Close central unrounded vowel

Close central unrounded vowel
ɨ
ï
ɯ̈
IPA number	317
Encoding
Entity (decimal)	ɨ
Unicode (hex)	U+0268
X-SAMPA	1
Kirshenbaum	i"
Braille
Image
Sound
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The close central unrounded vowel, or high central unrounded vowel, is a type of vowel sound used in some languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ɨ, namely the lower-case letter i with a horizontal bar. Both the symbol and the sound are commonly referred to as barred i. In American tradition this symbol (and the name "barred i") denote a slightly different sound, that of the second syllable of roses when distinct from Rosa's;^[1] see also near-close central unrounded vowel.

Occasionally, this vowel is transcribed ⟨ï⟩ (centralized ⟨i⟩) or ⟨ɯ̈⟩ (centralized ⟨ɯ⟩).^[2]

The close central unrounded vowel is the vocalic equivalent of the rare post-palatal approximant [j̈].^[3]

Features

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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• Its vowel height is close, also known as high, which means the tongue is positioned as close as possible to the roof of the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant.

• Its vowel backness is central, which means the tongue is positioned halfway between a front vowel and a back vowel.

• It is unrounded, which means that the lips are not rounded.

Occurrence

/ɨ/ is uncommon as a phoneme in Indo-European languages, occurring most commonly as an allophone in some Slavic languages. However, it is very common as a separate phoneme in the indigenous languages of the Americas and is often in phonemic contrast with other close vowels such as /i/ and /u/ both in modern living languages as well as reconstructed proto-languages (such as Proto-Uto-Aztecan). Campbell, Kaufman & Smith-Stark (1986) identify the presence of this vowel phoneme as an areal feature of a Mesoamerican Sprachbund (although that is not a defining feature of the entire area).

Language		Word	IPA	Meaning	Notes
Acehnese		tupeue	[tupɨə]	'to know'	Asyik[4] and Al-Ahmadi Al-Harbi[5] describe this sound as such while Durie[6] describes it as closer to [ɯ]
Angor		hüfᵻ	[xɨβə]	'hot'
Czech	Some dialects	byl	[bɨɫ]	'he was'	Found in some eastern Moravian, Lach and Silesian dialects. See Czech phonology
Chinese	Mandarin	日 rì	[ɻɨ̹˥˩]	'day'	See Mandarin phonology
English	Southeastern English[7]	rude	[ɹɨːd]	'rude'	May be rounded [ʉː], or a diphthong [ʊʉ̯~əʉ̯] instead.
Guaraní		yvy	[ɨʋɨ]	'earth'
Hausa[8]					Allophone of /i/.[8]
Irish	Munster[9]	caora	[kɨ̟ːɾˠə]	'sheep'	Somewhat fronted;[9] allophone of /i/ between broad consonants.[9] See Irish phonology
Kaingang		fy	[ɸɨ]	'seed'
Kashinawa
Kashmiri[10]		teer	[ˈt̪ɨːr]	'cold'
Latgalian[11]		dyžan	[ˈd̪ɨʒän̪]	'very much'	See Latgalian phonology
Mongolian[12]		хүчир	[xutʃʰɨɾɘ̆]	'difficult'
Muisca	Hycha[13]	hycha	[hɨʂa]	'I'
Romanian		înot	[ɨˈn̪o̞t̪]	'I swim'	See Romanian phonology
Russian[14]		ты	[t̪ɨ]	'you' (singular)	Occurs only after unpalatalized consonants. See Russian phonology
Sahaptin[15]		[kʼsɨt]		'cold'	Epenthetic. No lengthened equivalent
Sama	Sibutu[16]	[pɨˈnɨt̪]		'beard'
Sema[17]		sü	[ʃɨ̀]	'to hurt'	Also described as near-close [ɨ̞].[18]
Shipibo[19]		tenaitianronki	[ˈt̪ɨnɐi̞ti̞ɐ̃ɽõ̞ɣi̞]		Possible realization of /ɯ/ after coronal consonants.[19]
Sirionó[20]		[eˈsɨ]		'dry wood'
Swedish		bi	[bɨː]	'bee'	Found in dialects in Närke and Bohuslän and in sociolects in Stockholm and Gothenburg. See Swedish phonology
Tamil[21]		ஆனால்	[äːnäːlɨ]	'but'	Epenthetic vowel inserted in colloquial speech after word-final liquids; can be rounded [ʉ] instead.[21] See Tamil phonology
Tera[22]		zu	[zɨ]	'said'
Udmurt[23]		ургетэ, ыргетэ[24]	[ɨrgete]	'it growls'
Uzbek		qiz	[qɨz]	'girl'	Allophone of /i/.
Vietnamese		trưa	[ʈɨə˧]	'noon'	See Vietnamese phonology
Võro		sysar	[sɨsarʲ]	'sister'
Welsh	Northern dialects[25]	llun	[ɬɨːn]	'picture'	See Welsh phonology
Zapotec	Tilquiapan[26]	nɨ	[nɨ]	'be sour'

The sound of Polish ⟨y⟩ is often represented as /ɨ/, but actually it is a close-mid advanced central unrounded vowel, more narrowly transcribed [ɘ̟].^[27] Similarly, European Portuguese unstressed ⟨e⟩, often represented as /ɨ/, is actually a near-close near-back unrounded vowel,^[28] more narrowly transcribed using ad hoc symbols such as [ɯ̽] (mid-centralized), [ɯ̟] (fronted) and [ʊ̜] (less rounded i.e. unrounded).

