Near-close Central Unrounded Vowel

The near-close central unrounded vowel, or near-high central unrounded 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 ⟨ɪ̈⟩ (centralized ) and ⟨ɨ̞⟩ (lowered ). In many British dictionaries, this vowel has been transcribed ⟨ɪ⟩, which captures its height; in the American tradition it is more often ⟨ɨ⟩, which captures its centrality. The third edition of the OED adopted an unofficial extension of the IPA, ⟨ᵻ⟩, that is a conflation of ⟨ɪ⟩ and ⟨ɨ⟩, and represents either or a vowel that varies 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 in the USA, prefer the terms "high" and "low", and these terms are used in introductory textbooks on phonetics published in America such as those by Peter Ladefoged.