Fronts Vowels Its defining characteristic being that the tongue is positioned as far in front as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would make it a consonant. Front vowels are sometimes also called bright vowels because they are perceived as sounding brighter than the back vowels. Near-front vowels are essentially a type of front vowels; no language is known to contrast front and near-front vowels based on frontness alone. Rounded front vowels are typically centralized, that is, near-front in their articulation. This is one reason they are written to the right of unrounded front vowels in the IPA vowel chart.
Vowel i: The close front unrounded vowel, or high front unrounded vowel is represented in the International Phonetic Alphabet by the symbol i. Itis similar to the vowel sound in the English word meet—and often called long-i in American English. Although in English this sound has additional length (usually being represented as /iː/) and is not normally pronounced as a pure vowel (it is a slight diphthong), some dialects have been reported to pronounce the phoneme as a pure sound. Examples: beat, beach, each, gene, sleep, sheep. Features Its vowel height is close, also known as high, 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. Note that rounded front vowels are often centralized, which means that often they are in fact nearfront. It is unrounded, which means that the lips are not rounded.
Vowel I The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨e⟩. For the close-mid (near-) front rounded vowel that is usually transcribed with the symbol ⟨ɪ⟩or ⟨i⟩, seen ear-close near-front unrounded vowel. If the usual symbol is⟨e⟩, the vowel is listed here. Examples: bit, bitch, itch, gin, bin, bid, big. Features Its vowel height is close-mid, also known as high-mid, which means the tongue is positioned halfway between a close vowel (a high vowel) and a mid vowel. 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. Note that rounded front vowels are often centralized, which means that often they are in fact nearfront. It is unrounded, which means that the lips are not rounded.