The close front unrounded vowel, or high front unrounded vowel,[1] 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.[2] 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.[3] 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.
Often realized as a sequence [ij] or [iʝ] (hear the word: [blij]ⓘ); it may also be fricated [iᶻː] or, in some regions, fricated and centralized ([
ɨᶻː]).[38][39] See
Swedish phonology
Bamgboṣe, Ayọ (1966), A Grammar of Yoruba, [West African Languages Survey / Institute of African Studies], Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
Carbonell, Joan F.; Llisterri, Joaquim (1992), "Catalan", Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 22 (1–2): 53–56,
doi:
10.1017/S0025100300004618,
S2CID249411809
Dankovičová, Jana (1999), "Czech", Handbook of the International Phonetic Association: A guide to the use of the International Phonetic Alphabet, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 70–74,
ISBN978-0-521-65236-0
Engstrand, Olle (1999), "Swedish", Handbook of the International Phonetic Association: A Guide to the usage of the International Phonetic Alphabet, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 140–142,
ISBN978-0-521-63751-0
Hall, Christopher (2003) [First published 1992], Modern German pronunciation: An introduction for speakers of English (2nd ed.), Manchester: Manchester University Press,
ISBN978-0-7190-6689-4
Landau, Ernestina; Lončarića, Mijo; Horga, Damir; Škarić, Ivo (1999), "Croatian", Handbook of the International Phonetic Association: A guide to the use of the International Phonetic Alphabet, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 66–69,
ISBN978-0-521-65236-0
Lee, Hyun Bok (1999), "Korean", Handbook of the International Phonetic Association, Cambridge University Press, pp. 120–122,
ISBN978-0-521-63751-0
Lee, Wai-Sum; Zee, Eric (2003), "Standard Chinese (Beijing)", Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 33 (1): 109–112,
doi:10.1017/S0025100303001208
Martínez-Celdrán, Eugenio; Fernández-Planas, Ana Ma.; Carrera-Sabaté, Josefina (2003), "Castilian Spanish", Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 33 (2): 255–259,
doi:10.1017/S0025100303001373,
ISSN0025-1003
Okada, Hideo (1999),
"Japanese", in International Phonetic Association (ed.), Handbook of the International Phonetic Association: A Guide to the Use of the International Phonetic Alphabet, Cambridge University Press, pp. 117–119,
ISBN978-0-52163751-0
Riad, Tomas (2014), The Phonology of Swedish, Oxford University Press,
ISBN978-0-19-954357-1
Roach, Peter (2004), "British English: Received Pronunciation", Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 34 (2): 239–245,
doi:10.1017/S0025100304001768,
ISSN0025-1003
Rogers, Derek; d'Arcangeli, Luciana (2004), "Italian", Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 34 (1): 117–121,
doi:10.1017/S0025100304001628,
ISSN0025-1003
Verhoeven, Jo (2005), "Belgian Standard Dutch", Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 35 (2): 243–247,
doi:10.1017/S0025100305002173
Zimmer, Karl; Orgun, Orhan (1999),
"Turkish"(PDF), Handbook of the International Phonetic Association: A guide to the use of the International Phonetic Alphabet, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 154–158,
ISBN978-0-521-65236-0, archived from
the original(PDF) on 2018-07-25, retrieved 2015-11-20