Close-mid front unrounded vowel

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i y	ɨ ʉ	ɯ u
Near-close	ɪ ʏ		ʊ
Close-mid	e ø	ɘ ɵ	ɤ o
Mid	e̞ ø̞	ə	ɤ̞ o̞
Open-mid	ɛ œ	ɜ ɞ	ʌ ɔ
Near-open	æ	ɐ
Open	a ɶ	ä	ɑ ɒ

Legend: unrounded • rounded

The close-mid front unrounded vowel, or high-mid front unrounded vowel, is a type of vowel sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨e⟩.

For the close-mid front unrounded vowel that is usually transcribed with the symbol ⟨ɪ⟩ or ⟨i⟩, see near-close front unrounded vowel. If the usual symbol is ⟨e⟩, the vowel is listed here.

Features

Its vowel height is close-mid, also known as high-mid, which means the tongue is positioned halfway between a close vowel (a high vowel) and a mid vowel.
Its vowel backness is front, which means the tongue is positioned forward in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant.
It is unrounded, which means that the lips are not rounded.

Occurrence

Language	Word	IPA	Meaning	Notes
Afrikaans	Standard	bed	[bet]	'bed'	Typically transcribed in IPA with ⟨ɛ⟩. The height varies between close-mid [e] and mid [ɛ̝]. See Afrikaans phonology
Arabic	Standard	مَجۡر۪ىٰهَا/majrēhā	[mad͡ʒ.reː.haː]		See imalah
Azerbaijani	gecə	[ɟeˈd͡ʒæ]	'night'
Bengali	ভেজা	[bʱdʒɐ]	'wet'	See Bengali phonology
Bavarian	Amstetten dialect	[example needed]
Breton	eget	[eˈɡet]	'than'
Catalan	séc	[ˈsek]	'fold'	See Catalan phonology
Chinese	Shanghainese	该/kè	[ke̠ʔ˩]	'should'	Near-front; realization of /ɛ/, which appears only in open syllables. Phonetically, it is nearly identical to /ɪ/ ([ɪ̞]), which appears only in closed syllables.
Chuvash	эрешмен/ereşmen	[erɛʃ'mɛnʲ]	'spider'
Danish	Standard	hæl	[ˈheːˀl]	'heel'	Typically transcribed in IPA with ⟨ɛː⟩. See Danish phonology
Dutch	Belgian	vreemd	[vreːmt]	'strange'	In the Netherlands often diphthongized to [eɪ]. See Dutch phonology
English	Australian	bed	[bed]	'bed'	See Australian English phonology
New Zealand	The height varies from near-close in broad varieties to mid in the Cultivated variety. See New Zealand English phonology
General American	may	[meː]	'may'	Most often a closing diphthong [eɪ].
General Indian	Realized closer to [j̚e].
General Pakistani	Can be a diphthong [eɪ] instead, depending on speaker.
Geordie
Scottish
Singaporean
Ulster	Pronounced [ɛː~iə] in Belfast.
Some Cardiff speakers	square	[skweː]	'square'	More often open-mid [ɛː].
Scouse	May (less commonly) be less open [ɪː] or more open [ɛː] instead
Scottish	bit	[bë̞ʔ]	'bit'	Near-front, may be [ɪ] (also [ə]) instead for other speakers.
Cockney	bird	[bɛ̝̈ːd]	'bird'	Near-front; occasional realization of /ɜː/. It can be rounded [œ̝ː] or, more often, unrounded central [ɜ̝ː] instead. Typically transcribed in IPA with ⟨ɜː⟩.
Estonian	keha	[ˈkeɦɑ̝ˑ]	'body'	See Estonian phonology
French	beauté	[bot̪e]	'beauty'	See French phonology
German	Standard	Seele	ⓘ	'soul'	See Standard German phonology
