The close back rounded vowel, or high back 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, used in many spoken language

Language

Language may refer either to the specifically human capacity for acquiring and using complex systems of communication, or to a specific instance of such a system of complex communication...

s. 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 u, and the equivalent X-SAMPA

X-SAMPA

The Extended Speech Assessment Methods Phonetic Alphabet is a variant of SAMPA developed in 1995 by John C. Wells, professor of phonetics at the University of London. It is designed to unify the individual language SAMPA alphabets, and extend SAMPA to cover the entire range of characters in the...

 symbol is u.

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...

.

In most languages this rounded vowel is pronounced with protruded

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...

 lips ('endolabial'). However, in a few cases the lips are compressed ('exolabial').

Close back protruded vowel

In most languages, close back rounded vowels are pronounced with protruded lips.

Occurrence

Note: Since back rounded vowels are assumed to have protrusion, and few descriptions cover the distinction, some of the following may actually have compression.

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
Armenian Armenian language The Armenian language is an Indo-European language spoken by the Armenian people. It is the official language of the Republic of Armenia as well as in the region of Nagorno-Karabakh. The language is also widely spoken by Armenian communities in the Armenian diaspora...	Eastern Eastern Armenian language Eastern Armenian is one of the two standardized forms of modern Armenian , the other being Western Armenian. The two standards form pluricentric language....		[duɾ]	'door'
Arabic Arabic language Arabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...	Standard		[d͡ʒæˈnuːb]	'south'	See Arabic phonology Arabic phonology While many languages have numerous dialects that differ in pronunciation, the Arabic language is more properly described as a continuum of varieties. This article deals primarily with Modern Standard Arabic, which is the standard variety shared by educated speakers throughout Arabic-speaking regions...
Catalan Catalan language Catalan is a Romance language, the national and only official language of Andorra and a co-official language in the Spanish autonomous communities of Catalonia, the Balearic Islands and Valencian Community, where it is known as Valencian , as well as in the city of Alghero, on the Italian island...			[ˈsuk]	'juice'	See Catalan phonology
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		[ɡuː]	'mushroom'	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...
	Mandarin	/		'to cry'	See Mandarin phonology Mandarin phonology The phonology of Standard Chinese is reproduced below. Actual production varies widely among speakers, as people inadvertently introduce elements of their native dialects...
Czech Czech language Czech is a West Slavic language with about 12 million native speakers; it is the majority language in the Czech Republic and spoken by Czechs worldwide. The language was known as Bohemian in English until the late 19th century...				'at'	See Czech phonology Czech phonology This article discusses the phonological system of the Czech language- Vowels :There are 10 vowel phonemes in Czech. 5 of them are short and 5 are long. The duration of the long vowels is approximately double in comparison with their short counterparts. Long and short vowels form minimal pairs. The...
Dutch Dutch language Dutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...				'foot'	See Dutch phonology Dutch phonology Dutch is a Germanic language and as such has a similar phonology to other Germanic languages...
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...	GA General American General American , also known as Standard American English , is a major accent of American English. The accent is not restricted to the United States...		[bu̟ːˀt]	'boot'	Typically more front than cardinal Cardinal vowel Cardinal vowels are a set of reference vowels used by phoneticians in describing the sounds of languages. For instance, the vowel of the English word "feet" can be described with reference to cardinal vowel 1, , which is the cardinal vowel closest to it....  [u]. See English phonology English phonology English phonology is the study of the sound system of the English language. Like many languages, English has wide variation in pronunciation, both historically and from dialect to dialect...
	RP Received Pronunciation Received Pronunciation , also called the Queen's English, Oxford English or BBC English, is the accent of Standard English in England, with a relationship to regional accents similar to the relationship in other European languages between their standard varieties and their regional forms...
Faroese Faroese language Faroese , is an Insular Nordic language spoken by 48,000 people in the Faroe Islands and about 25,000 Faroese people in Denmark and elsewhere...			[uːɹ]	'(wrist-)watch'
Finnish Finnish language Finnish is the language spoken by the majority of the population in Finland Primarily for use by restaurant menus and by ethnic Finns outside Finland. It is one of the two official languages of Finland and an official minority language in Sweden. In Sweden, both standard Finnish and Meänkieli, a...			[ˈkukːɑ]	'flower'	See Finnish phonology Finnish phonology Unless otherwise noted, statements in this article refer to Standard Finnish, which is based on the dialect spoken in Häme Province in central south Finland. Standard Finnish is used by professional speakers, such as the reporters and the news presenters on television.-Vowels:Phonetically, the...
