Close vowel
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| Vowels | |||||
| front | near-front | central | near-back | back | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| close | • | • | • | ||
| near-close | • | ||||
| close-mid | • | • | • | ||
| mid | |||||
| open-mid | • | • | • | ||
| near-open | |||||
| open | • | • | |||
| Table of vowels - List of vowels | |||||
A close vowel is a type of vowel sound used in many spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a close vowel is that 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. Close vowels are often referred to as high vowels because the tongue is positioned high in the mouth during the articulation of a close vowel.
The close vowels identified the International Phonetic Alphabet are:
- close front unrounded vowel []
- close front rounded vowel []
- close central unrounded vowel []
- close central rounded vowel []
- close back unrounded vowel []
- close back rounded vowel []
In the context of the phonetics of any particular language, a high vowel can be any vowel that is more close than a mid vowel. That is, close-mid vowels, near-close vowels, and close vowels can all be considered high vowels.