Close back unrounded vowel

Close back unrounded vowel
ɯ
IPA Number316
Audio sample
Encoding
Entity (decimal)ɯ
Unicode (hex)U+026F
X-SAMPAM
Braille⠲ (braille pattern dots-256)⠥ (braille pattern dots-136)
Spectrogram of /ɯ/

The close back unrounded vowel, or high back unrounded vowel,[1] is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ɯ. Typographically, it is a turned letter ⟨m⟩; given its relation to the sound represented by the letter u, it can be considered a ⟨u⟩ with an extra "bowl".

The close back unrounded vowel can in many cases be considered the vocalic equivalent of the voiced velar approximant [ɰ].

  1. ^ While the International Phonetic Association prefers the terms "close" and "open" for vowel height, many linguists use "high" and "low".

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