Close-mid back unrounded vowel

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Vowels

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Front

N.-front

Central

N.-back

Back

Close

i • y

ɨ • ʉ

ɯ • u

ɪ • ʏ

• ʊ

e • ø

ɘ • ɵ

ɤ • o

ɛ • œ

ɜ • ɞ

ʌ • ɔ

a • ɶ

ɑ • ɒ

Near-close

Close-mid

Mid

Open-mid

Near-open

Open

Where symbols appear in pairs, the one to the right
represents a rounded vowel.

Sound sample (help·info)
IPA – number	315
IPA – text	ɤ
IPA – image
Entity	ɤ
X-SAMPA	`7`
Kirshenbaum	`o-`

The close-mid back unrounded vowel is a type of vowel sound, used in some spoken languages. Its symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet is ɤ, called "ram's horns". It is not to be confused with the symbol for the voiced velar fricative, ɣ, which has a descender.

Before 1989, the symbol for this sound was , sometimes called "baby gamma", which has a flat top. Now the symbol is , "ram's horns", with a rounded top. Unicode provides a space only for LATIN SMALL LETTER RAMS HORN (U+0264), but in some fonts this character may appear as a "baby gamma" instead.

1 Features
2 Occurs in
3 Mid back unrounded vowel
- 3.1 Occurs in

[edit] Features

Its vowel height is close-mid, which means the tongue is positioned halfway between close vowel and a mid vowel.
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 unrounded, which means that the lips are not rounded.

[edit] Occurs in

Mandarin: 喝 (help·info) (pinyin hē) [xɤ˥], "to drink"
Taiwanese: 蚵 (POJ ô) [ɤ˧], "oyster" , but in Southern Taiwan mainly. See Taiwanese_language#Vowels.
Vietnamese: tơ [tɤ̄], "silk"
Irish: Uladh [ɤlˠu], "Ulster"
Yorkshire English: hope [hɤːpʰ]
Onge: [ˈɤŋe], "man"
Scottish Gaelic: d'oirbh [d̪̊ɤrʲɤv], "difficult"
Estonian: kõrv, "ear"

[edit] Mid back unrounded vowel

Some languages have a mid back unrounded vowel, distinct from both the close-mid and open-mid vowels. However, since no language is known to distinguish all three, there is no separate IPA symbol for the mid vowel, and [ɤ] is generally used. If precision is desired, the lowering diacritic may be used: [ɤ̞].

Several of the languages listed above may have mid rather than close-mid vowels.