Close-Mid Front Unrounded Vowel

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.

Close-mid front unrounded vowel
e
IPA Number302
Audio sample
Encoding
Entity (decimal)e
Unicode (hex)U+0065
X-SAMPAe
Braille⠑ (braille pattern dots-15)

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.

Features

Occurrence

Language Word IPA Meaning Notes
Afrikaans Standard[2] bed [bet] 'bed' Typically transcribed in IPA with ɛ. The height varies between close-mid [e] and mid [ɛ̝].[2] See Afrikaans phonology
Arabic Standard مَجۡر۪ىٰهَا/majreha [mad͡ʒ.reː.haː] See imalah
Azerbaijani ge [ɟeˈd͡ʒæ] 'night'
Bavarian Amstetten dialect [example needed]
Breton daneg [ˈdãːnek] 'the Danish language' Unstressed /ɛ/ can be mid [ɛ̝] or close-mid [e] instead.
Catalan séc [ˈsek] 'fold' See Catalan phonology
Chinese Shanghainese /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
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
Scottish bit [bë̞ʔ] 'bit' Near-front, may be [ɪ] (also [ə]) instead for other speakers.
Cockney bird [bɛ̝̈ːd] 'bird' Near-front; occasional realization of /ɜː/. It can be rounded [œ̝ː] or, more often, unrounded central [ɜ̝ː] instead. Typically transcribed in IPA with ɜː.
Estonian keha [ˈkeɦɑ̝ˑ] 'body' See Estonian phonology
French beauté [bot̪e] 'beauty' See French phonology
German Standard Seele '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 [example needed] Corresponds to mid [] 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 के/ke [keː] 'of' See Hindustani phonology
Urdu کے/ke
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 kecil [kə.t͡ʃel] 'small' Allophone of /i/ in closed-final syllables. May be [ɪ] or [] depending on the speaker. 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
Persian سه/se [se] 'three'
Polish dzień '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 '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 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: ). 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 [example needed]

See also

Notes

Tags:

Close-Mid Front Unrounded Vowel FeaturesClose-Mid Front Unrounded Vowel OccurrenceClose-Mid Front Unrounded VowelInternational Phonetic AlphabetLanguageVowel

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