For the Cyrillic letter that looks similar, see Uk (Cyrillic).
The close-mid back unrounded vowel, or high-mid back unrounded vowel,[1] is a type of vowel sound, used in some spoken languages. Its symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet is ⟨ɤ⟩, called "ram's horn." This symbol is distinct from the symbol for the voiced velar fricative, ⟨ɣ⟩, which has a descender, but some texts[2] use this symbol for the voiced velar fricative.
Before the 1989 IPA Convention, the symbol for the close-mid back unrounded vowel was ⟨⟩, sometimes called "baby gamma", which has a flat top; this symbol was in turn derived from and replaced the inverted small capital A, ⟨Ɐ⟩, that represented the sound before the 1928 revision to the IPA.[3] The symbol was ultimately revised to be ⟨⟩, "ram's horn", with a rounded top, in order to better differentiate it from the Latin gamma ⟨ɣ⟩.[4]
Unicode provides U+0264ɤLATIN SMALL LETTER RAMS HORN, but in some fonts this character may appear as a "baby gamma" instead. The superscript IPA version is U+10791𐞑MODIFIER LETTER SMALL RAMS HORN.[5]
Its vowel backness is back, which means the tongue is positioned back in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Unrounded back vowels tend to be centralized, which means that often they are in fact near-back.
It is unrounded, which means that the lips are not rounded.
^Nicholas, Nick (2003). "Greek-derived IPA symbols". Greek Unicode Issues. University of California, Irvine. Archived from the original on 2013-12-19. Retrieved 2013-12-18.
Booij, Geert (1999). The phonology of Dutch. Oxford University Press. ISBN0-19-823869-X.
Eades, Domenyk; Hajek, John (2006). "Gayo". Journal of the International Phonetic Association. 36 (1): 107–115. doi:10.1017/S0025100306002416.
Finn, Peter (2004). "Cape Flats English: phonology". In Schneider, Edgar W.; Burridge, Kate; Kortmann, Bernd; Mesthrie, Rajend; Upton, Clive (eds.). A handbook of varieties of English. Vol. 1: Phonology. Mouton de Gruyter. pp. 934–984. ISBN3-11-017532-0.
Mesthrie, Rajend (2004). "Indian South African English: phonology". In Schneider, Edgar W.; Burridge, Kate; Kortmann, Bernd; Mesthrie, Rajend; Upton, Clive (eds.). A handbook of varieties of English. Vol. 1: Phonology. Mouton de Gruyter. pp. 953–963. ISBN3-11-017532-0.
Maddieson, Ian; Anderson, Victoria (1994). "Phonemic Structures of Iaai"(PDF). UCLA Working Papers in Phonetics. 87: Fieldwork Studies of Targeted Languages II. Los Angeles: UCLA: 163–182.
Ní Chasaide, Ailbhe (1999). "Irish". Handbook of the International Phonetic Association. Cambridge University Press. pp. 111–16. ISBN0-521-63751-1.
Nowikow, Wieczysław (2012) [First published 1992]. Fonetyka hiszpańska (3rd ed.). Warsaw: Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN. ISBN978-83-01-16856-8.
Tingsabadh, M. R. Kalaya; Abramson, Arthur S. (1993). "Thai". Journal of the International Phonetic Association. 23 (1): 24–28. doi:10.1017/S0025100300004746. S2CID242001518.