The open front 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 , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is a.

This symbol is very frequently used for an open central unrounded vowel, and this usage is accepted by the International Phonetic Association. Since no language distinguishes front from central open vowels, a separate symbol is not considered necessary. If required, the difference may be specified with the central diacritic, , or the retracted diacritic, (see Centralized vowels). Many Sinologists use an unofficial symbol (small capital ) alternatively (see Obsolete and nonstandard symbols in the International Phonetic Alphabet).

Features

• Its vowel height is open, which means the tongue is positioned as far as possible from the roof of the mouth.

• Its vowel backness is front which means the tongue is positioned as far forward as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. This subsumes central open vowels because the tongue does not have as much flexibility in positioning as it does for the close vowels; the difference between an open front vowel and an open back vowel is equal to the difference between a close front and a close central vowel, or a close central and a close back vowel.

• Its vowel roundedness is unrounded, which means that the lips are not rounded.

Occurrence

Most languages have some form of an unrounded open vowel. For languages that only have a single low vowel, the symbol for this vowel may be used because it is the only low vowel whose symbol is part of the basic Latin alphabet. Whenever marked as such, the vowel is closer to a central than to a front .