Close back compressed vowel

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The close back compressed vowel is a type of vowel sound, used in some spoken languages. There is no symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound.

[edit] Features

• Its vowel height is close, which means the tongue is positioned as close as possible to the roof of the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant.
• Its vowel backness is back, which means the tongue is positioned as far back as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant.
• Its vowel roundedness is compressed, which means the corners of the mouth are drawn slightly together and the lips may be compressed horizontally, but do not protrude.

[edit] Occurs in

There is no official diacritic for compression. An old diacritic for labialization, [  ̫], will be used here as an ad hoc symbol.

• Swedish: oro [ù̫ːru̫ː] or [ù̫β̞ru̫β̞] (help·info), 'unease', 'worry'
• Japanese: 空気 (kuuki) [kɯ̫ːki], 'air', 'atmosphere'

The long /u/ in Swedish is frequently diphthongized, and the glide is tellingly the bilabial approximant [β̞] rather than the prototypically rounded [w].

Norwegian has a similar vowel. These languages also have close central compressed vowels and close front compressed vowels.

The Japanese vowel listen (help·info) is perhaps a near-back vowel. Since there is no diacritic for compression, the transcription /ɯ/ is commonly used; this captures both the lack of rounding common to back vowels and the somewhat fronted articulation (unrounded vowels tend to be more front than rounded vowels). When Japanese /ɯ/ follows /h/, the consonant tellingly assimilates as a bilabial fricative [ɸ] listen (help·info).