Open-mid front unrounded vowel

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• 半開前不圓唇元音

Vowels

v • d • e

See also: IPA, Consonants

	Front	Near- front	Central	Near- back	Back
Close	i · y ɨ · ʉ ɯ · u ɪ · ʏ ɪ̈ · ʊ̈ ʊ e · ø ɘ · ɵ ɤ · o ə ɛ · œ ɜ · ɞ ʌ · ɔ æ ɐ a · ɶ ɑ · ɒ
Near-close
Close-mid
Mid
Open-mid
Near-open
Open

Where symbols appear in pairs, the one to the right represents
a rounded vowel. Vowel length is indicated by appending ː.

IPA – number	303
IPA – text	ɛ
IPA – image
Entity	ɛ
X-SAMPA	E
Kirshenbaum	E
Sound sample (help·info)

The open-mid front unrounded vowel is a type of vowel sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is <ɛ>, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is E.

Features

• Its vowel height is open-mid, which means the tongue is positioned halfway between an open vowel and a mid vowel.
• Its vowel backness is front, which means the tongue is positioned as far forward as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant.
• Its vowel roundedness is unrounded, which means that the lips are not rounded.

Occurrence

Language		Word	IPA	Meaning	Notes
Albanian		tre	[tɾɛ]	'three'
Chinese	Cantonese	蛇/se4	[sɛː˩]	'snake'	See Standard Cantonese
	Mandarin	斜/xie2	[ɕjɛ]	'tilted'	See Standard Mandarin
Catalan[1]		sec	[sɛk]	'dry'	See Catalan phonology
Czech		Amerika	[amɛrɪka]	'America'	See Czech phonology
Dutch		bed	[bɛt]	'bed'	See Dutch phonology
English	GA	bed	[bɛd]	'bed'	See English phonology
	New Zealand	fat	[fɛ̝t]	'fat'
Faroese		elska	[ɛlska]	'love'
French[2]		bête	[bɛt]	'animal'	See French phonology
Georgian[3]		გედი	[gɛdi]	'swan'
German		Bett	[bɛt]	'bed'	See German phonology
Hungarian		nem	[nɛm]	'no'	See Hungarian phonology
Icelandic		ég	[jɛɣ]	'I'
Italian[4]		bene	[ˈbɛːne]	'good'	See Italian phonology
Kabardian		Iэ	[ʔɛ]	'to tell'
Ngwe	Njoagwi dialect	[lɛ̀rɛ́]		'eye'
Norwegian		nett	[nɛt]	'net'	See Norwegian phonology
Polish[5]		ten	[tɛn] (help·info)	'this one'	See Polish phonology
Portuguese[6]		café	[kɐˈfɛ]	'coffee'	See Portuguese phonology
Russian[7]		это	[ˈɛtə]	'this'	See Russian phonology
Scottish Gaelic		aig	[ɛk]	'at'
Serbian		mleko/млеко	[mlɛko]	'milk'
Seri		me	[mɛ]	'you'
Swedish		ät	[ɛːt]	'eat' (imperative)	See Swedish phonology
Vietnamese		e	[ɛ]	'to fear'	See Vietnamese phonology
Yoruba		ẹsẹ̀	[ɛ̄sɛ]	'leg/foot'

See also

• List of phonetics topics

References

Bibliography

• Carbonell, Joan F. & Joaquim Llisterri (1992), "Catalan", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 22 (1-2): 53-56
• Cruz-Ferreira, Madalena (1995), "European Portuguese", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 25 (2): 90-94
• Fougeron, Cecile & Caroline L Smith (1993), "Illustrations of the IPA:French", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 23 (2): 73-76
• Jones, Daniel & Ward Dennis (1969), The Phonetics of Russian, Cambridge University Press
• Jassem, Wiktor (2003), "Polish", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 33 (1): 103-107
• Rogers, Derek & Luciana d'Arcangeli (2004), "Italian", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 34 (1): 117-121
• Shosted, Ryan K. & Chikovani Vakhtang (2006), "Standard Georgian", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 36 (2): 255-264