Cover symbols used in linguistics

In linguistics, cover symbols are often used to represent certain classes of sounds. Such a system is useful in describing sound changes in historical linguistics, for example.

Consonants

Symbol Definition
C Any consonant
F Any fricative consonant.
G Any glide or semivowel.
H (Indo-European studies) Any laryngeal consonant.
L Any lateral consonant.
N Any nasal consonant.
r Any rhotic consonant, regardless of its phonetic realization.
R Any resonant consonant.
S Any sibilant consonant.
T Any dental consonant.

Vowels

Capitalized vowels are commonly used in discussions of languages with vowel harmony. They often indicate different harmonic variants of an underlying archiphonemic vowel.

Some vowel symbols in the International Phonetic Alphabet, such as ⟨ə, ø, y⟩ are also sometimes used as cover symbols.

Symbol Description
A A open vowel or fronted vowel.
ə A reduced vowel or central vowel.
O A front or back rounded mid vowel.
ö A front (more rarely central) rounded mid vowel.
ø
U A rounded vowel or backed vowel.
ü A front (more rarely central) rounded close vowel.
y
V Any vowel.
Ṽ Any nasal vowel.

Other symbols

Symbol Description
X Any sound.
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