Near-open front unrounded vowel

{{Infobox IPA }}
 * ipa symbol=æ
 * ipa number=325
 * decimal=230
 * x-sampa= {
 * kirshenbaum=&
 * braille=sh
 * imagefile=IPA Unicode 0x00E6.svg
 * imagesize=150px



The near-open front unrounded vowel, or near-low front unrounded vowel, is a type of vowel sound. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨æ⟩, a lowercase of the $⟨Æ⟩$ ligature. Both the symbol and the sound are commonly referred to as "ash".

The rounded counterpart of, the near-open front rounded vowel (for which the IPA provides no separate symbol) has been reported to occur allophonically in Danish; see open front rounded vowel for more information.

In practice, ⟨æ⟩ is sometimes used to represent the open front unrounded vowel; see the introduction to that page for more information.

In IPA transcriptions of Hungarian and Valencian, this vowel is typically written with ⟨ɛ⟩.