Mid front rounded vowel

Mid front rounded vowel
ø̞
œ̝
IPA Number	310 430
Encoding
Entity (decimal)	ø​̞
Unicode (hex)	U+00F8 U+031E
X-SAMPA	2_o or 9_r
Braille

The mid front rounded vowel is a type of vowel sound, used in some spoken languages. Acoustically it is a mid front-central rounded vowel.

Although there is no dedicated symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents the "exact" mid front rounded vowel between close-mid [ø] and open-mid [œ], ⟨ø⟩ is generally used. If precision is desired, diacritics can be used, such as ⟨ø̞⟩ or ⟨œ̝⟩.

Mid front compressed vowel

The mid front compressed vowel is typically transcribed in IPA simply as ⟨ø̞⟩ or ⟨œ̝⟩. This article uses the first symbol for simplicity. There is no dedicated diacritic for compression in the IPA. However, the compression of the lips can be shown with the letter ⟨β̞⟩ as ⟨e̞͡β̞⟩ / ⟨ɛ̝͡β̞⟩ (simultaneous [e̞] / [ɛ̝] and labial compression) or ⟨e̞ᵝ⟩ / ⟨ɛ̝ᵝ⟩ ([e̞] / [ɛ̝] modified with labial compression). The spread-lip diacritic ⟨  ͍ ⟩ may also be used with a rounded vowel letters ⟨ø͍˕⟩ / ⟨œ͍˔⟩ as an ad hoc symbol, though technically 'spread' means unrounded.

Features

IPA vowel chart
Front Near-​front Central Near-​back Back Close •[[|i]][[|y]] •[[|ɨ]][[|ʉ]] •[[|ɯ]][[|u]] •[[|ɪ]][[|ʏ]] •[[|ɪ̈]][[|ʊ̈]] •[[|ɯ̽]][[|ʊ]] •[[|e]][[|ø]] •[[|ɘ]][[|ɵ]] •[[|ɤ]][[|o]] •[[|e̞]][[|ø̞]] •[[|ə]][[|ɵ̞]] •[[|ɤ̞]][[|o̞]] •[[|ɛ]][[|œ]] •[[|ɜ]][[|ɞ]] •[[|ʌ]][[|ɔ]] •[[|æ]] •[[|ɐ]][[|ɞ̞]] •[[|a]][[|ɶ]] •[[|ä]][[|ɒ̈]] •[[|ɑ]][[|ɒ]] Near-close Close-mid Mid Open-mid Near-open Open
Paired vowels are: unrounded • rounded
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• Its vowel height is mid, which means the tongue is positioned halfway between a close vowel and an open vowel.
• Its vowel backness is front, which means the tongue is positioned as far forward as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Note that rounded front vowels are often centralized, which means that often they are in fact near-front.
• Its roundedness is compressed, which means that the margins of the lips are tense and drawn together in such a way that the inner surfaces are not exposed.

