A central vowel, formerly also known as a mixed vowel, is any in a class of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a central vowel is that the tongue is positioned approximately halfway between a front vowel and a back vowel. (In practice, unrounded central vowels tend to be further forward and rounded central vowels further back.)

Central vowel
◌̈
IPA Number415
Encoding
Entity (decimal)̈
Unicode (hex)U+0308

List

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The central vowels that have dedicated symbols in the International Phonetic Alphabet are:

There also are central vowels that do not have dedicated symbols in the IPA:

See also

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Bibliography

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  • International Phonetic Association (1999), Handbook of the International Phonetic Association: A guide to the use of the International Phonetic Alphabet, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0-521-65236-7