Near-back 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 near-back vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a near-back vowel is that the tongue is positioned as in a back vowel, but slightly further forward in the mouth. The near-back vowel identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet is: