Unrounded open front tongue vowel

IPA mark	a
IPA number	304
IPA character description	Latin minuscule a
Unicode	U + 0061 (a)
HTML (dec.)	& # 97;
X-SAMPA	a
Kirshenbaum	a
Audio sample ? / i [ ʔaː ]

Phonetic and orthographic realization of the unrounded open front tongue vowel in different languages:

• French [⁠ a ⁠] : a ; i in the combination oi ; e before mm, nn sometimes
  • Examples: a vo i r [ avwaʀ ], déj à [ deʒa ], l a pin [ lapɛ̃ ], f e mme [ fam ]

• The (long and short) a in German is a central vowel - not a front tongue vowel .

See also

• vocal
• Front tongue vowel
• Rounding (phonetics)