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Open back unrounded vowel

Vowel sound represented by ⟨ɑ⟩ in IPA

Summary

Vowel sound represented by ⟨ɑ⟩ in IPA

Field	Value
ipa symbol	ɑ
ipa number	305
decimal	593
x-sampa	A
imagefile	IPA Unicode 0x0251.svg
braille	ch

|x-sampa=A

The open back unrounded vowel, or low back 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 . The letter is called script a or handwritten a because it lacks the extra hook on top of a printed letter a, which corresponds to a different vowel, the open front unrounded vowel. Script a, which has a full length linear stroke on its right, should not be confused with turned script a, , which has the linear stroke on its left and corresponds to a rounded version of this vowel, the open back rounded vowel.

The open back unrounded vowel is the vocalic equivalent of the pharyngeal approximant .

Features

Occurrence

Language	Word	IPA	Meaning	Notes
Afrikaans	Standard	daar		'there'
Äiwoo	kânongä		'I want'
Arabic	Standard	طويل (ṭawīl)		'tall'
Essaouira	قال (qāl)		'he said'	One of the possible realisations of .
Armenian	Eastern	հաց (hacʿ)		'bread'
Bashkir	ҡаҙ (qađ)		'goose'
Catalan	Many dialects	pal		'stick'
Some dialects	mà		'hand'	More central ( or ) in other dialects; fully front in Majorcan Catalan. See Catalan phonology
Majorcan and Valencian (some speakers)	lloc		'place'	Unrounded allophone of in some accents. It can be centralized. See Catalan phonology
Southern Valencian		bou		'bull'	Pronunciation of the vowel before . It can be centralized. See Catalan phonology
Chinese	Mandarin	棒 (bàng)		'stick'
Dutch	Standard	bad		'bath'
Amsterdam	aap		'monkey'	Corresponds to in standard Dutch.
Antwerp
Utrecht
The Hague	nauw		'narrow'	Corresponds to in standard Dutch.
English	General American	on		'on'
Cockney	palm		'palm'	Fully back. It can be more front instead.
General South African	Fully back. Broad varieties usually produce a rounded vowel [ ~ ] instead, while Cultivated SAE prefers a more front vowel . See South African English phonology
Cultivated
South African		Typically more front than cardinal . It may be as front as in some Cultivated South African and southern English speakers. See English phonology and South African English phonology
Received Pronunciation
Non-local Dublin	back		'back'	Allophone of before velars for some speakers.
Faroese	Some dialects	vátur		'wet'
French	Conservative Parisian	pas		'not'
Quebec	pâte		'paste'	Contrasts with . See Quebec French phonology
Galician	irmán		'brother'	Allophone of in contact with velar consonants. See Galician phonology
Georgian	გუდა (guda)		'leather bag'	Usually not fully back , typically to . Sometimes transcribed as .
German	Standard	Gourmand		'gourmand'
Many speakers	nah		'near'	Used by speakers in Northern Germany, East Central Germany, Franconia and Switzerland. Also a part of the Standard Austrian accent. More front in other accents. See Standard German phonology
Greek	Sfakian	μπύρα (''býr'''a''''')		"beer"
Hindustani	Hindi	ख़ास/khas		'special'
Urdu	خاص/khas
Hungarian	Some dialects	magyar		'Hungarian'
Inuit	West Greenlandic	oqarpoq		'he says'
Italian	Some Piedmont dialects	casa		'house'
Irish	Munster Dialect	áit		'place'
Kaingang	ga		'land, soil'	Varies between back and central .
Khmer	ស្ករ (km)		'sugar'	See Khmer phonology
Low German	al / aal		'all'	Backness may vary among dialects.
Malay	Kedah	mata		'eye'
Kelantan-Pattani	Allophone of syllable-final /a/ in open-ended words and before /k/ and /h/ codas. See Kelantan-Pattani Malay
Standard	qari		'qari'	Found only in certain Arabic loanwords and used by speakers who know Arabic. Normally replaced by []. See Malay phonology
Norwegian	hat		'hate'	The example word is from Urban East Norwegian. Central in some other dialects. See Norwegian phonology
Portuguese	Some Azorean dialects	nada		'nothing'
Paulista	vegetal		'vegetable'	Only immediately before .
Russian	палка (palka)		'stick'	Occurs only before the hard , but not when a palatalized consonant precedes. See Russian phonology
Scottish Gaelic	Lewis	balach		'boy'
Sema	amqa		'lower back'	Possible realization of after uvular stops.
Swedish	Some dialects	jag		'I'
Turkish	at		'horse'	Also described as central . See Turkish phonology
Ukrainian	мати (maty)		'mother'	See Ukrainian phonology
Vietnamese	Some dialects in North Central and Central	gà		'chicken'
West Frisian	Standard	lang		'long'
Aastersk	maat		'mate'	Contrasts with a front . See West Frisian phonology

Near-open back unrounded vowel

In some languages (such as Azerbaijani, Estonian, Luxembourgish and Toda) there is the near-open back unrounded vowel (a sound between cardinal and ), which can be transcribed in IPA with or .

Features

Occurrence

Language	Word	IPA	Meaning	Notes
Azerbaijani	qardaş		'brother'	Near-open.
Dutch	Leiden	bad		'bath'
Rotterdam
English	Cardiff	hot		'hot'
Norfolk
Estonian	vale		'lie'	Near-open. See Estonian phonology
Finnish	kana		'hen'	Near-open, also described as open central . See Finnish phonology
Kazakh	alma		'apple'	Can be realised as near-open.
Limburgish	Maastrichtian	bats		'buttock'
Luxembourgish	Kapp		'head'	Near-open fully back. See Luxembourgish phonology
Toda	ஆந		'elephant'	Near-open.

Notes

References

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References

{{Vowel terminology
Esling, John H.. (2010). "The Handbook of Phonetic Sciences". Wiley-Blackwell.
"Glossary".
Aronson, Howard. (1990). "Georgian: A Reading Grammar". Slavica.
Phạm, Andrea Hòa. (2014). "Ngôn ngữ biến đổi và số phận của nguyên âm /a/ trong giọng Quảng Nam (Issues in Language change and the phonemic status of /a/ in the Quang Nam dialect)". Tạp Chí Ngôn Ngữ (Journal of Vietnamese Linguistics).
Phạm, Andrea Hòa. (2016). "Sự biến âm trong vần tiếng Việt: thổ ngữ làng Hến, huyện Đức Thọ, tỉnh Hà Tĩnh [Sound change in Vietnamese rhymes: the dialect of Hến Village of Đức Thọ District, Hà Tĩnh Province]". Tạp Chí Ngôn Ngữ Học (Journal of Vietnamese Linguistics).
{{Harvcoltxt. Maddieson. 1984, cited in {{Harvcoltxt. Suomi. Toivanen. Ylitalo. 2008

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