French French language French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...			u	'where'	See French phonology French phonology This article mainly discusses the phonological system of standard French based on the Parisian dialect. French is notable for its uvular r, nasal vowels, and three processes affecting word-final sounds: liaison, a certain type of sandhi, wherein word-final consonants are not pronounced unless...
Georgian Georgian language Georgian is the native language of the Georgians and the official language of Georgia, a country in the Caucasus.Georgian is the primary language of about 4 million people in Georgia itself, and of another 500,000 abroad...			[ɡudɑ]	'leather bag'
German German language German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....				'foot'	See German phonology German phonology This article is about the phonology of the German language based on standard German. It deals with current phonology and phonetics as well as with historical developments thereof, including geographical variants .Since German is a pluricentric language, there are a number of different...
Greek Greek language Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...			[ˌuraˈno̞s̠]	'sky'	See Modern Greek phonology Modern Greek phonology This page presents a sketch of the phonology of Standard Modern Greek.-Consonants:The consonantal system of Greek is difficult to describe, as there is considerable debate about which sounds to describe as separate phonemes and which to analyse as conditional allophones...
Hebrew Hebrew language Hebrew is a Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Culturally, is it considered by Jews and other religious groups as the language of the Jewish people, though other Jewish languages had originated among diaspora Jews, and the Hebrew language is also used by non-Jewish groups, such...			[tmuna]	'image'	Hebrew vowels are not shown in the script, see Niqqud and Modern Hebrew phonology
Hungarian Hungarian language Hungarian is a Uralic language, part of the Ugric group. With some 14 million speakers, it is one of the most widely spoken non-Indo-European languages in Europe....			[unɒlmɒʃ]	'boring'	See Hungarian phonology Hungarian phonology Hungarian phonology is notable for its process of vowel harmony, the frequent use of geminate consonants and the presence of otherwise uncommon palatal stops.- Consonants :...
Irish Irish language Irish , also known as Irish Gaelic, is a Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family, originating in Ireland and historically spoken by the Irish people. Irish is now spoken as a first language by a minority of Irish people, as well as being a second language of a larger proportion of...			[ˈɡasˠuːɾˠ]	'boy'	See Irish phonology Irish phonology The phonology of the Irish language varies from dialect to dialect; there is no standard pronunciation of the language. Therefore, this article focuses on phenomena that pertain generally to most or all dialects, and on the major differences among the dialects...
Italian Italian language Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...			[ˈtutːa]	'all' (fem.)	See Italian phonology Italian phonology This article is about the phonology of the Italian language. It deals with the phonology and phonetics of Standard Italian as well as with geographical variants.-Vowels:Notes:*In Italian there is no phonemic distinction between long and short vowels...
Malay Malay language Malay is a major language of the Austronesian family. It is the official language of Malaysia , Indonesia , Brunei and Singapore...			[bulan]	'moon'
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...			[uːɾɘ̆]	'nest'
North Frisian North Frisian language North Frisian is a minority language of Germany, spoken by about 10,000 people in North Frisia. The language is part of the larger group of the West Germanic Frisian languages.-Classification:...			[bru]	'bridge'
Polish Polish language Polish is a language of the Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages, used throughout Poland and by Polish minorities in other countries...			buk	'beech tree'	Also represented by ⟨ó⟩. See Polish phonology Polish phonology The phonological system of the Polish language is similar in many ways to those of other Slavic languages, although there are some characteristic features found in only a few other languages of the family, such as contrasting retroflex and palatal fricatives and affricates, and nasal vowels...
Portuguese Portuguese language Portuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095...	European European Portuguese European Portuguese refers to the variety of Portuguese spoken in continental Portugal, as well as the Azores and Madeira islands...		[ˈuɾsu]	'bear'	See Portuguese phonology Portuguese phonology The phonology of Portuguese can vary considerably between dialects, in extreme cases leading to difficulties in intelligibility. This article focuses on the pronunciations that are generally regarded as standard...
	Brazilian Brazilian Portuguese Brazilian Portuguese is a group of Portuguese dialects written and spoken by most of the 190 million inhabitants of Brazil and by a few million Brazilian emigrants, mainly in the United States, United Kingdom, Portugal, Canada, Japan and Paraguay....		[ˈuxsʊ]
Romanian Romanian language Romanian Romanian Romanian (or Daco-Romanian; obsolete spellings Rumanian, Roumanian; self-designation: română, limba română ("the Romanian language") or românește (lit. "in Romanian") is a Romance language spoken by around 24 to 28 million people, primarily in Romania and Moldova...			[ˈunu]	'one'	See Romanian phonology Romanian phonology This article discusses the phonology of the Romanian language. For other details on this language the reader is referred to that article....
