CLOSE FRONT COMPRESSED VOWEL

The 'close front' or 'near-close near-front compressed vowel' is a type of vowel sound, used in some spoken languages. There is no symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound.

Contents

Features

Occurs in

Features

★ Its vowel height is near-close, which means the tongue is not quite so constricted as a close vowel.

★ Its vowel backness is near-front, which means the tongue is positioned almost as far forward as a front vowel.

★ Its vowel roundedness is compressed, which means the corners of the mouth are drawn slightly together and the lips may be compressed horizontally, but do not protrude.

Occurs in

★ Central Swedish: '''u't'' or , 'out'
The Central Swedish '(near) close (near) front compressed vowel' is commonly transcribed as . It occurs only long. There is no diacritic in the IPA to indicate compression, but since the Swedish back vowel and Norwegian central vowel are also labially compressed, is frequently chosen as an ''ad hoc'' transcription. Another possibility would be to transcribe it as a near-front vowel with an old alternate labialization diacritic, .
When the long ''u'' in Central Swedish is diphthongized, the offglide is tellingly a bilabial approximant rather than a . Note that this contrasts with Swedish close front rounded vowel which when diphthongized has a prototypically rounded offglide, .
Other dialects of Swedish have instead a close central compressed vowel. The close back vowel is also compressed. See close back compressed vowel.