Schwa

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Schwa
ə
IPA Number	322
See also mid central vowel
Audio sample
help
Encoding
Entity (decimal)	ə
Unicode (hex)	U+0259
Image

In

The name schwa and the symbol ⟨ə⟩ may be used for some other unstressed and toneless neutral vowels, not necessarily mid central, as it is often used to represent reduced vowels in general.^[3] It also has been historically used to describe a canonical phonetic range covering a vast central area from near-close [ɪ̈] to near-open [ɐ]. ^{[4][full citation needed]}

In English, /ə/ is traditionally treated as a

A similar sound is the short French unaccented ⟨e⟩, which is rounded and less central, more like an open-mid or close-mid front rounded vowel.

Sometimes, the term schwa can be used for any

The term schwa was introduced by German linguists in the 19th century from the Hebrew shva (שְׁוָא IPA: [ʃva], classical pronunciation: shəwāʼ [ʃəwɔː]), the name of the niqqud sign used to indicate the phoneme. It was first used in English texts in the early 1890s.^[6][7]

The symbol ⟨ə⟩ was used first by Johann Andreas Schmeller for the reduced vowel at the end of the German language term Gabe. Alexander John Ellis, in his Palaeotype alphabet, used it for the similar English sound in but /bʌt/. The symbol is an ⟨e⟩ rotated by 180 degrees. A subscript small schwa (in Unicode as U+2094 ₔ LATIN SUBSCRIPT SMALL LETTER SCHWA) is used in phonetic transcription of Indo-European languages.^[8]

In English

In

Schwa is a short neutral vowel sound and, like all other vowels, its precise quality varies depending on the adjacent consonants.

While in

In New Zealand English, the high front lax vowel (as in the word bit /ˈbɪt/) has shifted open and back to sound like schwa, and both stressed and unstressed schwas exist. To a certain extent, that is true for South African English as well.

In General American English, schwa and /ɜː/ are the two vowel sounds that can be r-colored (rhotacized); r-colored schwa is used in words with unstressed ⟨er⟩ syllables, such as dinner. Some forms of American English have the tendency to delete a schwa that appears in a mid-word syllable after the stressed syllable. Kenstowicz (1994) states, "American English schwa deletes in medial posttonic syllables". He gives as examples words such as sep(a)rate (as an adjective), choc(o)late, cam(e)ra and elab(o)rate (as an adjective), where the schwa (represented by the letters in parentheses) has a tendency to be deleted.^[11] Other examples include fam(i)ly (listen^ⓘ), ev(e)ry (listen^ⓘ), and diff(e)rent (listen^ⓘ).

Examples from other languages

Albanian

In Albanian, schwa is represented by the letter ⟨ë⟩, which is also one of the letters of the Albanian alphabet, coming right after the letter ⟨e⟩. It can be stressed like in words i ëmbël /i əmbəl/ and ëndërr /əndər/ ('sweet' and 'dream', respectively).

Caucasian languages

Many

In Dutch, the digraph ⟨ij⟩ in the suffix -lijk /lək/, as in waarschijnlijk /ʋaːrˈsxɛinlək/ ('probably'), is pronounced as a schwa, but the independent word lijk is never a schwa. The article een ('a' or 'an') is pronounced using the schwa, /ən/, and the number een ('one') is pronounced /eːn/ and so it is also written as één. Also, if an ⟨e⟩ falls in the ultimate (or penultimate) place before a consonant in Dutch words and is unstressed, it may become a schwa in some accents, as in the verb ending -en (lopen) and the diminutive suffix -tje(s) (tafeltje(s)).

In German, schwa is represented by the letter ⟨e⟩ and occurs only in unstressed syllables, as in gegessene. The vowel alternates freely with syllabic consonants /l, m, n/, as in Segel [ˈzeːgəl – ˈzeːglˌ] 'sail'. It also alternates with its absence, as in Segel 'sail' – Segl-er 'sailor'.^[12] Finally, it may be dropped for rhythmical and other stylistic reasons as in Aug' um Auge, Zahn um Zahn 'An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth'.

Schwa is not native to Bavarian dialects of German, which are spoken in Southern Germany and Austria. Vowels that are realized as schwa in Standard German change to /-e/, /-ɐ/, or /-ɛ/.

In Norwegian, the schwa is often found in the last syllable of definite masculine nouns, as in mannen [ˈmɑ̀nːn̩, ˈmɑ̀nːən] ('the man'), as well as in infinitive verbs like bite [ˈbîːtə] ('bite').

