Talk:Open back unrounded vowel

Sound sample
Is the sound sample here really A? It sounds quite rounded, like O. IMHO, this one would be better. It is from Miraceti 11:36, 14 May 2005 (UTC)
 * I agree. The sound sample isn't very good. To me, it sounds like an American mocking a British accent... saɪm duʃɑn Talk|Contribs 10:28, 17 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Sounds rounded to me too. Grover cleveland (talk) 08:25, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

Appearance problems
This character does not appear correctly on all platforms. On some, it appears as a slightly smaller version of "a"; on others, it does not appear at all! RandomCritic 18:25, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Canadian English
Oxford Canadian English says that the vowel in Canadian English BALL in an open, back, ROUNDED vowel. Unrounded pronuncation is a West US / Californian thing.

Removed Canadian English From Table
Canadian English has [ɒ] in ball, not [ɑ]. 208.104.45.20 (talk) 00:19, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
 * I think it might be in Canadian English, but the removal is still warranted.  — Æµ§œš¹  [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]  19:28, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

No, Canadian English has undergone the low back merger, so it has neither nor [ɒ]. "Ball" is [bɑːɫ] in Canadian English. 24.235.158.206 (talk) 11:56, 5 April 2008 (UTC)


 * I don't think you understand. Just because a dialect has undergone the cot-caught merger doesn't mean it has neither [ɔ] nor [ɒ].  In Pittsburgh, cot and caught both have [ɔ].  I have a cot-caught merger in my idiolect, and I use [ɔ] in words like ball, dog, frog, long, etc.  In Canadian English, the short "o", which occurs in words like cot and caught, is generally a low back vowel with more lip rounding than in General American, and it's often regarded as [ɒ].  It is especially rounded before /l/.  It's definitely not [ɑ]. 208.104.45.20 (talk) 19:21, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

"Ball" is [bɑːɫ] in Atlantic Canada, especially Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, but it can be pronounced like this in other parts of Canada as well, in Windsor (Ontario), for example. Some sound files:

Nova Scotia accent: http://youtube.com/watch?v=DK8FB7USprM New Brunswick accent: http://youtube.com/watch?v=hYlltEFXRoY Windsor accent: http://youtube.com/watch?v=euUyxaD5evc —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.172.45.70 (talk) 14:07, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm confused about the accuracy of the statement "linear stroke on the bottom right" for Script a, likewise "linear stroke on the top left" for turned script a: ɒ. Is this correct?--Pepsi Lite (talk) 15:42, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Sound
This is completely wrong. If [ɑ] is the vowel-sound in English "father" or in, my own language, Swedish "tak" - this is NOT the right sound. This sound is too similar to [a]. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.255.183.220 (talk) 18:59, 9 June 2013 (UTC)
 * I agree. I can discern no difference between this sample and the sample at Open central unrounded vowel, except that the speaker over there is patently a different individual, who seems to be a native speaker of German. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 12:28, 14 November 2013 (UTC)
 * The sample sound here is not back. --JorisvS (talk) 13:44, 15 November 2013 (UTC)
 * In my opinion (though I'm not an expert), the current sample sound is rather an open central unrounded vowel [ä], whereas this older version of the same file represents an open back unrounded vowel [ɑ]. If nobody disagrees, I will replace the two sample sounds. --SelfishSeahorse (talk) 14:07, 23 May 2015 (UTC)
 * It is definitely better in terms of backness. However, it does sound somewhat rounded. Still better to have than the current one, though. --JorisvS (talk) 14:29, 23 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes, that's true. Nevertheless, I've replaced them now. --SelfishSeahorse (talk) 15:11, 23 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Very strange: Although I've reverted File:Open back unrounded vowel.ogg to the version from 16 July 2005, the sound didn't change. File:Open central unrounded vowel.ogg hasn't changed too!? --SelfishSeahorse (talk) 19:10, 24 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Very strange indeed. To make it even more strange, I just tried reverting to that version myself and now your version has the intended sound, but the active version still doesn't... File:Open central unrounded vowel.ogg has changed for me. --JorisvS (talk) 08:04, 25 May 2015 (UTC)
 * And reverting myself again fixes my first version, but the active version is still unchanged?! --JorisvS (talk) 08:06, 25 May 2015 (UTC)
 * And uploading the intended version instead of using the revert button makes no difference. The active version still has the central vowel, but all other tries have the back vowel. Weird! --JorisvS (talk) 08:10, 25 May 2015 (UTC)

Everything is fine for me, so your browsers are the problem. Clear the cache, maybe restart your computers. Peter238 (talk) 08:33, 25 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Thank you. Restarting Chrome didn't do it, but using the extension "clear the cache" does. --JorisvS (talk) 09:47, 25 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Same here. Clearing "cached images and files" has helped. Thank you, Peter 238! --SelfishSeahorse (talk) 13:35, 26 May 2015 (UTC)