square' | More often open-mid [ɛː]. | |
| Scouse | May (less commonly) be less open [ɪː] or more open [ɛː] instead, among various other allophones. | ||||
| Scottish | bit | [bë̞ʔ] | 'bit' | Near-front, may be [ɪ] (also [ə]) instead for other speakers. | |
| Estonian | keha | [ˈkeɦɑ̝ˑ] | 'body' | See Estonian phonology | |
| French | beauté | [bot̪e] | 'beauty' | See French phonology | |
| German | Standard | Seele | [ˈzeːlə]ⓘ | 'soul' | See Standard German phonology |
| Many speakers | Jäger | [ˈjeːɡɐ] | 'hunter' | Outcome of the /ɛː-eː/ merger found universally in Northern Germany, Eastern Germany and Eastern Austria (often even in formal speech) and in some other regions. See Standard German phonology | |
| Southern accents | Bett | [b̥et] | 'bed' | Common realization of /ɛ/ in Southern Germany, Switzerland and Austria. See Standard German phonology | |
| Swabian accent | Contrasts with the open-mid [ɛ]. See Standard German phonology | ||||
| Greek | Sfakian | Corresponds to mid [e̞] in Modern Standard Greek. See Modern Greek phonology | |||
| Hebrew | כן/ken | [ke̞n] | 'yes' | Hebrew vowels are not shown in the script, see Niqqud and Modern Hebrew phonology | |
| Hindustani | Hindi | तेज़/tez | [t̪eːz] | 'fast', 'sharp' | See Hindustani phonology |
| Urdu | تیز/tez | ||||
| Hungarian | hét | [heːt̪] | 'seven' | Also described as mid [e̞ː]. See Hungarian phonology | |
| Italian | Standard | stelle | [ˈs̪t̪elle] | 'stars' | See Italian phonology |
| Khmer | ទុរេន / turen | [tureːn] | 'durian' | See Khmer phonology | |
| Korean | 메아리 / meari | [meɐɾi] | 'echo' | See Korean phonology | |
| Limburgish | Most dialects | leef | [leːf] | 'dear' | The example word is from the Maastrichtian dialect. |
| Lithuanian | tėtė | [t̪eːt̪eː] | 'father' | 'Tete' and 'tėtis' are more commonly used than 'tėtė.' | |
| Malay | Standard | kecil | [kə.t͡ʃel] | 'small' | Allophone of /i/ in closed-final syllables. May be [ɪ] or [e̞] depending on the speaker. See Malay phonology |
| habis | [ha.bes] | 'run out' | Allophone of [ɪ]. See Malay phonology | ||
| Malayalam | ചെവി/čevi | [ȶ͡ɕeʋi] | 'ear' | See Malayalam phonology | |
| Marathi | एक/ek | [e:k] | 'one' | See Marathi phonology | |
| Norwegian | le | [leː] | 'laugh' | The example word is from Urban East Norwegian. See Norwegian phonology | |
| Mpade | faɗe | [faɗe] | 'night' | ||
| Persian | سه/se | [se] | 'three' | ||
| Polish | dzień | [d͡ʑeɲ̟]ⓘ | 'day' | Allophone of /ɛ/ between palatal or palatalized consonants. See Polish phonology | |
| Portuguese | mesa | [ˈmezɐ] | 'table' | See Portuguese phonology | |
| Romanian | umple | [ˈumple] | 'to fill' | See Romanian phonology | |
| Russian | шея/šeja | [ˈʂejə]ⓘ | 'neck' | Close-mid [e] before and between soft consonants, mid [e̞] after soft consonants. See Russian phonology | |
| Saterland Frisian | tään | [te̠ːn] | 'thin' | Near-front; typically transcribed in IPA with ⟨ɛː⟩. Phonetically, it is nearly identical to /ɪ/ ([ɪ̞]). The vowel typically transcribed in IPA with ⟨eː⟩ is actually near-close [e̝ː]. | |
| Slovene | sedem | [ˈsèːdəm] | 'seven' | See Slovene phonology | |
| Sotho | ho jwetsa | [hʊ̠ʒʷet͡sʼɑ̈] | 'to tell' | Contrasts close, near-close and close-mid front unrounded vowels. See Sotho phonology | |
| Swedish | Central Standard | se | [s̪eː] | 'see' | Often diphthongized to [eə̯] (hear the word: [s̪eə̯]ⓘ). See Swedish phonology |
| Tahitian | vahine | [vahine] | 'woman' | ||
| Tamil | செவி/čevi | [ȶ͡ɕeʋi] | 'ear' | See Tamil phonology | |
| Ukrainian | ефі́рний efirný | [eˈfirnɪj] | 'ethereal' | See Ukrainian phonology | |
| Welsh | chwech | [χweːχ] | 'six' | See Welsh phonology | |
| Yoruba | ẹ̀yín | [no example] | 'eye' | See Yoruba phonology | |
Sources and credits
This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Close-mid front unrounded vowel”, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.
Images, from Wikimedia Commons:
- IPA Unicode 0x0065.svg by es:R2D2!, Public domain
- Spectrogram close-mid front unrounded vowel (IPA e).png by Lee Ball, CC0
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