Editing Near-open front unrounded vowel (section)

{{Short description|Vowel sound represented by ⟨æ⟩ in IPA}}
{{Infobox IPA
|ipa symbol=æ
|ipa number=325
|decimal=230
|x-sampa=<nowiki>{</nowiki>
|kirshenbaum=&
|braille=sh
|imagefile=IPA Unicode 0x00E6.svg
|imagesize=150px
}}
{{IPA vowels|class=floatright}}

[[File:IPA æ Sagittal Section.svg|thumb|[[Sagittal plane|Sagittal section]] of a vocal tract pronouncing the IPA sound {{angbr IPA|æ}}. Note that a wavy [[glottis]] in this diagram indicates a voiced sound.]]

The '''near-open front unrounded vowel''', or '''near-low front unrounded vowel''',<ref>{{Vowel terminology}}</ref> is a type of [[vowel]] sound. The symbol in the [[International Phonetic Alphabet]] that represents this sound is {{angbr IPA|æ}}, a lowercase of the {{angbr|[[Æ]]}} [[Typographic ligature|ligature]]. Both the symbol and the sound are commonly referred to as "ash".

The rounded counterpart of {{IPA|[æ]}}, the '''near-open front rounded vowel''' (for which the IPA provides no separate symbol) has been reported to occur allophonically in [[Danish language|Danish]];<ref name="gr100">{{Harvcoltxt|Grønnum|1998|p=100}}</ref><ref>{{Harvcoltxt|Basbøll|2005|p=46}}</ref> see [[open front rounded vowel]] for more information.

In practice, {{angbr IPA|æ}} is sometimes used to represent the [[open front unrounded vowel]]; see the introduction to that page for more information.

In IPA transcriptions of [[Hungarian language|Hungarian]] and [[Valencian language|Valencian]], this vowel is typically written with {{angbr IPA|ɛ}}.