abstract vowel chart

[Xi]

How to understand “The vowels of the IPA are also defined by the auditory impressions and their qualities relative to one another.”
and “The vowels of the IPA are therefore abstract and do not represent the vowels of any particular language.”?

[Andrei B]

Essentially the vowels of the IPA only offer a plane across which vowels differ. This means that theoretically there are infinitely many vowels within this plane however the IPA vowels help us explain these vowels of languages in relation to them

[Xi]

Thanks a lot! I understand it now. Another question is about the “auditory impression”, are there any examples of this way of definition.

[Rebekka Puderbaugh]

What I mean is that although we can roughly relate things like tongue position to vowel quality, they are really described more according to their auditory impression.

[Author]

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