Near-open central vowel

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The near-open central vowel, or near-low central vowel, is a type of vowel sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨ɐ⟩, a rotated lowercase double-story a. Both the symbol and the sound are sometimes referred to as a-schwa. In English this vowel is most typically transcribed with the symbol ⟨ʌ⟩, i.e. as if it were open-mid back. That pronunciation is still found in some dialects, but many speakers use a central vowel like [ɐ] or [ɜ]. To avoid the trap–strut merger, Standard Southern British English is moving away from the [ɐ] quality towards [ʌ] found in RP spoken in the first half of the 20th century (e.g. in Daniel Jones's speech). Much like ⟨ə⟩, ⟨ɐ⟩ is a versatile symbol that is not defined for roundedness and that can be used for vowels that are near-open central, near-open near-front, near-open near-back, open-mid central, open central or an (often unstressed) vowel with variable height, backness and/or roundedness...

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