Close front unrounded vowel

Close front unrounded vowel
i
IPA Number 301
Audio sample
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Encoding
Entity (decimal) i
Unicode (hex) U+0069
X-SAMPA i
Braille ⠊ (braille pattern dots-24)

The close front unrounded vowel, or high front unrounded vowel, is a type of vowel sound that occurs in most spoken languages, represented in the International Phonetic Alphabet by the symbol i. It is similar to the vowel sound in the English word meet—and often called long-e in American English. Although in English this sound has additional length (usually being represented as /iː/) and is not normally pronounced as a pure vowel (it is a slight diphthong), some dialects have been reported to pronounce the phoneme as a pure sound. A pure [i] sound is also heard in many other languages, such as French, in words like chic.

The close front unrounded vowel is the vocalic equivalent of the palatal approximant [j]. They alternate with each other in certain languages, such as French, and in the diphthongs of some languages, [i̯] with the non-syllabic diacritic and [j] are used in different transcription systems to represent the same sound.

Languages that use the Latin script commonly use the letter ⟨i⟩ to represent this sound, though there are some exceptions: in English orthography that letter is usually associated with /aɪ/ (as in bite) or /ɪ/ (as in bit), and /iː/ is more commonly represented by ⟨e⟩, ⟨ea⟩, ⟨ee⟩, ⟨ie⟩ or ⟨ei⟩, as in the words scene, bean, meet, niece, conceive; (see Great Vowel Shift). Irish orthography reflects both etymology and whether preceding consonants are broad or slender, so such combinations as ⟨aí⟩, ⟨ei⟩, and ⟨aío⟩ all represent /iː/.

Features

  • Its vowel height is close, also known as high, which means the tongue is positioned close to the roof of the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant.
  • 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 dief [dif] 'thief' See Afrikaans phonology
Arabic Standard دين/diin [d̪iːn] 'religion' See Arabic phonology
Catalan sic [ˈsik] 'sic' See Catalan phonology
Chinese Mandarin / qī 'seven' See Standard Chinese phonology
Chuvash çип [ɕ̬ip] 'thread'
Czech bílý 'white' See Czech phonology
Dutch biet 'beet' See Dutch phonology
English Most dialects free 'free' Depending on dialect, can be pronounced as [ɪi]. See English phonology
Australian bit [bit] 'bit' Also described as near-close front [ɪ̟]. See Australian English phonology
French fini [fini] 'finished' See French phonology
German Ziel 'goal' See Standard German phonology
Greek Modern Standard κήπος / kípos [ˈc̠ipo̞s̠] 'garden' See Modern Greek phonology
Hebrew Modern Standard חשיבה [χäʃivä] 'thinking' See Modern Hebrew phonology
Hungarian ív [iːv] 'arch' See Hungarian phonology
Italian bile [ˈbiːle̞] 'rage' See Italian phonology
Japanese /gin 'silver' See Japanese phonology
Khmer លទ្ធិ / lôtthĭ [lattʰiʔ] 'doctrine' See Khmer phonology
Korean 아이 / ai [ɐi] 'child' See Korean phonology
Kurdish Kurmanji (Northern) şîr [ʃiːɾ] 'milk' See Kurdish phonology
Sorani (Central) شیرîr
Palewani (Southern)
Lithuanian vyras [viːrɐs̪] 'man' See Lithuanian orthography
Malay Malaysian Malay ikut [i.kʊt] 'to follow' See Malay phonology
Malayalam [ilɐ] 'leaf' See Malayalam phonology
Polish miś 'teddy bear' See Polish phonology
Portuguese fino 'thin' Also occurs as an unstressed allophone of other vowels. May be represented by ⟨y⟩. See Portuguese phonology
Romanian insulă [ˈin̪s̪ulə] 'island' See Romanian phonology
Rungus rikot [ˈri.kot] 'to come'
Russian лист/list 'leaf' Only occurs word-initially or after palatalized consonants. See Russian phonology
Serbo-Croatian виле / vile [ʋîle̞] 'hayfork' See Serbo-Croatian phonology
Spanish tipo [ˈt̪ipo̞] 'type' May also be represented by ⟨y⟩. See Spanish phonology
Sotho ho bitsa [huˌbit͡sʼɑ̈] 'to call' Contrasts close, near-close and close-mid front unrounded vowels. See Sotho phonology
Swedish Central Standard bli [bliː] 'to become' Often realized as a sequence [ij] or [iʝ] (hear the word: ); it may also be fricated [iᶻː] or, in some regions, fricated and centralized ([ɨᶻː]). See Swedish phonology
Tagalog ibon [ˈʔibɔn] 'bird'
Thai กริช/krit [krìt] 'dagger'
Turkish ip [ip] 'rope' See Turkish phonology
Ukrainian місто/misto ['misto] 'city, town' See Ukrainian phonology
Welsh es i [eːs iː] 'I went' See Welsh phonology
Yoruba síbí [síbí] 'spoon'