Close-mid back rounded vowel

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Vowels

[Edit] - 2×

Front

N.-front

Central

N.-back

Back

Close

•

Near-close

Close-mid

Mid

Open-mid

Near-open

Open

Where symbols appear in pairs, the one to the right
represents a rounded vowel.


IPA – number	307
IPA – text
IPA – image
Entity	o
X-SAMPA	`o`
Kirshenbaum	`o`

The close-mid back rounded vowel is a type of vowel sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is o, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is o.

Contents

1 Features
2 Occurs in
3 Mid back rounded vowel

3.1 Occurs in

Features

Its vowel height is close-mid, which means the tongue is positioned halfway between close vowel and a mid vowel.
Its vowel backness is back, which means the tongue is positioned as far back as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant.
Its vowel roundedness is rounded, which means that the lips are rounded.

Occurs in

Dutch: kool [koʊ̯l], 'cabbage'
English: (AuE and NZE) ball [boːl]
* In CaE, there is a tendency to monophthongize [oʊ] (usually during rapid speech); as a result, [o] may occur alone in words like boat.
Estonian: tool [toːlʲ], 'chair'
Faroese: tosa [ˈtoːsa], 'speak'
French: réseau [ʀe̝ˈzo̝], 'net'
German: Kohl [kʰoːl], 'cabbage'
Icelandic: bók [bou̯k], 'book'
Italian: Roma [ˈroːma], 'Rome'
Portuguese: ou [o], 'or'
Swedish: åka [[ˈoːka]], 'travel', 'go'
Vietnamese: tô [tō], 'soup bowl'

French /o/ is more close than German /o/, as symbolized by the raising diacritic, and is perhaps near-close. The German /o/ in turn is more close than Spanish /o/, which is a mid vowel (see below).

Mid back rounded vowel

Many languages, such as Spanish and Japanese, have a mid back rounded vowel, which to speakers is clearly distinct from both the close-mid and open-mid vowels. However, since no language is known to distinguish all three, there is no separate IPA symbol for the mid vowel, and [o] is generally used. If precision is desired, the lowering diacritic may be used: [o̞].

Note that just because a language has only one non-close, non-open back vowel, that doesn't mean it's a cardinal mid vowel. The Sulawesian language Tukang Besi, for example, has a close-mid [o], whereas the Moluccan language Taba has an open-mid [ɔ]; in neither language does this contrast with another open/close-mid vowel.

Occurs in

Greek: ωρολόγιο [o̞ro̞ˈlo̞ʝiˌo̞], 'clock'
Japanese: 面白い [o̞mo̞ɕiɺo̞^↓i], 'fun, interesting'
Romanian: copil [ko̞ˈpil], 'child'
Spanish: todo [ˈt̪o̞ð̞o̞], 'everything'
Turkish: kol [ko̞ɫ], 'arm'
Ukrainian: поїзд [ˈpo̞.jist], 'train'

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