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 ,
Near-close back rounded vowel and . A few languages also have the near-close back unrounded vowel (which does not have a separate IPA symbol) in their inventory. The near-close back protruded vowel is typically transcribed in IPA simply as , and that is the convention used in this article. As there is no dedicated diacritic for protrusion in the IPA, symbol for the near-close back rounded vowel with an old diacritic for labialization, , can be used as an "ad hoc" symbol for the near-close back protruded vowel. Another possible transcription is or (a near-close back vowel modified by endolabialization), but this could be