The close-mid central rounded vowel, or high-mid central rounded vowel, is a type of vowel

Vowel

In phonetics, a vowel is a sound in spoken language, such as English ah! or oh! , pronounced with an open vocal tract so that there is no build-up of air pressure at any point above the glottis. This contrasts with consonants, such as English sh! , where there is a constriction or closure at some...

 sound. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet

International Phonetic Alphabet

The International Phonetic Alphabet "The acronym 'IPA' strictly refers [...] to the 'International Phonetic Association'. But it is now such a common practice to use the acronym also to refer to the alphabet itself that resistance seems pedantic...

 that represents this sound is ɵ. The symbol ɵ is a lowercase barred letter o, and should not be confused with the Greek letter

Greek alphabet

The Greek alphabet is the script that has been used to write the Greek language since at least 730 BC . The alphabet in its classical and modern form consists of 24 letters ordered in sequence from alpha to omega...

 theta

Theta

Theta is the eighth letter of the Greek alphabet, derived from the Phoenician letter Teth...

 (θ), which in IPA corresponds to a consonant sound, the voiceless dental fricative

Voiceless dental fricative

The voiceless dental non-sibilant fricative is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. It is familiar to English speakers as the 'th' in thing. Though rather rare as a phoneme in the world's inventory of languages, it is encountered in some of the most widespread and influential...

.

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

Phonetics

Phonetics is a branch of linguistics that comprises the study of the sounds of human speech, or—in the case of sign languages—the equivalent aspects of sign. It is concerned with the physical properties of speech sounds or signs : their physiological production, acoustic properties, auditory...

 such as those by Peter Ladefoged

Peter Ladefoged

Peter Nielsen Ladefoged was an English-American linguist and phonetician who traveled the world to document the distinct sounds of endangered languages and pioneered ways to collect and study data . He was active at the universities of Edinburgh, Scotland and Ibadan, Nigeria 1953–61...

.

The symbol for the close-mid central rounded vowel may also be used with a lowering diacritic, [ɵ̞], to denote the mid central rounded vowel.

The character has been used in several Latin-derived alphabets such as the one for Janalif, but in that language it denotes a different sound than it does in the IPA. The character is homographic with Cyrillic Ө

Oe (Cyrillic)

Oe or Barred O is a letter of the Cyrillic alphabet.- Shape :Its form was copied from the Latin letter Barred O used in Jaŋalif and other alphabets. Despite having a similar shape, it is genetically related neither to the Greek letter Theta nor to the archaic Cyrillic letter Fita...

. The Unicode

Unicode

Unicode is a computing industry standard for the consistent encoding, representation and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems...

 code point is .

Occurrence

Language		Word	IPA International Phonetic Alphabet The International Phonetic Alphabet "The acronym 'IPA' strictly refers [...] to the 'International Phonetic Association'. But it is now such a common practice to use the acronym also to refer to the alphabet itself that resistance seems pedantic...	Meaning	Notes
Chinese Chinese language The Chinese language is a language or language family consisting of varieties which are mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...	Cantonese	/	[tsʰɵt˥]	'to go out'	See Cantonese phonology Cantonese phonology The standard pronunciation of the Cantonese language is that of Guangzhou, also known as Canton, the capital of Guangdong Province. Hong Kong Cantonese is related to the Guangzhou dialect, and the two diverge only slightly...
English English language English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...	some dialects		[kʰɵˈɒpəɹeɪt]	'cooperate'	Reduced Vowel reduction In phonetics, vowel reduction is any of various changes in the acoustic quality of vowels, which are related to changes in stress, sonority, duration, loudness, articulation, or position in the word , and which are perceived as "weakening"...  /oʊ/ in dialects that retain rounding
	Australian Australian English Australian English is the name given to the group of dialects spoken in Australia that form a major variety of the English language....		[bɵːd]	'bird'	See Australian English phonology Australian English phonology Australian English is a non-rhotic variety of English spoken by most native-born Australians. Phonologically, it is one of the most regionally homogeneous language varieties in the world...
	Geordie Geordie Geordie is a regional nickname for a person from the Tyneside region of the north east of England, or the name of the English-language dialect spoken by its inhabitants...		[ɡɵːt]	'goat'	Corresponds to /oʊ/ in other dialects.
Mongolian Mongolian language The Mongolian language is the official language of Mongolia and the best-known member of the Mongolic language family. The number of speakers across all its dialects may be 5.2 million, including the vast majority of the residents of Mongolia and many of the Mongolian residents of the Inner...			[ɵɡɵx]	'to give'
Russian Russian language Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...			['tʲɵ̞tʲæ]	'aunt'	See Russian phonology Russian phonology This article discusses the phonological system of standard Russian based on the Moscow dialect . For discussion of other dialects, see Russian dialects...
Swedish Swedish language Swedish is a North Germanic language, spoken by approximately 10 million people, predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, especially along its coast and on the Åland islands. It is largely mutually intelligible with Norwegian and Danish...			[dɵmː]	'dumb'	See Swedish phonology Swedish phonology The phonology of Swedish is notable for having a large vowel inventory, with nine vowels distinguished in quality and to some degree quantity, making 17 vowel phonemes in most dialects. Swedish pronunciation of consonants is similar to that of other Germanic languages...
Toda Toda language Toda is a Dravidian language well known for its many fricatives and trills. It is spoken by the Toda people, a population of about one thousand who live in the Nilgiri Hills of southern India.-Vowels:...			[pɵːr̘]	'name'

The Swedish [ɵ] is pronounced with compressed lips

Roundedness

In phonetics, vowel roundedness refers to the amount of rounding in the lips during the articulation of a vowel. That is, it is vocalic labialization. When pronouncing a rounded vowel, the lips form a circular opening, while unrounded vowels are pronounced with the lips relaxed...

, more closely transcribed [ɵᵝ] or [ɘᵝ]. That of reduced English /oʊ/ is pronounced with protruded lips

Roundedness

In phonetics, vowel roundedness refers to the amount of rounding in the lips during the articulation of a vowel. That is, it is vocalic labialization. When pronouncing a rounded vowel, the lips form a circular opening, while unrounded vowels are pronounced with the lips relaxed...

, more closely transcribed [ɵʷ] or [əʷ], though these could be misread as diphthongs. The type of rounding of [ɵ] in the other languages is not clear.