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...				'narrow'	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...
Scottish Gaelic			[ɡu]	'to'	See Scottish Gaelic phonology Scottish Gaelic phonology This article is about the phonology of the Scottish Gaelic language. There is no standard variety of Scottish Gaelic; although statements below are about all or most dialects, the north-western dialects are discussed more than others as they represent the majority of speakers.Gaelic phonology is...
Serbo-Croatian Serbo-Croatian Serbo-Croatian or Serbo-Croat, less commonly Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian , is a South Slavic language with multiple standards and the primary language of Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Montenegro...		/	[ʒut]	'yellow'	See Serbo-Croatian phonology Serbo-Croatian phonology Serbo-Croatian is a South Slavic language with four very similar national standards. This article deals exclusively with the Eastern Herzegovinian Neo-Shtokavian dialect, the basis for the official standard of Yugoslavia and its present-day forms of Bosnian, Croatian, Montenegrin, and Serbian.All...
Slovak Slovak language Slovak , is an Indo-European language that belongs to the West Slavic languages .Slovak is the official language of Slovakia, where it is spoken by 5 million people...			[ˈruka]	'arm'
Spanish Spanish language Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...			[kuˈɾaβle]	'curable'	See Spanish phonology Spanish phonology This article is about the phonology and phonetics of the Spanish language. Unless otherwise noted, statements refer to Castilian Spanish, the standard dialect used in Spain on radio and television. For historical development of the sound system see History of Spanish...
Thai Thai language Thai , also known as Central Thai and Siamese, is the national and official language of Thailand and the native language of the Thai people, Thailand's dominant ethnic group. Thai is a member of the Tai group of the Tai–Kadai language family. Historical linguists have been unable to definitively...			[sut˨˩]	'rearmost'
Turkish Turkish language Turkish is a language spoken as a native language by over 83 million people worldwide, making it the most commonly spoken of the Turkic languages. Its speakers are located predominantly in Turkey and Northern Cyprus with smaller groups in Iraq, Greece, Bulgaria, the Republic of Macedonia, Kosovo,...			[ut͡ʃak]	'airplane'	See Turkish phonology Turkish phonology The phonology of the Turkish language describes the set of sounds and their relationships with one another in spoken Turkish. One characteristic feature of Turkish is a system of vowel harmony that distinguishes between front and back vowels. The majority of words in Turkish adhere to a system of...
Udmurt Udmurt language Udmurt is an Uralic language, part of the Permic subgroup, spoken by the Udmurt natives of the Russian constituent republic of Udmurtia, where it is coofficial with Russian. It is written in the Cyrillic script with five additional characters. Together with Komi and Komi-Permyak languages, it...			[urete]	'to divide'
Ukrainian Ukrainian language Ukrainian is a language of the East Slavic subgroup of the Slavic languages. It is the official state language of Ukraine. Written Ukrainian uses a variant of the Cyrillic alphabet....			[umɐnʲ]	'Uman Uman Uman is a city located in the Cherkasy Oblast in central Ukraine, to the east of Vinnytsia. The city rests on the banks of the Umanka River at around , and serves as the self-governing administrative center of the Umanskyi Raion .... '	See Ukrainian phonology Ukrainian phonology This article deals with the phonology of the Ukrainian language.-Vowels: may be classified as retracted high-mid front vowel or lowered retracted high front vowel; is middle vowel , backness is classified as advanced back....
Vietnamese Vietnamese language Vietnamese is the national and official language of Vietnam. It is the mother tongue of 86% of Vietnam's population, and of about three million overseas Vietnamese. It is also spoken as a second language by many ethnic minorities of Vietnam...			[tu]	'to practice asceticism'	See Vietnamese phonology Vietnamese phonology This article is a technical description of the sound system of the Vietnamese language, including phonetics and phonology.-Consonants:Two main varieties of Vietnamese, Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, are described below.-Hanoi:...
West Frisian West Frisian language West Frisian is a language spoken mostly in the province of Friesland in the north of the Netherlands. West Frisian is the name by which this language is usually known outside the Netherlands, to distinguish it from the closely related Frisian languages of Saterland Frisian and North Frisian,...			[suːχ]	'sow Pig A pig is any of the animals in the genus Sus, within the Suidae family of even-toed ungulates. Pigs include the domestic pig, its ancestor the wild boar, and several other wild relatives... '
Zapotec Zapotec language The Zapotec language are a group of closely related indigenous Mesoamerican languages spoken by the Zapotec people from the southwestern-central highlands of Mexico. Present-day native speakers are estimated to number over half a million, with the majority inhabiting the state of Oaxaca....	Tilquiapan Tilquiapan Zapotec Tilquiapan Zapotec is an Oto-Manguean language of the Zapotecan branch, spoken in southern Oaxaca, Mexico.Santa Inés Yatzechi Zapotec is close enough to be considered a dialect, and Ocotlán Zapotec is also close....	gdu Latin alphabet The Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most recognized alphabet used in the world today. It evolved from a western variety of the Greek alphabet called the Cumaean alphabet, which was adopted and modified by the Etruscans who ruled early Rome...	[ɡ͡du]	'all'

