Close mid central unrounded vowel

The close-mid central unrounded vowel, or high-mid central 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 ⟨ɘ⟩. This is a mirrored letter e, and should not be confused with the schwa ⟨ə⟩, which is a turned e. It was added to the IPA in 1993; before that, this vowel was transcribed ⟨ë⟩ (Latin small letter e with umlaut, not Cyrillic small letter yo). Certain older sources transcribe this vowel ⟨ɤ̈⟩.

The ⟨ɘ⟩ letter may be used with a lowering diacritic ⟨ɘ̞⟩, to denote the mid central unrounded vowel.

The IPA prefers terms "close" and "open" for vowels, and the name of the article follows this. However, a large number of linguists, perhaps a majority, prefer the terms "high" and "low".

To type this symbol on most keyboards, press and hold the ALT key while typing "600" using the number pad keys.