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From what I know of English phonetics, in RP there're 3 similar monophthongs (that my Russian ear associates with the same Russian letter, "а"): ʌ, ɑ, æ. So far I've learned to more or less be able to distinguish them.

But there's yet another IPA symbol that's used in diphthongs like aɪ: a. The beginning of this diphthong sounds similar to both ʌ and ɑ, but I don't quite understand which of them, if any, it is. The vowel diagrams for RP are also unhelpful because they never try to split diphthongs and only show them separately from the monophthongs. Moreover, different diphthongs with the same first symbol, e.g. aɪ and aʊ appear separated in these charts, which adds to the confusion.

So, what sound does this "a" symbol represent? Can it be positioned on a formant diagram among the monophthongs? Does it coincide with any monophthong?

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/a/ is a front open vowel, whereas /ɑ/ is a back open vowel. So the difference is analogous to the difference between the front vowel /ɛ/ and the back vowel /ʌ/.

The difference between /a/ and /ɑ/ is often insignificant to English speakers, because the pairs of words in the same dialect are not distinguished by /a/ and /ɑ/. If you listen to an American pronunciation of "hot (listen)" you will hear the /ɑ/ sound, which also occurs in the British (RP) pronunciation of "palm" The /a/ sound occurs in the modern RP pronunciation of "hat (listen)".

There is a range of dialect variations in which various "a" and "o" sounds are more or less fronted, and the difference is not normally considered significant for understanding.

For what it's worth, the first vowel sound in палка is closer to /ɑ/ but in пять it is closer to /a/, but you'll probably ascribe the difference to the paletization rather than the vowel sound, when thinking about Russian.

In the diphthong, the "a" sound is fronted since the diphthong ends on the front sound /ɪ/. But the actual starting and ending point of the diphthong will vary

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  • OK, the example of палка is more confusing than helpful :) I'd never think that a stressed "а" in Russian would be different in different words, can't even notice a difference between the first vowels of, say, палка and папка. Or should I check another word for contrast?
    – Ruslan
    Commented Dec 27, 2023 at 15:43
  • If the Russian example doesn't help just ignore it. Listen to US hot, verses RP hat. (and perhaps also US hat for comparison. And so be aware the differences are included in dialect variation. The example of пять, might be useful because the /j/ sound of я is pulling the vowel forward in a similar way to how the ɪ sound pulls the vowel forward. But while I know this from a book, it is not something that I'm aware of when speaking.
    – James K
    Commented Dec 27, 2023 at 18:12
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    "The difference between /a/ and /ɑ/ is often insignificant to English speakers, because the pairs of words in the same dialect are not distinguished by /a/ and /ɑ/." By that, do you mean there are no minimal pairs between the two vowels? Your use of the definite article in "the pairs" is confusing.
    – Acccumulation
    Commented Dec 27, 2023 at 21:28
  • 'the "a" sound is fronted since the diphthong ends on the front sound /ɪ/' - Really? Wikipedia says it's actually significantly backed for young speakers, for example, Geoff Lindsey writes it as /ɑj/.
    – wjandrea
    Commented Dec 28, 2023 at 2:17
  • @wjandrea: The initial segment of the PRICE diphthong is phonetically fronter than /ɑ/ in a context like /ɑl/. Perceptually, the movement from back to front in PRICE may trigger a compensatory illusion in listeners that causes them to hear the starting point as backer than it is, and the endpoint as fronter and higher than it really is (the end is rarely as peripheral as consonantal [j]). This illusion may in turn cause the target of the initial part of the diphthong to be interpreted phonologically as a back vowel rather than a central or front. This can be viewed as a type of dissimilation.
    – sumelic
    Commented Dec 28, 2023 at 7:33

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