Near-open front unrounded vowel
The near-open front unrounded vowel, or near-low front unrounded vowel, is a type of vowel sound. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨æ⟩, a lowercase of the ⟨Æ⟩ ligature.
Source: Wikipedia — Near-open front unrounded vowel (CC BY-SA 4.0)