The close front unrounded vowel, or high front unrounded vowel, is a type of vowel sound, used in many spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨i⟩.
The IPA prefers terms "close" and "open" for vowels, and the name of the article follows this. However, a large number of linguists, perhaps a majority, prefer the terms "high" and "low", and these are the only terms found in introductory textbooks on phonetics such as those by Peter Ladefoged.
Languages that use the Latin script commonly use ⟨i⟩ to represent this sound, though there are some notable exceptions: in English orthography this letter is more commonly associated with /aɪ/ (as in bite) or /ɪ/ (as in bit) and /iː/ is represented with ⟨e⟩, ⟨ea⟩, ⟨ee⟩, and even ⟨ei⟩. Irish orthography is similar in that its spelling system is both etymological and used to indicate whether preceding consonants are broad or slender so that such combinations as ⟨aí⟩, ⟨ei⟩, and ⟨aío⟩ all represent /iː/.
Read more about Close Front Unrounded Vowel: Features, Occurrence
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