open back

The open back unrounded vowel, or low back unrounded vowel, is a type of vowel sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨ɑ⟩. The letter ⟨ɑ⟩ is called script a or handwritten a because it lacks the extra hook on top of a printed letter a, which corresponds to a different vowel, the open front unrounded vowel. Script a, which has a full length linear stroke on its right, should not be confused with turned script a, ⟨ɒ⟩, which has the linear stroke on its left and corresponds to a rounded version of this vowel, the open back rounded vowel.

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