Low back rounded vowel
| Open back rounded vowel | |||
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| ɒ | |||
| ɔ̞ | |||
| IPA number | 313 | ||
| Encoding | |||
| Entity (decimal) | ɒ |
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| Unicode (hex) | U+0252 | ||
| X-SAMPA | Q |
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| Kirshenbaum | A. |
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| Braille |
 
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The open back rounded vowel, or low back rounded vowel, is a type of vowel sound, used in some spoken languages. Acoustically, it is a near-open or near-low back rounded vowel. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨ɒ⟩. It is called "turned script a", being a rotated version of "script (cursive) a", which is the variant of a that lacks the extra stroke on top of a "printed a". Turned script a ⟨ɒ⟩ has its linear stroke on the left, whereas "script a" ⟨ɑ⟩ (for its unrounded counterpart) has its linear stroke on the right.
A well-rounded [ɒ] is rare, but it is found in some varieties of English. In most languages with this vowel, such as English and Persian, the rounding of [ɒ] is slight, and in English at least, it is sulcal or "grooved". However, according to Ladefoged & Maddieson (1996), Assamese has an "over-rounded" [ɒ̹], with rounding as strong as that for [u].
According to the phonetician Geoff Lindsey, ⟨ɒ⟩ may be an entirely superfluous IPA symbol, as the sound it represents is far too similar to the open-mid back rounded vowel [ɔ], which makes it unlikely that any language would contrast these two vowels phonemically. He also writes that the contemporary Standard Southern British (SSB) accent lacks [ɒ], having replaced it with the more common [ɔ] (a realization that is also found in e.g. Australia,New Zealand and Scotland), and advocates for transcribing this vowel with the symbol ⟨ɔ⟩ in SSB.
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