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 back unrounded vowel Close-mid back unrounded vowel The close-mid back unrounded vowel, or high-mid back unrounded vowel, is a type of vowel sound, used in some spoken languages. Acoustically it is a "close-mid back-central unrounded vowel". Its symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet is , called "ram's horns". It is distinct from the symbol for the voiced velar fricative, , which has a descender. Despite that, some writings use this symbol for the voiced velar fricative. Before the 1989 IPA Convention, the symbol for the close-mid back unrounded vowel was , sometimes called "baby gamma", which has a flat top; this symbol was