Close-mid back rounded vowel

Close-mid back rounded vowel
o
IPA number	307
Encoding
Entity (decimal)	`o`
Unicode (hex)	U+006F
X-SAMPA	`o`
Kirshenbaum	`o`
Braille
Sound
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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

Mid

Open

Paired vowels are: unrounded • rounded

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Close-mid back compressed vowel
o͍
ɤᵝ

The close-mid back rounded vowel, or high-mid back rounded vowel, is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨o⟩.

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".

The close-mid back protruded vowel is the most common variant of the close-mid back rounded vowel. It is typically transcribed in IPA simply as ⟨o⟩, and that is the convention used in this article. As there is no dedicated diacritic for protrusion in the IPA, the symbol for the close-mid back rounded vowel with an old diacritic for labialization, ⟨ ̫⟩, can be used as an ad hoc symbol ⟨o̫⟩ for the close-mid back protruded vowel. Another possible transcription is ⟨oʷ⟩ or ⟨ɤʷ⟩ (a close-mid back vowel modified by endolabialization), but this could be misread as a diphthong.

There is no dedicated diacritic for compression in the IPA. However, the compression of the lips can be shown with the letter ⟨β̞⟩ as ⟨ɤ͡β̞⟩ (simultaneous [ɤ] and labial compression) or ⟨ɤᵝ⟩ ([ɤ] modified with labial compression). The spread-lip diacritic ⟨ ͍ ⟩ may also be used with a rounded vowel letter ⟨o͍⟩ as an ad hoc symbol, but 'spread' technically means unrounded.

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