Ə
 | This article needs additional citations for verification. (September 2014) |
| Schwa | |
|---|---|
| Ə ə | |
Ә | |
| Other | |
| Writing direction | Left-to-right |
Ə, or ə, also called schwa, is an additional letter of the Latin alphabet. In the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), minuscule ə is used to represent the mid central vowel or a schwa.
It was invented by Johann Andreas Schmeller for the reduced vowel at the end of some German words and first used in his 1820s works on the Bavarian dialects.
Usage
It is or was used in several languages around the world, including the
A superscript minuscule (U+1D4A ᵊ MODIFIER LETTER SMALL SCHWA) is used to modify the preceding consonant to have a mid central vowel release, though it is also commonly used to indicate possible
In the
In the Karay·a alphabet, the letter represents /ə/.
In the Latin transliteration of Avestan, the corresponding long vowel is written as schwa-macron, ⟨Ə̄ ə̄⟩.
An R-colored vowel can be represented using ⟨ɚ⟩.
A schwa with a retroflex hook ⟨ᶕ⟩ is used in phonetic transcription.[1]
For gender neutrality in Italian
In the 2020s, the schwa has seen some usage in the
This niche usage is controversial—as well as mainly limited to written language, as there is no real consensus on how the -ə suffix should be pronounced—and has been criticized by the Accademia della Crusca. The president of the Accademia opposed its use,[3] and the Accademia replied unfavorably to an initiative by the Equal Opportunities Committee of the Supreme Court of Cassation for the introduction of the schwa in juridical language, stating that "juridical language is not the place to experiment with minority-led innovations that would lead to irregularity and idiolects".[4]
Unicode encodings
| Preview | Ə | ə | ᵊ | ₔ | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Unicode name | LATIN CAPITAL LETTER SCHWA | LATIN SMALL LETTER SCHWA | MODIFIER LETTER SMALL SCHWA | LATIN SUBSCRIPT SMALL LETTER SCHWA | ||||
| Encodings | decimal | hex | dec | hex | dec | hex | dec | hex |
| Unicode | 399 | U+018F | 601 | U+0259 | 7498 | U+1D4A | 8340 | U+2094 |
| UTF-8 | 198 143 | C6 8F | 201 153 | C9 99 | 225 181 138 | E1 B5 8A | 226 130 148 | E2 82 94 |
| Numeric character reference | Ə |
Ə |
ə |
ə |
ᵊ |
ᵊ |
ₔ |
ₔ |
Since the legacy fixed 8-bit
In Windows, the characters can be generated by holding the ⎇ Alt key and pressing the respective decimal Unicode number, which can be found in the table (e.g. 399, 601), on the number pad preceded by a leading 0. With a Linux compose key, the lowercase letter is by default generated by Compose+e+e.
References
- ^ Constable, Peter (2004-04-19). "L2/04-132 Proposal to add additional phonetic characters to the UCS" (PDF).
- ^ "Italiano Inclusivo - Una lingua che non discrimina per genere" (in Italian). Retrieved 2022-04-16.
- ISSN 0307-1235. Retrieved 2022-04-16.
- ^ "Risposta al quesito sulla scrittura rispettosa della parità di genere negli atti giudiziari posto all'Accademia della Crusca dal Comitato Pari opportunità del Consiglio direttivo della Corte di Cassazione" (in Italian). Retrieved 2023-03-20.
