The close front unrounded vowel is a type of vowel sound, used in many spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is i, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is i.

The letter used for the close front unrounded vowel is I (For mostly European and Asian languages) with only one exception, in English, the letter used for the same sound is E.

Features

  • Its vowel height is close, 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.
  • Its vowel backness is front, which means the tongue is positioned as far forward as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant.
  • Its vowel roundedness is unrounded, which means that the lips are spread.

From Wikipedia under the GNU Free Documentation License
Sun Nov 22 22:35:35 2009