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Legend:unrounded • rounded |
Afront vowel is a class ofvowel sounds used in some spokenlanguages, its defining characteristic being that the highest point of the tongue is positioned approximately as far forward as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would otherwise make it aconsonant. Front vowels are sometimes also calledbright vowels because they are perceived as sounding brighter than theback vowels.[1]
Near-front vowels are essentially a type of front vowel; no language is known to contrast front and near-front vowels based on backness alone.
Rounded front vowels are typicallycentralized, that is, near-front in their articulation. This is one reason they are written to the right of unrounded front vowels in the IPA vowel chart.
The front vowels that have dedicated symbols in theInternational Phonetic Alphabet are:
There also are front vowels without dedicated symbols in the IPA:
As above, other front vowels can be indicated with diacritics ofrelative articulation applied to letters for neighboring vowels, such as ⟨i̞⟩, ⟨e̝⟩ or ⟨ɪ̟⟩ for a near-close front unrounded vowel.
In articulation, fronted vowels, where the tongue moves forward from its resting position, contrast withraised vowels andretracted vowels. In this conception, fronted vowels are a broader category than those listed in the IPA chart, including[ɪʏ],[ɨʉ], and, marginally, mid-central vowels. Within the fronted vowels, vowel height (open or close) is determined by the position of the jaw, not by the tongue directly. Phonemic raised and retracted vowels may be phonetically fronted by certain consonants, such aspalatals and in some languagespharyngeals. For example,/a/ may be fronted to[æ] next to/j/ or/ħ/.[2]
In the history of many languages, for exampleFrench andJapanese, front vowels have altered precedingvelar oralveolar consonants, bringing theirplace of articulation towardspalatal orpostalveolar. This change can beallophonic variation, or it can have becomephonemic.
This historical palatalization is reflected in theorthographies of several European languages, including the⟨c⟩ and⟨g⟩ of almost allRomance languages, the⟨k⟩ and⟨g⟩ inNorwegian,Swedish,Faroese andIcelandic, and the⟨κ⟩,⟨γ⟩ and⟨χ⟩ inGreek.English follows the French pattern, but without as much regularity.However, for native or early borrowed words affected by palatalization, English has generally altered the spelling after the pronunciation (Examples includecheap, church, cheese, churn from/*k/, andyell, yarn, yearn, yeast from/*ɡ/.)
| Before back vowel: hard | Before front vowel: soft | |
|---|---|---|
| English⟨C⟩ | call/kɔːl/ | cell/sɛl/ |
| English⟨G⟩ | gall/ɡɔːl/ | gel/dʒɛl/ |
| French⟨C⟩ | Calais[kalɛ]ⓘ | cela[səla]ⓘ |
| French⟨G⟩ | gare[ɡaʁ]ⓘ | gel[ʒɛl]ⓘ |
| Greek⟨Γ⟩ | γάιδαρος[ˈɣai̯ðaros]ⓘ | γη[ʝi]ⓘ |
| Greek⟨Χ⟩ | Χανιά[xaˈɲa]ⓘ | χαίρετε[ˈçerete]ⓘ |
| Italian⟨C⟩ | caro[ˈkaːro]ⓘ | città[tʃitˈta]ⓘ |
| Italian⟨G⟩ | gatto[ˈɡatto]ⓘ | gente[ˈdʒɛnte]ⓘ |
| Italian⟨SC⟩ | scusa[ˈskuːza]ⓘ | pesce[ˈpeʃʃe]ⓘ |
| Japanese⟨S⟩ | sūdoku[sɯꜜːdokɯ]ⓘ | shiitake[ɕiꜜːtake]ⓘ[a] |
| Japanese⟨T⟩ | atatakai[atatakaꜜi]ⓘ | dotchi[dotꜜtɕi]ⓘ[a] |
| Swedish⟨K⟩ | karta[ˈkɑ̂ːʈa]ⓘ | kär[ɕæːr]ⓘ |
| Swedish⟨G⟩ | god[ɡuːd]ⓘ | göra[ˈjœ̂ːra]ⓘ |
| Swedish⟨SK⟩ | skal[skɑːl]ⓘ | skälla[ˈɧɛ̂lːa]ⓘ |
According toPHOIBLE, /i/ is the most common phonemic front vowel, occurring in around 92% of inventories, while /ɶ/ is the least common, occurring in only one inventory on the database.[3]
| Vowel | % |
|---|---|
| /i/ | 92 |
| /a/ | 88 |
| /e/ | 61 |
| /ɛ/ | 37 |
| /ɪ/ | 15 |
| /æ/ | 7 |
| /y/ | 6 |
| /ø/ | 3 |
| /œ/ | 3 |
| /ʏ/ | 1 |
| /ɶ/ | 0[b] |
