Open-mid vowel

The open-mid vowels make a class of vowel sounds used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of an open-mid vowel is that the tongue is positioned halfway between an open vowel and a mid vowel. The open-mid vowels identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet are:

• open-mid front unrounded vowel [ɛ]
• open-mid front rounded vowel [œ]
• open-mid central unrounded vowel [ɜ]
• open-mid central rounded vowel [ɞ]
• open-mid back unrounded vowel [ʌ]
• open-mid back rounded vowel [ɔ]