Schwa is normally represented in

The schwa is an important feature of the Odia language which seen in the script is the retention of inherent vowel in consonants, also known as schwa, at both medial and final positions making it the only Indo Aryanic language aong with Sanskrit(Sanskrita) which has all the words ending with a vowel, similar to the European language of Italian which has the same feature. This absence of schwa deletion, which is also seen in Sanskrit, marks it from the rest of modern Indo-Aryan languages and their equivalent usage in related Brahmic scripts. The absence of the inherent vowel in the consonant is marked by a virama or halanta sign below the consonant.

The inherent vowel in the Devanagari script, an abugida that is used to write Hindi, Marathi, Nepali and Sanskrit, is a schwa written ⟨अ⟩ either in isolation or word-initially. In most Sanskrit-based languages, the schwa ⟨अ⟩ is the implied vowel after every consonant and so it has no diacritic marks. For example, in Hindi, the character ⟨ क ⟩ is pronounced /kə/ without marking, but ⟨ के ⟩ is pronounced /ke/ (like "kay") with a marking.

Although the Devanagari script is used as a standard to write Modern Hindi, the schwa (/ə/, which is sometimes written as /ɑ/) implicit in each consonant of the script, is "obligatorily deleted" at the end of words and in certain other contexts.^[13] The phenomenon has been termed the "schwa deletion rule" of Hindi.^[13][14]

In

As a result of schwa syncope, the correct Hindi pronunciation of many words differs from that expected from a literal rendering of Devanagari. For instance, राम is Rām (expected: Rāma), रचना is Rachnā (expected: Rachanā), वेद is Vēd (expected: Vēda) and नमकीन is Namkīn (expected: Namakīna).[15]^[16]

Correct schwa deletion is critical also because the same Devanagari letter sequence can sometimes be pronounced two different ways in Hindi depending on the context. Failure to delete the appropriate schwas can then change the meaning.^[17] For instance, the sequence धड़कने in दिल धड़कने लगा ("the heart started beating") and in दिल की धड़कनें ("beats of the heart") is identical prior to the nasalization in the second usage. However, it is pronounced dhadak.ne in the first and dhad.kaneṁ in the second.^[17]

While native speakers correctly pronounce the sequence differently in different contexts, non-native speakers and voice-synthesis software can make them "sound very unnatural", which makes it "extremely difficult for the listener" to grasp the intended meaning.^[17]

Madurese

In Madurese, an ⟨a⟩ in some words, usually in non-final position, would be pronounced as the schwa. When writing Madurese in its traditional abugida, Hanacaraka, such words would not be written with a vowel diacritic denoting a schwa. Nowadays, even after the Madurese people have adopted the Latin alphabet, such writing fashion is still used:

• Jhabah (/dʒəbəh/) –
  Java Island
• sagara (/sagərə/) – sea, ocean
• lajar (/lədʒər/) – to sail
• Sorbaja (/sorbədʒə/) – Surabaya
• Madura (/madurə/) – Madurese, Madura Island
• Bulan (/bulən/) – Moon

Malay

In the Indonesian variant, schwa is always unstressed except for Jakarta-influenced informal Indonesian, whose schwa can be stressed. In final closed syllables in the formal register, the vowel is ⟨a⟩ (the final syllable is usually the second syllable since most Indonesian root words consist of two syllables). In some cases, the vowel ⟨a⟩ is pronounced as a stressed schwa (only when the vowel ⟨a⟩ is located between two consonants in a syllable) but never in formal speech:

• datang ('come'), pronounced [dɑːˈtʌŋ], and often informally written as dateng.
• kental ('viscous'), pronounced [kənˈtʌl].
• hitam ('black'), pronounced [hiˈtʌm], informally written as item.
• dalam ('deep', 'in'), pronounced [dɑːˈlʌm], often written as dalem.
• malam ('night'), pronounced [mʌˈlʌm], informally written as malem.

Indonesian orthography formerly used unmarked ⟨e⟩ only for the schwa sound, and the full vowel /e/ was written ⟨é⟩. Malaysian orthography, on the other hand, once indicated the schwa with ⟨ĕ⟩ (called pĕpĕt), and unmarked ⟨e⟩ stood for /e/.

In the 1972 spelling reform that unified Indonesian and Malaysian spelling conventions (