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ɴᴜʀꜱᴇ vowel phoneme /ɜː(r)/
The ɴᴜʀꜱᴇ vowel phoneme is an English vowel phoneme referring to the vowel sounds used by various English speakers in its keyword nurse.[1]
Normally, this is a rhotic vowel phoneme, that is, it is nearly always followed by /r/ in rhotic accents. In non-rhotic accents, this /r/ is only pronounced as a linking /r/ when the next word begins with a vowel sound (e.g. their fur is soft /ðeə fɜ:r ɪz sɒft/). However, there are a handful of words where /ɜː/ has no following /r/ even in rhotic accents — these are mostly loans, such as Möbius, and hors d’oeuvre.
Words in the ɴᴜʀꜱᴇ lexical set are pronounced with this phoneme.
This phoneme is the only vowel sound that’s included in the Lingua Franca Core, so it’s important for EFL learners to get this one right for their intelligibility.
In RP, this phoneme is pronounced as an open-mid central unrounded vowel [ɜː].[2]