The open-mid front 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 ɛ, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is E.

Features

• Its vowel height is open-mid, which means the tongue is positioned halfway between an open 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.
• Its vowel roundedness is unrounded, which means that the lips are not rounded.

Occurs in

• Dutch: bed [bɛt], 'bed'
• English: (GA) bed [bɛd]; (NZE) fat [fɛ̝t]
• Faroese: elska [ɛlska], 'love'
• French: bête [bɛt], 'animal'
• German: bett [bɛt], 'bed'
• Hungarian: nem [nɛm], 'no'
• Icelandic: ég [jɛg], 'I'
• Portuguese: café [kɐfɛ], 'coffee'
• Polish: lek [lɛk], 'medicine'
• Vietnamese: té [tɛ́], 'to fall'
• Yoruba: ẹsẹ̀ [ɛ̄sɛ̀], 'leg/foot'