IPA number 395 Unicode (hex) U+025E Kirshenbaum O" | Entity (decimal) ɞ X-SAMPA 3\ | |
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The open-mid central rounded vowel, or low-mid central rounded vowel, is a vowel sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨ɞ⟩, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is 3\. The symbol is called closed reversed epsilon. It was added to the IPA in 1993; before that, this vowel was transcribed ⟨ɔ̈⟩.
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".
Due to either typographic or design error, IPA charts were published with this vowel transcribed as a closed epsilon, ⟨ʚ⟩, and this graphic variant made its way into Unicode as U+029A ʚ LATIN SMALL LETTER CLOSED OPEN E. The form ⟨ɞ⟩ (U+025E ɞ LATIN SMALL LETTER CLOSED REVERSED OPEN E) is considered correct.