Near-open front unrounded vowel

The near-open front unrounded vowel, or near-low front unrounded vowel, is a type of vowel sound. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨æ⟩, a lowercase of the ⟨Æ⟩ ligature. Both the symbol and the sound are commonly referred to as "ash".

Near-open front unrounded vowel
æ
IPA number	325
Audio sample
source · help
Encoding
Entity (decimal)	æ
Unicode (hex)	U+00E6
X-SAMPA	{
Braille
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IPA: Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i y	ɨ ʉ	ɯ u
Near-close	ɪ ʏ		ʊ
Close-mid	e ø	ɘ ɵ	ɤ o
Mid	e̞ ø̞	ə	ɤ̞ o̞
Open-mid	ɛ œ	ɜ ɞ	ʌ ɔ
Near-open	æ	ɐ
Open	a ɶ	ä	ɑ ɒ

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Legend: unrounded • rounded

The rounded counterpart of [æ], the near-open front rounded vowel (for which the IPA provides no separate symbol) has been reported to occur allophonically in Danish; see open front rounded vowel for more information.

In practice, ⟨æ⟩ is sometimes used to represent the open front unrounded vowel; see the introduction to that page for more information.

In IPA transcriptions of Hungarian and Valencian, this vowel is typically written with ⟨ɛ⟩.

Features

• Its vowel height is near-open, also known as near-low, which means the tongue is positioned similarly to an open vowel, but is slightly more constricted – that is, the tongue is positioned similarly to a low vowel, but slightly higher.
• Its vowel backness is front, which means the tongue is positioned forward in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant.
• It is unrounded, which means that the lips are not rounded.

Sagittal section of a vocal tract pronouncing the IPA sound ⟨æ⟩. Note that a wavy glottis in this diagram indicates a voiced sound.