Many speakers	Jäger	[ˈjeːɡɐ]	'hunter'	Outcome of the /ɛː–eː/ merger found universally in Northern Germany, Eastern Germany and Eastern Austria (often even in formal speech) and in some other regions. See Standard German phonology
Southern accents	Bett	[b̥et]	'bed'	Common realization of /ɛ/ in Southern Germany, Switzerland and Austria. See Standard German phonology
Swabian accent	Contrasts with the open-mid [ɛ]. See Standard German phonology
Greek	Sfakian	[example needed]			Corresponds to mid [e̞] in Modern Standard Greek. See Modern Greek phonology
Hebrew	כן/ken	[ke̞n]	'yes'	Hebrew vowels are not shown in the script, see Niqqud and Modern Hebrew phonology
Hindustani	Hindi	तेज़/tez	[t̪eːz]	'fast', 'sharp'	See Hindustani phonology
Urdu	تیز/tez
Hungarian	hét	[heːt̪]	'seven'	Also described as mid [e̞ː]. See Hungarian phonology
Italian	Standard	stelle	[ˈs̪t̪elle]	'stars'	See Italian phonology
Khmer	ទុរេន / turen	[tureːn]	'durian'	See Khmer phonology
Korean	메아리 / meari	[meɐɾi]	'echo'	See Korean phonology
Limburgish	Most dialects	leef	[leːf]	'dear'	The example word is from the Maastrichtian dialect.
Lithuanian	tėtė	[t̪eːt̪eː]	'father'	'Tete' and 'tėtis' are more commonly used than 'tėtė.'
Malay	Standard	kecil	[kə.t͡ʃel]	'small'	Allophone of /i/ in closed-final syllables. May be [ɪ] or [e̞] depending on the speaker. See Malay phonology
habis	[ha.bes]	'run out'	Allophone of [ɪ]. See Malay phonology
Malayalam	ചെവി/čevi	[ȶ͡ɕeʋi]	'ear'	See Malayalam phonology
Marathi	एक/ek	[e:k]	'one'	See Marathi phonology
Norwegian	le	[leː]	'laugh'	The example word is from Urban East Norwegian. See Norwegian phonology
Mpade	faɗe	[faɗe]	'night'
Persian	سه/se	[se]	'three'
Polish	dzień	ⓘ	'day'	Allophone of /ɛ/ between palatal or palatalized consonants. See Polish phonology
Portuguese	mesa	[ˈmezɐ]	'table'	See Portuguese phonology
Romanian	umple	[ˈumple]	'to fill'	See Romanian phonology
Russian	шея/šeja	ⓘ	'neck'	Close-mid [e] before and between soft consonants, mid [e̞] after soft consonants. See Russian phonology
Saterland Frisian	tään	[te̠ːn]	'thin'	Near-front; typically transcribed in IPA with ⟨ɛː⟩. Phonetically, it is nearly identical to /ɪ/ ([ɪ̞]). The vowel typically transcribed in IPA with ⟨eː⟩ is actually near-close [e̝ː].
Slovene	sedem	[ˈsèːdəm]	'seven'	See Slovene phonology
Sotho	ho jwetsa	[hʊ̠ʒʷet͡sʼɑ̈]	'to tell'	Contrasts close, near-close and close-mid front unrounded vowels. See Sotho phonology
Swedish	Central Standard	se	[s̪eː]	'see'	Often diphthongized to [eə̯] (hear the word: ⓘ). See Swedish phonology
Tahitian	vahine	[vahine]	'woman'
Tamil	செவி/čevi	[ȶ͡ɕeʋi]	'ear'	See Tamil phonology
Ukrainian	ефі́рний efirný	[eˈfirnɪj]	'ethereal'	See Ukrainian phonology
Welsh	chwech	[χweːχ]	'six'	See Welsh phonology
Yoruba	[example needed]

Notes

External links

on PHOIBLE

Close-mid front unrounded vowel

Features

Occurrence

See also

Notes

External links