Occurrence

Language		Word	IPA	Meaning	Notes
Bavarian	Amstetten dialect				Near-front.
Catalan	Northern	fulles	[ˈfø̞jəs]	'leaves'	Found in Occitan and French loanwords and interferences. See Catalan phonology
Danish	Standard	høne	[ˈhø̞̈ːnə]	'hen'	Near-front. Most often, it is transcribed in IPA with ⟨œː⟩. See Danish phonology
Dutch	Orsmaal-Gussenhoven dialect	mùl	[mø̞̈ɫ]	'well'	Near-front; typically transcribed in IPA with ⟨œ⟩. See Orsmaal-Gussenhoven dialect phonology
	Southern	mul		'dry'	Near-front; typically transcribed in IPA with ⟨ʏ⟩ or, more rarely, with ⟨ʉ⟩, ⟨ɵ⟩ or ⟨œ⟩. It corresponds to [ø̠] (also described as [ɵ] and [ʊ̈]) in Standard Dutch. See Dutch phonology
English	Broad South African	bird	[bø̞̈ːd]	'bird'	Near-front; may be close-mid [ø̠ː] instead. Realized as mid central unrounded [əː] in the Cultivated variety. See English phonology
	General South African
	New Zealand				Near-front. May be [ɵ̟ː] or [œ̈ː] instead. See English phonology
	Southeastern Welsh				Near-front.
	West Midlands
Estonian		köök	[kø̞̈ːk]	'kitchen'	Near-front. See Estonian phonology
Finnish		rölli	[ˈrø̞̈lːi]	'Common bent'	Near-front. See Finnish phonology
German	Standard	schön	<phonos file="de-schön.ogg">[ʃø̞̈ːn]</phonos>	'beautiful'	Near-front; also described as close-mid [ø̈ː]. See German phonology
	Bernese dialect				Typically transcribed in IPA with ⟨œ⟩. See Bernese German phonology
Hungarian		öl	[ø̞̈l]	'kill'	Near-front. See Hungarian phonology
Korean		쇠 soe	[sø̞̈ː]	'iron'	Near-front; Typically transcribed in IPA with ⟨ø⟩. Diphthongized to [we] in modern standard Korean. See Korean phonology
Limburgish	Maastrichtian	bös	[bø̞̈s]	'bus'	Near-front; typically transcribed in IPA with ⟨œ⟩.
	Weert dialect	bluts	[blø̞̈ts]	'bump'	Near-front; typically transcribed in IPA with ⟨ʏ⟩.
Romanian		bleu	[blø̞]	'light blue'	Found only in loanwords. See Romanian phonology
Slovak	Standard	Göteborg	[ˈjø̞t̻e̞bo̞rk]	'Gothenburg'	Only in loanwords; may be closer to [e̞] or [o̞] instead. Reported only by one source from 1988. See Slovak phonology
Turkish		göz	[ɟø̞̈z̪]	'eye'	Near-front; may be transcribed in IPA with ⟨œ⟩. See Turkish phonology
Võro

Mid front protruded vowel

Mid front protruded vowel
ø̫˕
œ̫˔
ø̞ʷ
œ̝ʷ
e̞ʷ
ɛ̝ʷ

Catford notes that most languages with rounded front and back vowels use distinct types of labialization, protruded back vowels and compressed front vowels. However, a few languages, such as Scandinavian ones, have protruded front vowels. One of these, Swedish, even contrasts the two types of rounding in front vowels (see near-close near-front rounded vowel, with Swedish examples of both types of rounding).

As there are no diacritics in the IPA to distinguish protruded and compressed rounding, ⟨ø̞ʷ⟩ (a mid front rounded vowel modified by endolabialization) will be used here as an ad hoc symbol for protruded mid front vowels.

Acoustically, this sound is "between" the more typical compressed mid front vowel [ø̞] and the unrounded mid front vowel [e̞].

Features

• Its vowel height is mid, which means the tongue is positioned halfway between a close vowel and an open vowel.
• Its vowel backness is front, which means the tongue is positioned as far forward as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Note that rounded front vowels are often centralized, which means that often they are in fact near-front.
• Its roundedness is protruded, which means that the corners of the lips are drawn together, and the inner surfaces exposed.

Occurrence

Language		Word	IPA	Meaning	Notes
Norwegian	Standard Eastern	søt	[sø̞ʷːt̻]	'sweet'	Near-front; typically transcribed in IPA with ⟨øː⟩. Also described as ranging from mid near-front [ø̽ː] to open-mid near-front [œ̠ː], close-mid near-front [ø̠ː] and close-mid central [ɵː]. See Norwegian phonology
Swedish	Central Standard	nött	<phonos file="sv-nött.ogg">[n̪ø̞ʷt̪ː]</phonos>	'worn' (past part. s.)	Near-front, typically transcribed in IPA with ⟨œ⟩. See Swedish phonology