Close back compressed vowel

Some languages, such as Japanese and Swedish, are found with a close back vowel that has a distinct type of rounding, called compressed or exolabial. No language is known to contrast this with the more typical protruded (endolabial) close back vowel.

As there is no official diacritic for compression in the IPA, the spread-lip diacritic [  ͍ ] will be used here with the rounded vowel [u] as an ad hoc symbol. Other possible transcriptions are [ɯ͡β̞] (simultaneous [ɯ] and labial compression) and [ɯᵝ] ([ɯ] modified with labial compression).

Features

• Its vowel height is close
  Close vowel
  A close vowel is a type of vowel sound used in many spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a close vowel is that the tongue is positioned as close as possible to the roof of the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant.This term is prescribed by the...
  
  , which means the tongue is positioned as close as possible to the roof of the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant
  Consonant
  In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are , pronounced with the lips; , pronounced with the front of the tongue; , pronounced with the back of the tongue; , pronounced in the throat; and ,...
  
  .
• Its vowel backness is back
  Back vowel
  A back vowel is a type of vowel sound used in spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a back vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far back as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Back vowels are sometimes also called dark...
  
  , which means the tongue is positioned as far back as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant
  Consonant
  In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are , pronounced with the lips; , pronounced with the front of the tongue; , pronounced with the back of the tongue; , pronounced in the throat; and ,...
  
  .
• Its roundedness
  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...
  
   is compressed, which means that the margins of the lips approach one another, so that the inner surfaces are not exposed.

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
Japanese Japanese language is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...		kūki Romanization of Japanese The romanization of Japanese is the application of the Latin alphabet to write the Japanese language. This method of writing is known as , less strictly romaji, literally "Roman letters", sometimes incorrectly transliterated as romanji or rōmanji. There are several different romanization systems...	ku͍ːki	'air'	See Japanese phonology Japanese phonology This article deals with the phonology of the Japanese language.-Consonants:The Japanese vowels are pronounced as monophthongs, unlike in English; except for , they are similar to their Spanish or Italian counterparts....
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...			ù͍β̞ru͍β̞	'unease'	Contrasts with a close central and close front compressed vowel. 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...
Danish Danish language Danish is a North Germanic language spoken by around six million people, principally in the country of Denmark. It is also spoken by 50,000 Germans of Danish ethnicity in the northern parts of Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, where it holds the status of minority language...			[d̥u͍]	'you'	See Danish phonology Danish phonology - Consonants :Modern Standard Danish has the following 21 consonants:The Danish allophones can be analyzed into 15 distinctive consonant phonemes, , where have different pronunciation in syllable onset vs. syllable coda....
Norwegian Norwegian language Norwegian is a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Norway, where it is the official language. Together with Swedish and Danish, Norwegian forms a continuum of more or less mutually intelligible local and regional variants .These Scandinavian languages together with the Faroese language...			[mu͍ːt]	'courage'	See Norwegian phonology Norwegian phonology The sound system of Norwegian resembles that of Swedish. There is considerable variation among the dialects, but the variant generally taught to foreign students is Standard Eastern Norwegian, which is the one described in this article.-Consonants:...