In phonetics, vowel height refers to the position of the tongue relative to the roof of the mouth in a vowel sound. The first formant of a vowel (F1) usually corresponds to vowel height, with a higher F1 corresponding to a lower vowel height and a lower F1 corresponding to a higher vowel height.
The International Phonetic Alphabet identifies 7 different vowel heights, although no language distinguishes all 7:
See also
