Talk:Close central unrounded vowel

Headerless
It would be nice if this article mentioned that "&#616;" is the sound of the Korean letter "&" (romanized as "eu" or "&"), and Russian "&". &mdash; Hippietrail 01:50, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)
 * The Korean language page uses ɯ for "eu".
 * Yeah, the vowel charts at Korean language is based on the entry for Korean in The Handbook of the International Phonetic Association and the [ɯ] isn't even close to being an [ɨ] and isn't even analyzed as one. I've corrected it now.
 * Peter Isotalo 17:15, 25 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Do most Russian speakers also agree that is how 'you (pl.)' actually surfaces?  If Russian has a number of allophones, according to other wiki pages,  among them, it might be worth checking to see if this transcription is correct, and finding a more suitable word if necessary. --Ryan 04:51, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
 * would occur more after a labial + cluster.  Another good word might be мыться Æµ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 08:12, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

I removed a lot of examples of languages from the "Occurs in" section. Including Mandarin was downright wrong, since a lot of modern phoneticians consider "i" in syllables like "si" or "zi" to be syllabic consonants (or even fricatives. As for the rest, I tried to reduce them to some kind of representability. Too many examples, especially from languages that don't even have articles aren't really helpful.

And please limit yourselves to one example per language.

Peter Isotalo 23:32, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

The sound for this symbol is wrong! Please verify! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.121.246.233 (talk • contribs)

The sound file sounds more like close central _rounded_ vowel, could anyone verify this? (192.35.17.30 (talk) 14:56, 11 September 2008 (UTC))


 * The symbol and the sound are both fine. — Adi  Japan  16:28, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm trying to understand IPA, but this absolutely doesn't sound like Polish 'i' ([ɨ]), the first version of the file was much better Tokenzero (talk) 17:46, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

Tokenzero, you meant Polish "y", right? I would have to agree with you, the sample doesn't sound like Polish "y" at all! 216.254.160.239 (talk) 10:06, 20 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Oh yes, I meant "y" like the sample "mysz". I guess the Korean sound is more rounded, but still less rounded than [ʉ]. But trying to extrapolate the line e-ɪ- (both quite similar to "mysz") the sample feels too rounded anyway.Tokenzero (talk) 22:30, 13 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Yes, although I'm not a linguist, the sample does sound rounded to me. I hope someone will finally resolve this issue. According to the title of the article, the vowel should be unrounded, like Polish y. Vmeruck (talk) 01:27, 24 July 2010 (UTC)
 * The current table of languages completely forgot Poland. Ignominious. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 12:00, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

Whoever removed Korean and Turkic as of 14 November 2011 should also remove Russian, because there is no close unrounded central [ɨ] in [tɨ] "thou" as in "roses", there's a typical back vowel there (except maybe in slurred speech, where nearly all vowels are a "schwa"). The reference provided goes back to the 60's and is probably outdated due to access difficulties at the time. Objections? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.151.40.150 (talk) 10:29, 15 November 2011 (UTC)
 * I looked at the relevant wikipages and barely saw any [ɨ]s, and therefore the added statement is not very credible. It would, at the very least, need a very good citation. On the other hand, [ɨ] is discussed at Russian phonology, so Russian can be included. --JorisvS (talk) 10:54, 15 November 2011 (UTC)
 * As a native speaker of Russian, without much studying, I should note that the claim about <и> and <ы> being the allophones of the same phoneme (discussed in Russian phonology) sounds like nonsense to me. Why two letters, then? Actually, the back unrounded [ɯ] is probably a Korean-Turkic-Slavic Close_back_unrounded_vowel phenomenon (probably widespread in eastern Eurasia, but mostly absent in European languages). On the other hand, the [ɨ] vowel might exist too, but only as an atypical allophone of [ɯ]. The whole matter sounds like some kind of Anglophone westernization (I've already heard some stories about comparing <ы> to the vowel in "bit", as in American English, which normally resulted in confusion, because the real sound is quite a bit different). Basically, the [ɯ] recording is a lot closer to <ы>, though a little bit too rounded.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.151.42.26 (talk) 19:42, 15 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Much give me the impression of original research. Note that the sound files here are not perfect, and the sound file for [ɨ] is simply crap! It should be much like in [[File:Ru-ты.ogg]] (and compare this with the [i] in [[File:Hu-ti.ogg]] and the sound file on the close back unrounded vowel, [ɯ], which is reasonable, though imperfect (it sounds rather forced)). --JorisvS (talk) 20:04, 15 November 2011 (UTC)
 * The ты.ogg sounds fine, the [ɨ] recording is very weird indeed, that's why I voted for moving the Russian examples to the other article. I don't have any reputable references to support this, though. (Sometimes ppl just make reasonable exceptions...) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.151.42.26 (talk) 20:25, 15 November 2011 (UTC)
 * I've reverted the file to a previous version that was much better (still not perfect, but much better). --JorisvS (talk) 20:42, 15 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Anyway, that's a diphtong, someone else should correct this. It's better, and it's not a diphtong now. But too close to [i]. But the sound in "roses" may be too low for a standard, because it's often seen as a schwa. The Polish "mysh" seems to be relatively close to what we need here. Maybe someone else should correct this. (I've changed this message because my page had not reload last time and I heard the same version.) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.151.42.26 (talk) 20:52, 15 November 2011 (UTC)
 * As I said, it's still not perfect. Aside from the shortcomings you've mentioned, I think it is a little bit rounded. I'll see if I can do something to be able to upload one myself. (I've restored the original comments and struck them through, so new people can also follow this discussion.) --JorisvS (talk) 21:00, 15 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Actually, if you look at Polish phonology, you'll see how far off it is from what we need here. --JorisvS (talk) 23:21, 15 November 2011 (UTC)