See also

• Index of phonetics articles

References

1. Flemming, E., Johnson, S. (2007), "Rosa’s roses: reduced vowels in American English", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 37/1, pp. 83–96.
2. See e.g. Gimson (2014:133), who transcribes the unrounded central realization of the English GOOSE vowel /uː/ with the symbol [ɯ̈ː].
3. Instead of "post-palatal", it can be called "retracted palatal", "backed palatal", "palato-velar", "pre-velar", "advanced velar", "fronted velar" or "front-velar".
4. Asyik, Abdul Gani (1982), "The agreement system in Acehnese" (PDF), Mon-Khmer Studies, 11: 1–33, archived from the original (PDF) on 5 June 2013, retrieved 9 November 2012
5. Al-Ahmadi Al-Harbi, Awwad Ahmad (2003), "Acehnese coda condition: An optimality-theoretic account", Umm Al-Qura University Journal of Educational and Social Sciences and Humanities, 15: 9–21
6. Mid-vowels in Acehnese
7. Lodge (2009:174)
8. Schuh & Yalwa (1999:90)
9. Ó Sé (2000)
10. "Koshur: Spoken Kashmiri: A Language Course: Transcription". Retrieved 16 January 2016.
11. Nau (2011:9–10)
12. Iivonen & Harnud (2005:62, 66–67)
13. González de Perez (2005:50)
14. Jones & Ward (1969:33)
15. Hargus & Beavert (2002)
16. Allison (1979:198)
17. Teo (2014:28)
18. Teo (2012:368)
19. Valenzuela, Márquez Pinedo & Maddieson (2001:283)
20. Firestone (1965:?)
21. Keane (2004), p. 114.
22. Tench (2007:230)
23. Iivonen & Harnud (2005:64, 68)
24. ургетыны [Udmurt-Russian dictionary] (in Russian)
25. Ball (1984:?)
26. Merrill (2008:109)
27. Jassem (2003:105)
28. Cruz-Ferreira (1995:91)

Bibliography

• Allison, E. Joseph (1979), "The phonology of Sibutu Sama: A language of the southern Philippines" (PDF), Studies in Philippine Linguistics, 3 (2): 63–104
• Cruz-Ferreira, Madalena (1995), "European Portuguese", Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 25 (2): 90–94, doi:10.1017/S0025100300005223
• Ball, Martin J. (1984), "Phonetics for phonology", in Ball, Martin J.; Jones, G.E, Welsh Phonology, Cardiff: University of Wales Press, ISBN 0-7083-0861-9
• Campbell, Lyle; Kaufman, Terrence; Smith-Stark, Thomas C (1986), "Meso-America as a linguistic area", Language, 62 (3): 530–570, doi:10.2307/415477, JSTOR 415477
• Firestone, Homer L. (1965), "Description and classification of Sirionó: A Tupí-Guaraní language.", Janua linguarum, Series Practica (16), London: Mouton & Co
• Gimson, Alfred Charles (2014), Cruttenden, Alan, ed., Gimson's Pronunciation of English (8th ed.), Routledge, ISBN 9781444183092
• Hargus, Sharon; Beavert, Virginia (2002), "Predictable versus Underlying Vocalism in Yakima Sahaptin", International Journal of American Linguistics, 68 (3): 316–340, doi:10.1086/466492
• Iivonen, Antti; Harnud, Huhe (2005), "Acoustical comparison of the monophthong systems in Finnish, Mongolian and Udmurt", Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 35 (1): 59–71, doi:10.1017/S002510030500191X
• Jassem, Wiktor (2003), "Polish", Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 33 (1): 103–107, doi:10.1017/S0025100303001191
• Jones, Daniel; Ward, Dennis (1969), The Phonetics of Russian, Cambridge University Press
• Keane, Elinor (2004), "Tamil", Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 34 (1): 111–116, doi:10.1017/S0025100304001549
• Lodge, Ken (2009), A Critical Introduction to Phonetics, Continuum International Publishing Group, ISBN 978-0-8264-8873-2
• Merrill, Elizabeth (2008), "Tilquiapan Zapotec" (PDF), Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 38 (1): 107–114, doi:10.1017/S0025100308003344
• Nau, Nicole (2011), A short grammar of Latgalian, Munich: Lincom Europa, ISBN 978-3-86288-055-3
• Ó Sé, Diarmuid (2000), Gaeilge Chorca Dhuibhne (in Irish), Dublin: Institiúid Teangeolaíochta Éireann, ISBN 0-946452-97-0
• Schuh, Russell G.; Yalwa, Lawan D. (1999), "Hausa", Handbook of the International Phonetic Association, Cambridge University Press, pp. 90–95, ISBN 0-521-63751-1
• Tench, Paul (2007), "Tera", Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 37 (1): 228–234, doi:10.1017/s0025100307002952
• Teo, Amos B. (2012), "Sumi (Sema)", Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 42 (03): 365–373, doi:10.1017/S0025100312000254
• Teo, Amos B. (2014), A phonological and phonetic description of Sumi, a Tibeto-Burman language of Nagaland (PDF), Canberra: Asia-Pacific Linguistics, ISBN 978-1-922185-10-5
• Valenzuela, Pilar M.; Márquez Pinedo, Luis; Maddieson, Ian (2001), "Shipibo", Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 31 (2): 281–285, doi:10.1017/S0025100301002109