# Open back rounded vowel

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The open back rounded vowel, or low back rounded vowel, is a type of vowel sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨ɒ⟩. It is called Latin turned alpha being a rotated version of Latin alpha. It seems a "turned script a", being a rotated version of "script (cursive) a", which is the variant of a that lacks the extra stroke on top of a "printed a". Latin turned alpha a ⟨ɒ⟩ has its linear stroke on the left, whereas Latin alpha a ⟨ɑ⟩ (for its unrounded counterpart) has its linear stroke on the right.

## Features

* Its vowel height is open, also known as low, which means the tongue is positioned far from the roof of the mouth – that is, low in the mouth.
* 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.
* It is rounded, which means that the lips are rounded rather than spread or relaxed.

## Occurrence

| Language | Language | Word | IPA | Meaning | Notes |
| Afrikaans | Standard | daar | [dɒːr] | 'there' | Fully back. Used by some speakers, particularly young female speakers of northern accents. Other speakers use an unrounded vowel [ɑː ~ ɑ̟ː]. See Afrikaans phonology |
| Assamese | Assamese | কৰ / kor | [kɒ̹ɹ] | 'to do' | An "over-rounded" [ɒ̹], with rounding as strong as that for [u]. May also be transcribed [ɔ]. |
| Bulgarian | Some Rhodopean dialects | мъж/măž | [ˈmɒʃʲ] | 'man' | Found as the unification of the Proto-Slavic *ǫ, *ę, *ъ and *ь. Standard Bulgarian has /ɤ̞/ for *ǫ and *ъ and /ɛ/ for *ę and *ь. |
| Catalan | Majorcan | dones | [ˈd̪ɔ̞nəs] | 'women' | Main realization of /ɔ/ (also represented as /ɒ/). May be unrounded [ɑ] in Majorcan and some Southern Valencian dialects. See Catalan phonology |
| Catalan | Menorcan | dones | [ˈd̪ɔ̞nəs] | 'women' | Main realization of /ɔ/ (also represented as /ɒ/). May be unrounded [ɑ] in Majorcan and some Southern Valencian dialects. See Catalan phonology |
| Catalan | Valencian | dones | [ˈd̪ɔ̞nes] | 'women' | Main realization of /ɔ/ (also represented as /ɒ/). May be unrounded [ɑ] in Majorcan and some Southern Valencian dialects. See Catalan phonology |
| Catalan | Some Valencian speakers | taula | [ˈt̪ɑ̟wɫɔ̞̈] | 'table' | Can be realized as unrounded ([ʌ̞̈]). |
| Dutch | Leiden | bad | [bɒ̝t] | 'bath' | Near-open fully back; may be unrounded [ɑ̝] instead. It corresponds to [ɑ] in standard Dutch. |
| Dutch | Rotterdam | bad | [bɒ̝t] | 'bath' | Near-open fully back; may be unrounded [ɑ̝] instead. It corresponds to [ɑ] in standard Dutch. |
| Dutch | Some dialects | bot | [bɒt] | 'bone' | Some non-Randstad dialects, for example those of Den Bosch and Groningen. It is open-mid [ɔ] in standard Dutch. |
| English | South African | not | [nɒ̜̈t] | 'not' | Near-back and weakly rounded. Some younger speakers of the General variety may actually have a higher and fully unrounded vowel [ʌ̈]. See South African English phonology |
| English | Conservative Received Pronunciation | not | [nɒt] | 'not' | Somewhat raised. Contemporary RP speakers pronounce a closer vowel [ɔ]. It is proposed that the /ɒ/ vowel of Conservative RP, which is normally described as a rounded vowel, is pronounced by some speakers without rounded lips for whom the characteristic quality is rather one of sulcality. See English phonology |
| English | Northern English | not | [nɒt] | 'not' | May be somewhat raised and fronted. |
| English | Canadian | not | [nɒt] | 'not' | Lot and thought have the same vowel in Canadian English; see cot–caught merger. |
