page_title: International Phonetic Alphabet
section_title: Vowels
hierarchical_section_title: International Phonetic Alphabet / Letters / Vowels
caption_attribution_description: X-ray photographs of the tongue positions of Jones' cardinal vowels [i, u, a, ɑ] (adapted from Jones 1972: frontispiece). The photographs are of Jones' mouth during vowel production. Jones writes: "A chain of small lead plates strung together was placed on the tongue to show its outline. The large dot added on each photograph marks the highest point of the tongue. The cross is a point of reference (near the end of the hard palate).... The photographs were taken by Dr. H. Trevelyan George in St. Bartholomew's Hospital, London, in January, 1917". And on p. 32: "They were taken ... by Dr. E. A. Meyer's method of placing a very thin metal chain on the tongue. They were first published in the Proceedings of the Royal Institution, Vol. XXII, Part 1, Oct., 1919. The originals may be seen in the Department of Phonetics, University College, London, W.C.1." For this image, Jones' large dots are overlaid with large red dots to aid the viewer. Jones' photographs are in the public domain in the United States.
context_page_description: The International Phonetic Alphabet is an alphabetic system of phonetic notation based primarily on the Latin alphabet. It was devised by the International Phonetic Association in the late 19th century as a standardized representation of the sounds of spoken language. The IPA is used by lexicographers, foreign language students and teachers, linguists, speech-language pathologists, singers, actors, constructed language creators and translators.
  The IPA is designed to represent only those qualities of speech that are part of oral language: phones, phonemes, intonation and the separation of words and syllables. To represent additional qualities of speech, such as tooth gnashing, lisping, and sounds made with a cleft lip and cleft palate, an extended set of symbols, the extensions to the International Phonetic Alphabet, may be used.
  IPA symbols are composed of one or more elements of two basic types, letters and diacritics. For example, the sound of the English letter ⟨t⟩ may be transcribed in IPA with a single letter, or with a letter plus diacritics, depending on how precise one wishes to be.
context_section_description: The IPA defines a vowel as a sound which occurs at a syllable center. Below is a chart depicting the vowels of the IPA. The IPA maps the vowels according to the position of the tongue.
  The vertical axis of the chart is mapped by vowel height. Vowels pronounced with the tongue lowered are at the bottom, and vowels pronounced with the tongue raised are at the top. For example, [ɑ] (the first vowel in father) is at the bottom because the tongue is lowered in this position. However, [i] (the vowel in "meet") is at the top because the sound is said with the tongue raised to the roof of the mouth.
  In a similar fashion, the horizontal axis of the chart is determined by vowel backness. Vowels with the tongue moved towards the front of the mouth (such as [ɛ], the vowel in "met") are to the left in the chart, while those in which it is moved to the back (such as [ʌ], the vowel in "but") are placed to the right in the chart.
  In places where vowels are paired, the right represents a rounded vowel (in which the lips are rounded) while the left is its unrounded counterpart.
caption: X-ray photos show the sounds [i, u, a, ɑ].
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