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In linguistics, specifically phonetics and phonology, schwa (sometimes spelled

shwa)[1] refers to the mid-central vowel sound (rounded or unrounded) in the

middle of the vowel chart, denoted by the IPA symbol , or another vowel

sound close to that position. An example in English is the vowel sound in the

second syllable of the word sofa. Schwa in English is limited to unstressed

positions, but in some other languages it can occur as a stressed vowel.

In relation to certain languages, the name "schwa" and the symbol may be

used for some other unstressed and toneless neutral vowel, not necessarily

mid-central.

The word schwa is from the Hebrew word shva ( IPA: [ va], classical

pronunciation: shewa [ wa]), which designates the Hebrew niqqud vowel sign shva

that in Modern Hebrew indicates either the phoneme /e/ or the complete absence of a

vowel. Also the Hebrew shva is sometimes represented by the upside-down symbol forschwa, a misleading transliteration, since the schwa vowel is not representative of

modern Hebrew pronunciation of shva and is not characteristic of earlier pronunciations

either (see Tiberian vocalization Mobile Shwa). The term was introduced into

European linguistics by Jacob Grimm in the early 19th century,[citation needed] so the

spelling sch is German in origin. It was first used in English texts between 18901895.[2]

[3]

Schwa is a very short neutral vowel sound, and like all vowels, its precise quality varies

depending on the adjacent consonants. In most varieties of English, schwa mostly

occurs in unstressed syllables (exceptions include BrE concerted), but in New Zealand

English and South African English the high front lax vowel (as in the word bit) has shiftedopen and back to sound like schwa, and these dialects include both stressed and

unstressed schwas. In General American, schwa is one of the two vowel sounds that

can be rhotacized. This sound is used in words with unstressed "er" syllables, such as

dinner. For more information see Stress and vowel reduction in English.

Quite a few languages have a sound similar to schwa. It is similar to a short French

unaccented e, which in that language is rounded and less central, more like an open-mid

or close-mid front rounded vowel. It is almost always unstressed, though Albanian,

Bulgarian, Slovene and Afrikaans are some of the languages that allow stressed

schwas. In most dialects of Russian an unstressed a or o reduces to a schwa. In dialects

of Kashubian a schwa occurs.[clarification needed] Many Caucasian languages andsome Uralic languages (e.g. Komi) also use phonemic schwa, and allow schwas to be

stressed. In Dutch, the vowel of the suffix -lijk, as in waarschijnlijk (probably) is

pronounced as a schwa. In Dutch adjective words carry a schwa at their ending 'rood'

becomes 'rode'. Anytime an 'e' falls at the end of Dutch words it becomes a schwa.

Compare 'de' and 'het'. In the Eastern dialects of Catalan, including the standard

language variety, based in the dialect spoken in and around Barcelona, an unstressed

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"a" or "e" is pronounced as a schwa (called "vocal neutra", "neutral vowel"). In the

dialects of Catalan spoken in the Balearic Islands, a stressed schwa can occur. Stressed

schwa can occur in Romanian as in mtur [mtur] ('broom'). In European and

some African dialects of Portuguese, the schwa occurs in many unstressed

syllables that end in "e", such as noite (night), tarde (afternoon, late), pssego

(peach), and pecado (sin). However, that is rare in Brazilian Portuguese except in suchareas as Curitiba in the state of Paran. In Neapolitan a final, unstressed "a", and

unstressed "e" and "o" are pronounced as a schwa: pzza (pizza), semmna (week),

purtullo (orange) . The inherent vowel in the Devanagari script, an abugida used to

write Hindi, Marathi, Nepali, and Sanskrit is a schwa, written in isolation or to begin

a word.

Other characters used to represent this sound include in Armenian, in

Romanian, and in Albanian. In Bulgarian Cyrillic, the letter , which has a

much different orthographic function in modern Russian, is used. In Korean,

the letter (or rather jamo) is used, though it may also represent a "null"vowel used in the transcription of foreign consonant clusters, where it may be

deleted.

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