Near-close near-back rounded vowel

Uncommon card · No. 115957

The near-close near-back rounded vowel, or near-high near-back rounded vowel, is a type of vowel sound, used in some spoken languages. It is found in English in the word hook. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨ʊ⟩ (a Latin upsilon, sometimes informally referred to as "horseshoe U"). Prior to 1989, there was an alternate IPA symbol for this sound, ⟨ɷ⟩ (a closed small letter Latin omega); use of this symbol is no longer sanctioned by the IPA. In Americanist phonetic notation, the symbol ⟨ᴜ⟩ (a small capital U) is used, which was also the original symbol for the vowel used by the IPA in 1900. The Handbook of the International Phonetic Association defines [ʊ] as a mid-centralized (lowered and centralized) close back rounded vowel (transcribed [u̽] or [ü̞]), and the current official IPA name of the vowel transcribed with the symbol ⟨ʊ⟩ is a near-close near-back rounded vowel. However, some languages have a vowel that is somewhat lower than the canonical...

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