Close-mid back unrounded vowel

The close-mid back unrounded vowel, or high-mid back unrounded vowel, is a type of vowel sound, used in some spoken languages. Its symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet is $\langle\rangle$, called "ram's horns". It is distinct from the symbol for the voiced velar fricative, $\langle\rangle$, which has a descender.

The IPA prefers terms "close" and "open" for vowels, and the name of the article follows this. However, a large number of linguists, perhaps a majority, prefer the terms "high" and "low".

Before the 1989 IPA Convention, the symbol for the close-mid back unrounded vowel was $\langle\rangle$, sometimes called "baby gamma", which has a flat top. The symbol was revised to be $\langle\rangle$, "ram's horns", with a rounded top, in order to differentiate it from the Latin gamma. Unicode provides only, but in some fonts this character may appear as a "baby gamma" instead.