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Close front unrounded vowel

Vowel sound represented by ⟨i⟩ in IPA


Summary

Vowel sound represented by ⟨i⟩ in IPA

FieldValue
ipa symboli
ipa number301
decimal105
x-sampai
braillei
imagefileIPA Unicode 0x0069.svg

|x-sampa=i

The close front unrounded vowel, or high front unrounded vowel, is a type of vowel sound that occurs in most spoken languages, represented in the International Phonetic Alphabet by the symbol i. It is similar to the vowel sound in the English word meet—and often called long-e in American English. Although in English this sound has additional length (usually being represented as ) and is not normally pronounced as a pure vowel (it is a slight diphthong), some dialects have been reported to pronounce the phoneme as a pure sound. A pure sound is also heard in many other languages, such as French, in words like chic.

The close front unrounded vowel is the vocalic equivalent of the palatal approximant . They alternate with each other in certain languages, such as French, and in the diphthongs of some languages, with the non-syllabic diacritic and are used in different transcription systems to represent the same sound.

Languages that use the Latin script commonly use the letter to represent this sound, though there are some exceptions: in English orthography that letter is usually associated with (as in bite) or (as in bit), and is more commonly represented by , , , or , as in the words scene, bean, meet, niece, conceive; (see Great Vowel Shift). Irish orthography reflects both etymology and whether preceding consonants are broad or slender, so such combinations as , , and all represent .

Features

|File:IPA i Sagittal Section.svg|Sagittal section of a vocal tract pronouncing the IPA sound . Note that a wavy glottis in this diagram indicates a voiced sound. |File:Spectrogram of close front unrounded vowel (IPA i).png |Spectrogram of

Occurrence

LanguageWordIPAMeaningNotes
Afrikaansdief'thief'See Afrikaans phonology
ArabicStandardدين / ar'religion'
Bengaliদি'day'See Bengali phonology
Catalansi'if'See Catalan phonology
ChineseMandarin七 / cmn'seven'
Chuvashҫип'thread'
Czechbílý'white'See Czech phonology
Dutchbiet'beet'See Dutch phonology
EnglishMost dialects*free*'free'
Australian*bit*'bit'Also described as near-close front . See Australian English phonology
Frenchfini'finished'See French phonology
GermanZiel'goal'See Standard German phonology
GreekModern Standardκήπος / el'garden'
HebrewModern Standardחשיבה'thinking'
HindustaniHindiज़िंदगी(zindagi)'life'
Urduزندگی(zindagi)
Hungarianív'arch'See Hungarian phonology
Italianbile'bile'See Italian phonology
Japanese銀 / ja'silver'See Japanese phonology
Khmerលទ្ធិ / km'doctrine'See Khmer phonology
Korean아이 / ko'child'See Korean phonology
KurdishKurmanji (Northern)şîr'milk'
Sorani (Central)شیر / ku
Palewani (Southern)
Lithuanianvyras'man'See Lithuanian orthography
MalayMalaysian Malayikut'to follow'
Malayalam'leaf'See Malayalam phonology
Mpadefli'monkey'
Polishmiś'teddy bear'See Polish phonology
Portuguesefino'thin'Also occurs as an unstressed allophone of other vowels. May be represented by . See Portuguese phonology
Romanianinsulă'island'See Romanian phonology
Rungusrikot'to come'
Russianлист / ru'leaf'Only occurs word-initially or after palatalized consonants. See Russian phonology
Serbo-Croatianвиле / vile'hayfork'See Serbo-Croatian phonology
Spanishtipo'type'May also be represented by . See Spanish phonology
Sothoho bitsa'to call'Contrasts close, near-close and close-mid front unrounded vowels. See Sotho phonology
SwedishCentral Standardbli'become'
Tagalogibon'bird'
Thaiกริช / th'dagger'
Turkiship'rope'See Turkish phonology
Ukrainianмісто / uk'city, town'See Ukrainian phonology
Welshes i'I went'See Welsh phonology
Yorubasíbí'spoon'

Notes

References

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References

  1. {{Vowel terminology
  2. Maddox, Maeve. (18 September 2007). "DailyWritingTips: The Six Spellings of "Long E"".
  3. (2006). "The Atlas of North American English". Mouton-de Gruyter.
  4. Forschner, T. A.. (December 1994). "Outline of A Momogun Grammar (Rungus Dialect)".
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