| English | Canadian | thought | | 'thought' | Lot and thought have the same vowel in Canadian English; see cot–caught merger. |
| English | General American | thought | | 'thought' | Vowel /ɔ(:)/ is lowered (phonetic realization of /ɔ(:)/ is much lower in GA than in RP). However, "Short o" before r before a vowel (a short o sound followed by r and then another vowel, as in orange, forest, moral, and warrant) is realized as [oɹ~ɔɹ]. |
| English | Inland Northern American | thought | | 'thought' | See Northern cities vowel shift |
| English | Indian | thought | [t̪ʰɒʈ] | 'thought' | /ɒ/ and /ɔː/ differ entirely by length in Indian English. |
| English | Welsh | thought | [θɒːt] | 'thought' | Open-mid in Cardiff; may merge with /oː/ in northern dialects. |
| German | Many speakers | Gourmand | [ɡ̊ʊʁˈmɒ̃ː] | 'gourmand' | Nasalized; common phonetic realization of /ɑ̃ː/. See Standard German phonology |
| German | Many Swiss dialects | maane | [ˈmɒːnə] | 'remind' | The example word is from the Zurich dialect, in which [ɒː] is in free variation with the unrounded [ɑː]. |
| Hungarian | Standard | magyar | [ˈmɒ̜̽ɟɒ̜̽r] | 'Hungarian' | Somewhat fronted and raised, with only slight rounding; sometimes transcribed in IPA with ⟨ɔ⟩. Unrounded [ɑ] in some dialects. See Hungarian phonology |
| Ibibio | Ibibio | dọ | [dɒ̝́] | 'marry' | Near-open; typically transcribed in IPA with ⟨ɔ⟩. |
| Irish | Ulster | ólann | [ɒ̝ːɫ̪ən̪ˠ] | '(he) drinks' | Near-open; may be transcribed in IPA with ⟨ɔː⟩. |
| Istro-Romanian | Istro-Romanian | cåp | [kɒp] | 'head' | See Istro-Romanian pronunciation (in Romanian). |
| Jeju | | ᄒᆞ나 haona | [hɒna] | 'one' | See Jeju phonology |
| Lehali | Lehali | dön̄ | [ⁿdɒ̝ŋ] | 'yam' | Raised vowel, being the back rounded counterpart of /æ/ in a symmetrical vowel inventory. |
| Lemerig | Lemerig | ‘ān̄sār | [ʔɒ̝ŋsɒ̝r] | 'person' | Raised vowel, being the back rounded counterpart of /æ/ in a symmetrical vowel inventory. |
| Limburgish | Maastrichtian | plaots | [plɒ̝ːts] | 'place' | Near-open fully back; typically transcribed in IPA with ⟨ɔː⟩. Corresponds to [ɔː] in other dialects. |
| Malay | Kedah | tua | [tu.ɒ] | 'old' | Northern Kedah subdialect/dialect. Allophone of /a/ in word-final position in open-ended words and close-ended words that end with a glottal stop /ʔ/ or a glottal fricative /h/. |
| Mansi | Central/Northern | ам | [ɒm] | 'me' | The pronunciation of 'a' sometimes varies between /ɒ/ and /o/. |
| Neapolitan | Vastese | uâʃtə | [uˈwɒʃtə] | 'Vasto' | |
| Norwegian | Urban East | topp | [tʰɒ̝pː] | 'top' | Near-open, also described as close-mid back [o]. Typically transcribed in IPA with ⟨ɔ⟩. See Norwegian phonology |
| Norwegian | Dialects along the Swedish border | hat | [hɒ̜ːt] | 'hate' | Weakly rounded and fully back. See Norwegian phonology |
| Persian | Persian | ف‍‍ارسی fârsi | [fɒːɾˈsiː] | 'Persian' | |
| Brazilian Portuguese | Carioca | ova | [ˈɒːva] | 'fish roe' | Allophone of /ɔ/. See Portuguese phonology |
| Slovak | Some speakers | a | [ɒ] | 'and' | Under Hungarian influence, some speakers realize the short /a/ as rounded. See Slovak phonology |
| Swedish | Central Standard | jаg | [jɒ̝ːɡ] | 'I' | Near-open fully back weakly rounded vowel. Typically transcribed in IPA with ⟨ɑː⟩. See Swedish phonology |
| Swedish | Gothenburg | jаg | [jɒːɡ] | 'I' | More rounded than in Central Standard Swedish. |
| Uzbek | Standard | choy | [t͡ʃɒj] | 'tea' | |
| Yoruba | Yoruba | itọju | [itɒ̝ju] | 'care' | Near-open; most often transcribed in IPA with ⟨ɔ⟩. |