Cardinal Vowels

Cardinal vowels are a series of reference vowel system from International Phonetic Alphabets
used to describe the sounds of languages. It is a way of using articulator to produce vowel
sounds. The system does not relate to a specific language, instead, we can make use of it for
releasing different vowel sounds in any languages.
There are total of 18 cardinal vowels. They are divided into primary cardinal vowels, from 1
through 8 and secondary cardinal vowels, from 9 through 18. The variation of the vowel sounds
are identified by the position of the tongue and where it rests_ how high or how low the tongue
is positioning or how far forward or back is the highest part of the tongue. At this point, the
tongue is divided into 3 different parts including front, central and back. On the other hands,
depending on how high or low it goes, the points such as close, close-mid, open and open-mid
from top to bottom are allocated. In addition, primary cardinal vowels need lip rounding while
secondary cardinal vowels do not.
According to the lip rounding and tongue position, the vowel sounds can be produced as given.
Primary Cardinal Vowels Secondary Cardinal Vowels
Front Back Front Back
Close i u y ɯ
Close-mid e o ø ɤ
Open-mid ɛ ɔ œ ʌ
Open a ɑ Œ ɒ

The tongue position to release cardinal vowels is mentioned in diagram as follow.

Ref: Diagram credit to Wikipedia