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High vowel

Vowels
	front	near-front	central	near-back	back
close	i • y		ɨ • ʉ		ɯ • near-close		ɪ • close-mid	e • ø		ɘ • ɵ		ɤ • mid			ə
open-mid	ɛ • œ		ɜ • ɞ		ʌ • near-open	open	a • ɶ				ɑ • Table of vowels
List of vowels

A close vowel is a type of vowel sound used in many spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a close vowel is that 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. Close vowels are often referred to as high vowels because the tongue is positioned high in the mouth during the articulation of a close vowel.

The close vowels identified the International Phonetic Alphabet are:

• close front unrounded vowel [i]
• close front rounded vowel [y]
• close central unrounded vowel [ɨ]
• close central rounded vowel [ʉ]
• close back unrounded vowel [ɯ]
• close back rounded vowel [u]