 * [ɨ] has different sounds in different languages. But because I'm speaking out of a Russian point of view I can't speak for the other sounds. I just know that the sound sample is anything but <ы>. It sounds like he's prnouncing E, I and U all at the same time. --Shandristhe azylean 22:37, 15 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Your version was more like [ɯɨ̯], quite different from the [ɨ] in the Russian [t̪ɨ] here. Yes, different languages have slightly different "versions" of the sound. In fact, one thing on which dialects frequently vary is the exact phonetic realization of the phonemes. Ideally, the general sound presented here should be perfectly central, as close as a vowel can be, and have no degree of rounding. --JorisvS (talk) 23:05, 15 November 2011 (UTC)
 * No, Russians don’t have a phoneme normally pronounced as [ɯ], although this sound from foreign languages is approximated by ⟨ы⟩, the same letter which denotes /ɨ/. Indeed [ɯ̟] may appear (as an allophone) in /ɨ/ after certain consonants. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 12:00, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

acehnese
Is that supposed to be a question mark within the brackets, or is it shorthand for glottal stop? kwami (talk) 10:00, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
 * I'm pretty sure it was supposed to be a glottal stop but I changed the example just in case. — Æµ§œš¹  [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]  02:36, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

I was told that this sound exists in Estonian as well. Please somebody add an Estonian example. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.114.23.165 (talk) 20:09, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
 * That doesn't appear to be the case. According to Estonian phonology, there's, which might be what your friend was thinking of.  — Æµ§œš¹  [aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]  21:07, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Sound sample that sounds strange
I know the Russian language and I know how ы sounds. The article claims that the ы sound = ɨ. However, the ɨ audio sample sounds very different from ы for me. Anyone knows if this is accurate representation? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.60.103.193 (talk) 21:26, 27 November 2010 (UTC)
 * There's some variation in the Russian sound depending on context. In a word like вы, it's pronounced like  and when it's unstressed, it's a near-close central unrounded vowel.  In addition (as Russian phonology mentions) Padgett 2001 argues that ы is better characterized as a diphthong.  I'm not sure if there's a language that has a better representation of cardinal . — Æµ§œš¹  [aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]  01:44, 28 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I am from Russia and I affirm that the Russian sound ы does not contain any consonants. It is a pure vowel. The audio sample sounds like "plea" or "plea-h". I think it is of an inferior quality.Ufim (talk) 16:27, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

Slavic languages
The article says that the close central unrounded vowel occurs "as an allophone in many Slavic languages", although I can only think of Russian and Polish. Which other slavic languages have it as an allophone? --Kreuzkümmel (talk) 18:03, 24 August 2012 (UTC)
 * This article lists Czech. I think it was present in Proto-/Common Slavic. — Æµ§œš¹  [ãːɱ ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɪ̃ə̃nlɪ]  18:34, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Russian phonology
I am pretty certain the letter ы does not sound like "ɨ" but definitely "ɯ". You may as well use scholars with proper knowledge of the Russian language. --Vitilsky (talk) 05:11, 12 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Maybe both pronunciations exist. Some speaker definitely pronounce it more front than [ɯ]. I sometimes even hear it as a near-front [ɪ]. While that may be just my personal impression, I think it's safe to say that [ɨ] is more correct for these speakers than [ɯ]. But again, this doesn't mean that [ɯ] doesn't occur. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.204.125.74 (talk) 21:21, 9 August 2017 (UTC)
 * No, is wrong. See above. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 12:00, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

