Open front rounded vowel

Open front rounded vowel
ɶ
IPA Number	312
Audio sample
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Encoding
Entity (decimal)	ɶ
Unicode (hex)	U+0276
X-SAMPA	&
Braille
Image

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
IPA help  audio full chart template Legend: unrounded • rounded

The (near-)open front rounded vowel, or (near-)low front rounded vowel,^[1] is a type of vowel sound that has not been confirmed to be phonemic in any spoken language.^{[citation needed]} The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨ɶ⟩, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is &. The letter ⟨ɶ⟩ is the small caps rendition of ⟨Œ⟩. ⟨œ⟩, the lowercase version of the ligature, is used for the open-mid front rounded vowel.

While the IPA chart lists it as a fully open vowel, the rounded equivalent of [a], Ladefoged^[2] characterizes it as near-open, the rounded equivalent of [æ].

A phoneme generally transcribed by this symbol is reported from the Bavarian dialect of Amstetten. However, it is phonetically open-mid, [œ].^[3]

It occurs allophonically in Weert Limburgish^[4] as well as in some speakers of Danish^[5] and Swedish.^[6] Certain transcriptions of Danish use ⟨ɶ⟩ to denote an open-mid front rounded vowel [œ].^[5]

In Maastrichtian Limburgish, the vowel transcribed with ⟨ɶː⟩ in the Mestreechter Taol dictionary is phonetically near-open central [ɐ̹ː]. It is a phonological open-mid front rounded vowel, the long counterpart of /œ/.^[7]

Riad (2014) reports that [ɶː] in Stockholm Swedish is sometimes difficult to distinguish from [ɒː], which is the main realization of the /ɑː/ phoneme, a sign that both vowels are phonetically very close.^[6]