Occurrence

Language		Word	IPA	Meaning	Notes
Afrikaans	Standard	perd	[pæːrt]	'horse'	Allophone of /ɛ/, in some dialects, before /k χ l r/. See Afrikaans phonology
Äiwoo		ikuwä	[ikuwæ]	'I go'	Distinguished from both [a] and [ɑ ~ ɒ].
Arabic	Standard	كتاب (kitāb)	[kiˈtæːb]	'book'	Allophone of /a/ in the environment of plain labial and coronal consonants as well as /j/ (depending on the speaker's accent). See Arabic phonology
Azerbaijani		Azərbaycan	[ɑːzæɾbɑjˈd͡ʒɑn]	'Azerbaijan'
Bambam		bätä	[ˈbætæ]	'stem'
Bashkir		йәй (yäy)	[jæj]ⓘ	'summer'
Bengali		ব্যাঙ/bêṅ	[bæŋ]	'frog'	Also pronounced as /ɛ/. See Bengali phonology
Bulgarian	Moesian dialects	млечен (mlečen)	[mlæt͡ʃɛn]	'made from milk'	Descendant of Proto-Slavic *ě in places where Standard Bulgarian would have /ɛ/. See Yat.
	Rup dialects				Descendant of Proto-Slavic *ě in all positions. See Yat.
	Teteven dialect	мъж (măž)	[mæʃ]	'man'	In place of Standard Bulgarian [ɤ̞] (written as ъ).
	Erkech dialect
Catalan	Majorcan (some speakers)	sac	[ˈs̺æc]	'bag'	Majorcan /a/-fronting. See Catalan phonology
	Valencian	raig	[ˈr̺æt͡ɕ]	'ray'	Palatal variant of /a/. It can be more open ([a]). See Catalan phonology
		terra	[ˈt̪ær̺æ̈]	'Earth, land'	Final unstressed /a/ (usually involving vowel harmony). Can be realized as rounded and/or back. See Catalan phonology
		tesi	[ˈt̪ɛ̞z̺ɪ]	'thesis'	Main realization of /ɛ/. Slightly more open and centralized (near-front) [æ̠] before liquids and in monosyllabics. See Catalan phonology
	Balearic (except Ibizan)				Main realization of /ɛ/. See Catalan phonology
Chechen		аьрзу (ärzu)	[ærzu]	'eagle'
Danish	Standard	dansk	[ˈtænˀsk]	'Danish'	Most often transcribed in IPA with ⟨a⟩ – the way it is realized by certain older or upper-class speakers. See Danish phonology
Dutch		pen	[pæn]	'pen'	Allophone of /ɛ/ before /n/ and coda /l/. In non-standard accents this allophone is generalized to other positions, where [ɛ] is used in Standard Dutch. See Dutch phonology
English	Cultivated New Zealand	cat	[kʰæt]ⓘ	'cat'	Higher in other New Zealand varieties. See New Zealand English phonology
	General American				See English phonology
	Conservative Received Pronunciation				Fully open [a] in contemporary RP. See English phonology
Estonian		väle	[ˈvæ̈le̞ˑ]	'agile'	Near-front. See Estonian phonology
Finnish		mäki	[ˈmæki]	'hill'	See Finnish phonology
French	Parisian	bain	[bæ̃]	'bath'	Nasalized; typically transcribed in IPA with ⟨ɛ̃⟩. See French phonology
	Quebec	ver	[væːʁ]	'worm'	Allophone of /ɛ/ before /ʁ/ or in open syllables, and of /a/ in closed syllables. See Quebec French phonology
German	Standard Austrian	erlauben	[æˈlɑɔ̯bn̩]	'allow'	Variant of pretonic [ɛɐ̯]. See Standard German phonology
	West Central German accents	oder	[ˈoːdæ]	'or'	Used instead of [ɐ]. See Standard German phonology
	Northern accents	alles	[ˈæləs]	'everything'	Lower and often also more back in other accents. See Standard German phonology
	Western Swiss accents	spät	[ʃpæːt]	'late'	Open-mid [ɛː] or close-mid [eː] in other accents; contrasts with the open-mid /ɛː/. See Standard German phonology
Greek	Macedonia	γάτα (gáta)	[ˈɣætæ]	'cat'	See Modern Greek phonology
	Thessaly
	Thrace
	Pontic	καλάθια (kaláthia)	[kaˈlaθæ]	'baskets'
Hindustani	Hindi	न्यूज़ीलैंड (Nyu Zilaind)	[njuːziːlænd]	'New Zealand'	An allophone of [ɛː] that appears in English loanwords. See Hindustani phonology.
	Urdu	نیوزی لینڈ (Nyu Zilaind)
Hungarian		nem	[næm]	'no'	Typically transcribed in IPA with ⟨ɛ⟩. See Hungarian phonology
Kanoê			[æː]	'tobacco'
Kazakh		әйел (äiel)	[æ̝ˈje̘l̪ʲ]	'woman'	Varies between near-open and open-mid.
Kurdish	Sorani (Central)	گاڵته (galte)	[gäːɫtʲæ]	'joke'	Equal to Palewani (Southern) front [a]. See Kurdish phonology
Lakon		rävräv	[ræβræβ]	'evening'
Limburgish		twelf	[ˈtβ̞æ̠ləf]	'twelve'	Front or near-front, depending on the dialect. The example word is from the Maastrichtian dialect, in which the vowel is near-front.
Lithuanian		jachtą	[ˈjæːxt̪aː]	'yacht' (accusative)	See Lithuanian phonology
Low Saxon	Including Sallandic	gläzen	[xɫæːzn̩]	'glasses'
Luxembourgish		Käpp	[kʰæpʰ]	'heads'	See Luxembourgish phonology
Norwegian	Urban East	lær	[læːɾ]	'leather'	See Norwegian phonology
Persian		هشت (hašt)	[hæʃt]	'eight'
Portuguese	Some dialects	pedra	[ˈpæðɾɐ]	'stone'	Stressed vowel. In other dialects closer /ɛ/. See Portuguese phonology
	Some European speakers	também	[tɐˈmæ̃]	'also'	Stressed vowel, allophone of nasal vowel /ẽ̞/.
Romanian	Bukovinian dialect	piele	[ˈpæle]	'skin'	Corresponds to [je] in standard Romanian. Also identified in some Central Transylvanian sub-dialects. See Romanian phonology
Russian		пять (pjatʹ)	[pʲætʲ]ⓘ	'five'	Allophone of /a/ between palatalized consonants. See Russian phonology
Serbo-Croatian	Zeta-Raška dialect	дан / dan	[d̪æn̪]	'day'	Regional reflex of Proto-Slavic *ь and *ъ. Sometimes nasalised.
Sinhala		ඇය (æya)	[æjə]	'she'
Slovak		mäso	[mæso]	'meat, flesh'	In conversation sometimes pronounced as [e] or [a]. See Slovak phonology
Swedish	Central Standard	ära	[²æːɾä]ⓘ	'hono(u)r'	Allophone of /ɛː, ɛ/ before /r/. See Swedish phonology
	Stockholm	läsa	[²læːsä]	'to read'	Realization of /ɛː, ɛ/ for younger speakers. Higher [ɛː, ɛ̝ ~ ɛ] for other speakers
Turkish		sen	[s̪æn̪]	'you'	Allophone of /e/ before syllable-final /m, n, l, r/. In a limited number of words (but not before /r/), it is in free variation with [e̞]. See Turkish phonology

See also

• Index of phonetics articles

References

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External links

• List of languages with [æ] on PHOIBLE