Czech example?
Are we sure that example is Czech? Ł is a Polish letter, and I recognize "był" as a Polish word. Is this from Silesian or one of the Lachian dialects, which do use the ł in writing? If so a brief footnote regarding the spelling would be nice. Double sharp (talk) 14:16, 26 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Fixed. At first I thought you were mistaking the Latin letter $\langleł\rangle$ for the IPA symbol $\langle\rangle$, which denotes the velarized alveolar lateral approximant. Mr KEBAB (talk) 14:41, 13 August 2016 (UTC)

Võru example
Using "y" to represent the close central unrounded vowel is the pre-2005 spelling. It should be written as õ. Strombones (talk) 10:17, 24 December 2015 (UTC)

See https://et.wikipedia.org/wiki/Võru_kirjaviis

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Missing citation
I would like a citation for this line in the current version of the article: In the third edition of the Oxford English Dictionary, ⟨ᵻ⟩ represents free variation between /ɪ/ and /ə/.

If you enlarge the symbol, you will see that it is a velarized-l, not a barred-i. I did a cursory search and found this useful example. Note that on this page, the OED guide is using a capital, "I", instead of the lower case "i." http://web.archive.org/web/20211001134904/https://public.oed.com/how-to-use-the-oed/key-to-pronunciation/pronunciation-model-us-english/ ADDED [The "e" is noted as a schwa, ə] AIDED [The "e" is noted as a barred-i, with a character that does not copy into this editor.] Further down in the article, the character what also looks like a velarized-l. ("ADDED" apparently means words like this that have an "ed" in the unstressed syllable.) ADDED vowels tend towards schwa except where the most recent preceding vowel ended high and front (/i, ɪ, eɪ, aɪ, ɔɪ/), in which case /ɪ/ might be found, or more often a quality on the ɪ-ə continuum represented with /ᵻ/.

A claim of free variation is controversial: one should also include a citation that the variation is predicted categorically or on a continuum based on (for example): region, age, formality, speaker's gender. See https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/tlr-2021-2060/html " Sociolinguists have shown that a lot of what appears to be free variation can be accounted for if linguists take social factors into account..." MichelleInSanMarcos (talk) 14:19, 1 October 2021 (UTC)
 * I don't know what you mean by If you enlarge the symbol, you will see that it is a velarized-l, not a barred-i or the OED guide is using a capital, "I", instead of the lower case "i." ⟨ᵻ⟩ is defined in Unicode at U+1D7B as Latin Small Capital Letter I with Stroke, so if it doesn't appear as ⟨ɪ⟩ with a bar on it, it is your device, software or font that has a problem. (I know Arial, the default sans-serif font on Windows, shows it more like a dotless I ⟨ı⟩ with a bar, without serifs at the top and bottom.) The symbol for a velarized [l] is ⟨ɫ⟩, defined at U+026B as Latin Small Letter L with Middle Tilde, and is taller and has a wavy tilde, not a straight line.
 * ⟨ᵻ⟩ (barred ⟨ɪ⟩) has traditionally been used for a near-close central unrounded vowel (i.e. halfway between [ɨ] and [ə]), by e.g. Bloch & Trager (1942) and Wells (1982). Clive Upton introduced this symbol to signify something slightly different when he devised a transcription scheme, which has been adopted in "all the larger native-speaker Oxford English dictionaries" since the mid-1990s (Upton 2012: 63). As Upton & Kretzschmar (2001/17) put it, "Whenever the barred symbols are used it is to be understood that both [ɪ] and [ə] for [ᵻ], or [ʊ] and [ə] for [ᵿ], are acceptable." I just removed the word "free" and cited Upton (2012) for the sentence. Nardog (talk) 16:56, 5 October 2021 (UTC)

Sounds like German ü
From listening to the audio sample, this sounds just like the German "ü," yet is not mentioned in the article. Why? 173.88.246.138 (talk) 19:28, 31 December 2021 (UTC)


 * See Ü?
 * —DIV  Support good-faith IP editors: insist that Wikipedia's administrators adhere to Wikipedia's own policies on keeping range-blocks as a last resort, with minimal breadth and duration, in order to reduce adverse collateral effects;  support more precisely targeted restrictions such as protecting only articles themselves, not associated Talk pages, or presenting pages as semi-protected, or blocking only mobile edits when accessed from designated IP ranges.  (1.145.20.25 (talk) 11:33, 9 November 2023 (UTC))

Examples for Irish
In the Irish section, it is divided into three (incomplete) rows for different dialects as opposed to the standard. However, at least two of them (and I'm pretty sure all three) describe the same allophonic process. I would recommend merging them; however, I'm not completely sure of this, and would like input from someone with more experience with Irish. Algæ (talk) 17:09, 27 November 2023 (UTC)