Open central unrounded vowel

Open central unrounded vowel
ä
a̠
ɑ̈
ɐ̞
IPA number	304 415
Encoding
Entity (decimal)	a​̈
Unicode (hex)	U+0061 U+0308
X-SAMPA	a_" or a_- or A_" or 6_o
Sound
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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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The open central unrounded vowel, or low central unrounded vowel, is a type of vowel sound, used in many spoken languages. While the International Phonetic Alphabet officially has no dedicated letter for this sound between front [a] and back [ɑ], it is normally written ⟨a⟩. If precision is required, it can be specified by using diacritics, such as centralized ⟨ä⟩ or retracted ⟨a̠⟩, but this is not common.

Acoustically, however, [a] is an extra-low central vowel. It is more common to use plain [a] for an open central vowel and, if needed, [æ] (officially near-open front vowel) for an open front vowel. Alternatively, Sinologists may use the letter ⟨ᴀ⟩ (small capital A). The IPA voted against officially adopting this symbol in 2011–2012.

The Hamont dialect of Limburgish has been reported to contrast long open front, central and back unrounded vowels, which is extremely unusual.

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