Height (definition)

The term height refers to the vertical position of the tongue body when the vowel or consonant is pronounced. Usually three heights are distinguished: high, low, and mid. [i, ɪ, ʊ, u] are the high vowels of English. [e, ɛ, ɔ, o, ʌ, ə] are the mid vowels of English, and [æ, ɑ] are the low vowels of American English (other dialects have other low vowels).

See Also

Frontness (definition) Vowel (definition) Backness (definition)

External Links

The link below takes you away from the Gaelic Wiki to Wikipedia. Since wikipedia pages can be edited by anyone, they often contain inaccurate information. So be careful!

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vowel_height

References

• Matthews, P. H. (1997) The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Linguistics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Ladefoged, D. (2010) A Course in Phonetics. 6th Edition. Wadsworth Publishing.