Close back protruded vowel
| Close back rounded vowel | |
|---|---|
| u | |
| IPA number | 308 |
| Encoding | |
| Entity (decimal) | u |
| Unicode (hex) | U+0075 |
| X-SAMPA | u |
| Kirshenbaum | u |
| Sound | |
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| Paired vowels are: unrounded • rounded | |||||||||||||||||||
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IPA help • IPA key • chart •  chart with audio •
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| Close back compressed vowel | |
|---|---|
| u͍ | |
| ɯᵝ |
The close back rounded vowel, or high back rounded vowel, is a type of vowel sound, used in many spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨u⟩, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is u.
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".
In most languages this rounded vowel is pronounced with protruded lips ('endolabial'). However, in a few cases the lips are compressed ('exolabial').
The close back rounded vowel is almost identical featurally to the labio-velar approximant [w]. [u] alternates with [w] in certain languages, such as French, and in the diphthongs of some languages, [u̯] with the non-syllabic diacritic and [w] are used in different transcription systems to represent the same sound.
The close back protruded vowel is the most common variant of the close back rounded vowel. It is typically transcribed in IPA simply as ⟨u⟩, and that is the convention used in this article. As there is no dedicated diacritic for protrusion in the IPA, symbol for the close back rounded vowel with an old diacritic for labialization, ⟨ ̫⟩, can be used as an ad hoc symbol ⟨u̫⟩ for the close back protruded vowel. Another possible transcription is ⟨uʷ⟩ or ⟨ɯʷ⟩ (a close back vowel modified by endolabialization), but this could be misread as a diphthong.
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