The near-close central rounded vowel, or near-high central rounded vowel, is a type of vowel sound, used in some spoken languages. The International Phonetic Alphabet can represent this sound in a number of ways (see the box on the right), but the most common symbols are ⟨ʊ̈⟩ (centralized ) and ⟨ʉ̞⟩ (lowered ). The third edition of the OED adopted an unofficial extension of the IPA, ⟨ᵿ⟩, that is a conflation of ⟨ʊ⟩ and ⟨ʉ⟩, and represents either or free variation between and .
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.
Read more about Near-close Central Rounded Vowel: Features, Occurrence
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