IPA number 321 415 Unicode (hex) U+028A U+0308 | Entity (decimal) ʊ̈ X-SAMPA U\ or }_o | |
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The near-close central rounded vowel, or near-high central rounded vowel, is a vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The International Phonetic Alphabet can represent this sound in a number of ways (see the box on the right), but the most common symbols are ⟨ʊ̈⟩ (centralized [ʊ]) and ⟨ʉ̞⟩ (lowered [ʉ]) for a protruded vowel, and ⟨ʏ̈⟩ for a compressed vowel.
Contents
The third edition of the OED adopted an unofficial extension of the IPA, ⟨ᵿ⟩, that is a conflation of ⟨ʊ⟩ and ⟨ʉ⟩, and represents either [ʊ̈] or free variation between [ʊ] and [ə]. It is also used in a number of other publications, for example the well-known Accents of English written by John C. Wells, or the Deutsches Aussprachewörterbuch, one of the most popular pronunciation dictionaries for German.
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".
Near-close central protruded vowel
The near-close central protruded vowel is typically transcribed in IPA simply as ⟨ʊ̈⟩ or ⟨ʉ̞⟩. This article uses the first symbol. As there is no dedicated diacritic for protrusion in the IPA, symbol for the near-close central rounded vowel with an old diacritic for labialization, ⟨ ̫⟩, can be used as an ad hoc symbol ⟨ʊ̫̈⟩ or ⟨ʉ̫˕⟩ for the near-close central protruded vowel. Another possible transcription is ⟨ʊ̈ʷ⟩, ⟨ʉ̞ʷ⟩, ⟨ɪ̈ʷ⟩ or ⟨ɨ̞ʷ⟩ (a near-close central vowel modified by endolabialization), but this could be misread as a diphthong.
Features
Near-close central compressed vowel
As there is no official diacritic for compression in the IPA, the centering diacritic is used with the near-front rounded vowel [ʏ], which is normally compressed. Another possibility is ⟨ʏ̵⟩, a centralized [ʏ] by analogy with the close central vowels, though this symbol may not display properly in all browsers. Other possible transcriptions are ⟨ɨ̞͡β̞⟩ or ⟨ɪ̈͡β̞⟩ (simultaneous [ɨ̞] or [ɪ̈] and labial compression) and ⟨ɨ̞ᵝ⟩ or ⟨ɪ̈ᵝ⟩ ([ɨ̞] or [ɪ̈] modified with labial compression).