Open-mid back 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 open-mid back unrounded vowel or low-mid back 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 ⟨ʌ⟩, graphically a rotated lowercase "v" (called a turned V but created as a small-capital ⟨ᴀ⟩ without the crossbar, even though some vendors display it as a real turned v). Both the symbol and the sound are commonly referred to as a "wedge", "caret" or "hat". In transcriptions for English, this symbol is commonly used for the near-open central unrounded vowel and in transcriptions for Danish, it is used for the open back rounded vowel.

Features

Its vowel height is open-mid, also known as low-mid, which means the tongue is positioned halfway between an open vowel (a low vowel) and a mid vowel.
Its vowel backness is back, which means the tongue is positioned back in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Unrounded back vowels tend to be centralized, which means that often they are in fact near-back.
Its place of articulation is pharyngeal, which means it is articulated with the tongue root against the back of the throat (the pharynx).
It is unrounded, which means that the lips are not rounded.

Occurrence

Language	Word	IPA	Meaning	Notes
Ajië	kë	[kʌˀ]	'pot'	Distinct from /ə/
Catalan	Solsonès	tarda	[ˈtaɾð̞ʌ̃ː]	'afternoon'	Realization of final unstressed /ə/
Danish	slot	[ˈslʌt]	'castle'	Usually transcribed as /ɒ/ but more mid-centralized [ɒ̽].
Emilian	most Emilian dialects	Bulåggna	[buˈlʌɲːɐ]	'Bologna'	It corresponds to a sound between /ɔ/ to /ä/; written ò in some spellings
English	Cape Town	lot	[lʌt]	'lot'	It corresponds to a weakly rounded [ɒ̈] in all other South African dialects. See South African English phonology
Natal
Cardiff	thought	[θʌːt]	'thought'	For some speakers it may be rounded and closer. See English phonology
General South African	no	[nʌː]	'no'	May be a diphthong [ʌʊ̯] instead. See South African English phonology
General American	gut	ⓘ	'gut'	In some dialects, fronted to [ɜ], or fronted and lowered to [ɐ]. In Standard Southern British English, [ʌ] is increasingly heard in place of [ɐ] to avoid the trap–strut merger. See English phonology and Northern Cities Vowel Shift
Inland Northern American
Multicultural London
Newfoundland
Northern East Anglian
Philadelphia
Scottish
Some Estuary English speakers
Some Standard Southern British speakers
French	Picardy	alors	[aˈlʌʀ̥]	'so'	Corresponding to /ɔ/ in standard French.
German	Chemnitz dialect	machen	[ˈmʌχɴ̩]	'to do'	Allophone of /ʌ,ʌː/ (which phonetically are central [ɜ,ɜː]) before and after /ŋ,kʰ,k,χ,ʁ/. Exact backness varies; it is most posterior before /χ,ʁ/.
Haida	ḵwaáay	[qʷʰʌʔáːj]	'the rock'	Allophone of /a/ (sometimes also /aː/) after uvular and epiglottal consonants.
Irish	Ulster dialect	ola	[ʌl̪ˠə]	'oil'	See Irish phonology
Kaingang	[ˈɾʌ]	'mark'	Varies between back [ʌ] and central [ɜ].
Kashmiri	از	[ʌz]	'today'	Allophone of [ɐ]. Used only in monosyllables. Typical of the Srinagar variety.
Kensiu	[hʌʎ]	'stream'
Korean	너 / neo	[nʌ̹]	'you'	See Korean phonology
Lillooet	[example needed]			Retracted counterpart of /ə/.
Mah Meri	[example needed]			Allophone of /ə/; can be mid central [ə] or close-mid back [ɤ] instead.
Nepali	असल/asal	[ʌsʌl]	'good'	See Nepali phonology
Norwegian	Solør	fäss	[fʌs]	'waterfall'	In traditional dialect transcriptions, this vowel is written consequently as ⟨ä⟩, and has existed as a separate vowel in addition to ⟨æ⟩, [æ]. This is because ⟨ä⟩ has evolved from an unrounding of short ⟨o⟩. ⟨ä⟩ has morphed to [æ] with younger speakers.
Ossetian	Digor	майрӕнбон / majrænbon	[majrʌnbon]	'Friday'	Common sound in the Digor dialect. In the Iron dialect, this sound is replaced by a near-open central vowel.
Portuguese	Greater Lisbon area	leite	[ˈɫ̪ʌjt̪ɨ̞]	'milk'	Allophone of /ɐ/ before /i/ (forming a phonetic diphthong [ʌj]). Corresponds to [e] in other accents. See Portuguese phonology
Russian	Standard Saint Petersburg	голова/golová	[ɡəɫ̪ʌˈvä]	'head'	Corresponds to [ɐ] in standard Moscow pronunciation; occurs mostly immediately before stressed syllables. See Russian phonology
Scottish Gaelic	Barra	duine	[ˈt̪ɯɲʌ]	'person'	Dialectal allophone of [ə] in word-final position.
Tamil	[example needed]			Nasalized. Phonetic realization of the sequence /am/, may be [õ] or [ã] instead. See Tamil phonology
Xavante		[jʌm]	'seed'	The nasal version [ʌ̃] also occurs.

Before World War II, the /ʌ/ of Received Pronunciation was phonetically close to a back vowel [ʌ], which has since shifted forward towards [ɐ] (a near-open central unrounded vowel). Daniel Jones reported his speech (southern British) as having an advanced back vowel [ʌ̟] between his central /ə/ and back /ɔ/; however, he also reported that other southern speakers had a lower and even more advanced vowel that approached cardinal [a]. In American English varieties, such as in the West, the Midwest, and the urban South, the typical phonetic realization of the phoneme /ʌ/ is an open-mid central [ɜ]. Truly backed variants of /ʌ/ that are phonetically [ʌ] can occur in Inland Northern American English, Newfoundland English, Philadelphia English, some of African-American English, and (old-fashioned) white Southern American English in coastal plain and Piedmont areas. However, the letter ⟨ʌ⟩ is still commonly used to indicate this phoneme, even in the more common varieties with central variants [ɐ] or [ɜ]. That may be because of both tradition and some other dialects retaining the older pronunciation.

Notes

External links

on PHOIBLE