Vowel height
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In phonetics, vowel height refers to the position of the tongue relative to the roof of the mouth in a vowel sound. The first formant of a vowel (F1) usually corresponds to vowel height, with a higher F1 corresponding to a lower vowel height and a lower F1 corresponding to a higher vowel height.
The International Phonetic Alphabet identifies 7 different vowel heights, although no language distinguishes all 7:
- open vowel (low vowel)
- near-open vowel
- open-mid vowel
- mid vowel
- close-mid vowel
- near-close vowel
- close vowel (high vowel)