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 , and the equivalent
X-SAMPA symbol is
A. The letter is called
script 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 its linear stroke on the bottom right, should not be confused with
turned script a, , which has its linear stroke on the top left and corresponds to a
rounded version of this vowel, the
open back rounded vowel.