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 ,
Close-mid central rounded vowel dialects as a realization of (as in "foot"), (as in "nurse") or even (as in "goat"). This sound rarely contrasts with the near-close front rounded vowel. For this reason, it may be sometimes transcribed with the symbol . The close-mid central 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 close central rounded vowel with an old diacritic for labialization, , can be used as an "ad hoc" symbol for the close central protruded vowel. Another