[2] The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) that represents this sound is ⟨a⟩, a double-story lowercase a.

However, the accuracy of the quadrilateral vowel chart is disputed, and the sound has been analyzed acoustically as extra-open at a position where the front/back distinction has lost its significance.

There are also differing interpretations of the exact quality of the vowel: the classic sound recording of [a] by Daniel Jones is slightly more front but not quite as open as that by John Wells.

[3] In practice, the symbol ⟨a⟩ is often used to represent an open central unrounded vowel.

The loss of separate symbols for open and near-open front vowels is usually considered unproblematic, because the perceptual difference between the two is quite small, and very few languages contrast the two.