In phonetics, advanced tongue root, abbreviated ATR or +ATR, or expanded, involves the expansion of the pharyngeal cavity by moving the base of the tongue forward — and often lowering the larynx — during the pronunciation of a vowel. The lowering of the larynx sometimes adds a breathy quality to the vowel. Phonetics (from the Greek word φωνή, phone meaning sound, voice) is the study of the sounds of human speech. ... The pharynx (plural: pharynges) is the part of the neck and throat situated immediately posterior to the mouth and nasal cavity, and cranial, or superior, to the esophagus, larynx, and trachea. ... This article includes a list of works cited or a list of external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks in-text citations. ... The larynx (plural larynges), colloquially known as the voicebox, is an organ in the neck of mammals involved in protection of the trachea and sound production. ... Note: This page contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. ... Breathy voice or murmured voice is a phonation in which the vocal folds are vibrating as in normal voicing, but the glottal closure is incomplete, so that the voicing is somewhat inefficient and air continues to leak between the vocal folds throughout the vibration cycle with audible friction noise. ...

The International Phonetic Alphabet represents ATR with the left tack [  ̘] diacritic. Articles with similar titles include the NATO phonetic alphabet, which has also informally been called the “International Phonetic Alphabet”. For information on how to read IPA transcriptions of English words, see IPA chart for English. ... A diacritical mark or diacritic, also called an accent mark, is a small sign added to a letter to alter pronunciation or to distinguish between similar words. ...

In languages where they occur, advanced tongue root vowels very often contrast with retracted tongue root (RTR) vowels in a system of vowel harmony. This occurs commonly in large parts of West Africa. In phonetics, retracted tongue root, abbreviated RTR or –ATR, is the retraction of the base of the tongue in the pharynx during the pronunciation of a vowel. ... Vowel harmony (also metaphony) is a type of long-distance assimilatory phonological process involving vowels. ...  Western Africa (UN subregion)  Maghreb[1] West Africa or Western Africa is the westernmost region of the African continent. ...

ATR vowels involve a certain tension in the tongue, and often in the lips and jaw as well; the ear can often perceive this tension as a "brightness" (narrow formants) compared to RTR vowels. Nonetheless, phoneticians do not refer to ATR vowels as tense vowels, since the word tense already has several meanings in European phonetics. The mouth, also known as the buccal cavity or the oral cavity, is the opening through which an animal or human takes in food. ... Spectrogram of American English vowels [i, u, É‘] showing the formants f1 and f2 A formant is a peak in an acoustic frequency spectrum which results from the resonant frequencies of any acoustical system. ... Tenseness is a term used in phonology to describe a particular vowel quality that is phonemically contrastive in many languages, including English. ...

See also

• Retracted tongue root
• Twi