The Near-open vowel reference article from the English Wikipedia on 24-Apr-2004 (provided by Fixed Reference: snapshots of Wikipedia from wikipedia.org)

Near-open vowel

A near-open vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a near-open vowel is that the tongue is positioned similarly to a open vowel, but slightly more constricted. Near-open vowels are sometimes described as lax variants of the fully-open vowels. The near-open vowels identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet are:

• near-open front unrounded vowel [æ]
• near-open central vowel [ɐ]

See also

• table of vowels
• list of vowels
• open vowel
• open-mid vowel
• mid vowel
• close-mid vowel
• near-close vowel
• close vowel
• list of phonetics topics

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