Information about Vowel Height

In phonetics and phonology, vowel height is the vertical position of the tongue relative to either the roof of the mouth or the aperture of the jaw. In high vowels, such as [i] and [u], the tongue is positioned high in the mouth, whereas in low vowels, such as [a], the tongue is positioned low in the mouth. The first formant of a vowel (F1) usually corresponds to vowel height, with a higher F1 corresponding to a lower vowel height and a lower F1 corresponding to a higher vowel height. Sometimes the terms open and close are used as synonyms for low and high for describing vowels. The International Phonetic Alphabet identifies seven different vowel heights, although no known language distinguishes all seven:

• close vowel (high vowel)
• near-close vowel
• close-mid vowel
• mid vowel
• open-mid vowel
• near-open vowel
• open vowel (low vowel)

It may be that some varieties of German have five contrasting vowel heights independently of length or other parameters. The Bavarian dialect of Amstetten has thirteen long vowels, reported to distinguish four heights (close, close-mid, mid, and near-open) each among the front unrounded, front rounded, and back rounded vowels, plus an open central vowel: /i e ɛ̝ æ̝/, /y ø œ̝ ɶ̝/, /u o ɔ̝ ɒ̝/, /a/. Otherwise, the usual limit on the number of vowel heights is four.

The parameter of vowel height appears to be the primary feature of vowels cross-linguistically in that all languages use height contrastively. No other parameter, such as front-back or rounded-unrounded, is used in all languages. Some languages use only height to distinguish vowels.

See also

• List of phonetics topics
• Lowered (phonetics)
• Raised (phonetics)