Close-mid central unrounded vowel Close-mid central unrounded vowel The close-mid central unrounded vowel, or high-mid central 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 . This is a mirrored letter e, and should not be confused with the schwa , which is a turned e. It was added to the IPA in 1993; before that, this vowel was transcribed (Latin small letter e with umlaut, not Cyrillic small letter yo). Certain older sources transcribe this vowel . The letter may be used with a lowering diacritic ,
Back vowel a single category, but may be either raised vowels such as or retracted vowels such as . The back vowels that have dedicated symbols in the International Phonetic Alphabet are: There also are back vowels that don't have dedicated symbols in the IPA: As here, other back vowels can be transcribed with diacritics of relative articulation applied to letters for neighboring vowels, such as , or for a near-close back rounded vowel. Back vowel A back vowel is any in a class of vowel sound used in spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a back vowel is that the highest