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 ,
Open back rounded vowel and in phonemic/broad phonetic transcription. According to him, the endless repetition of the symbol in publications on BrE has given this vowel a familiarity out of all proportion to its scarcity in the world’s languages. Open back rounded vowel The open back rounded vowel, or low back rounded vowel, is a type of vowel sound, used in some spoken languages. Acoustically, it is a "near-open" or "near-low back rounded vowel". The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is . It is called "turned script "a"", being a rotated version of "script (cursive) "a"", which is the