Talk:Schwa

French schwa

French schwa is spoken with rounded lips (close to ø/œ), German (and afaik Dutch, English) schwa is not. Do they both count as the same schwa described in the article? 213.6.2.110 15:05, 10 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I would say no. Schwa is universally described as "neutral", which means that it is the sound that comes out when all of the speech apparati except the vocal cords are relaxed. There are a few languages that also have unvoiced schwa, such as some dialects of Inuit, but these are generally represented as the unvoiced /a/ by which they are represented in other dialects. The ø as a vowel does not indicate a specific phoneme, since in some languages it is the same as German ö fortis, and in other languages, as French œ. On the other hand, œ is itself represents (as far as I'm aware) only a schwa pronounced with tightly rounded lips. The difference is between French "deux" and "de". (I think...I'm not actually a genie of French phonetics...) TShilo12 06:50, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Schwa in the Germanic languages

I thought the schwa was in all the Germanic languages as a sound made by unstressed E. I do know that it is a sound in Catalan, which is a Romance language. (I don't know of any other Romance languages with this sound, except for possibly French.)

It is a feature of Neapolitan, which is Romance. Ceartas 14:06, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

It might well be in many languages, but only in English, that I know of, is it called "Schwa". I already pointed out on the page that the same sound is represented in German and French in various ways, (as well as many other languages) but in those languages it is explicitly specified, has a name and a graphic representation of its own. In English, most native speakers use it by imitation, but wouldn't even believe it was a legit English sound if you asked them. In my view, that's what makes it worth an entry in the first place. After all, there's no interesting encyclopedia entry for "E". --User:Steverapaport

I agree. I was under the impression it is fully Germanic in origin. I believe it is mistake to tie it to Hebrew origins. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Stovl (talk • contribs) 05:16, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

@Stovl: The name we use for it in English is of Hebrew origin; the speech sound is nearly universal. --Thnidu (talk) 19:26, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

"After all, there's no interesting encyclopedia entry for "E"." Well actually there is! See E. Roger (talk) 15:58, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

"Adept"

"Adept" is pronounced with the accent on the second syllable when used as a predicate adjective: "He is quite adept." But it is pronounced with the accent on the first syllable when the word is used as a noun: "He is a manual adept." In the latter case, the "a" is definitely not a schwa! I replaced this example with "about". -- Mike Hardy

My version of the English language never stresses the first syllable in adept, and the first vowel is always a schwa. -- Zoe

My pronunciation is the same as Zoe's, but I see Mike's version in the dictionaries I've checked (ex [1]). --Brion 00:41 Nov 20, 2002 (UTC)

In my English (South African native English speaker of mixed British and Afrikaner descent) "Adept" does not have a schwa at all.

The first syllable is the same as "cad", "had", "add" and the second is the same as "kept", "wept" or "slept".

Sorry I don't know IPA, I have tried to select homophones that to my knowlege are pronounced the same in all varieties of English.

The accent shift between adjective and noun is so slight that it is barely detectable. Roger (talk) 11:28, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm with Roger, neither adept nor about are good examples of a schwa due to pronounciation differences. 101.103.17.132 (talk) 01:01, 12 February 2016 (UTC)

Why not about? W. P. Uzer (talk) 09:36, 15 February 2016 (UTC)

Erbout is fine if you're Ermairikern. :o) 2.99.114.91 (talk) 20:31, 12 April 2021 (UTC)

Hebrew

As for the article, in Hebrew, the proper pronunciation is still sh'tayim (with a shwa). People may skip over it, but in proper spoken Hebrew it is still there. Danny

Can you provide an example where it is silent, then? -phma

A shva is not a Vowel a shva begins syllables & ends syllables. A shva that starts a syllable is called a shva na. a shva that ends a syllable is called a shva nach —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.167.23.50 (talk) 11:20, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Hebrew has two shwas, both written with the same sign. The schwa you gave is called a sheva na' and is always sounded. The silent is a sheva nah. It depends on the placement in the word. In the first syllable (a shwa is not considered a syllable grammatically) it is always sounded. after a short vowel it is silent, but the tendency in Hebrew today is not to include them so as to avoid confusion. Generally, though, the vowels are not written at all except in prayer books, children's books, and poetry. I hate reading Hebrew with vowels personally. Danny

Catalan

I think in Catalan it's not possible to pronounce the schwa sound in an stressed v owel, but I'm neither a native speaker of Catalan, nor an expert in the language. In the text it says that it is a characteristic form Bulgarian, may be also from Catalan. If any one could check it...

grh

It's true that in Catalan & Valencian spoken on the mainland do not have stressed schwas. However, the Catalan of Mallorca does. It's found in words such as estreta (stress on penult). --Chris 20:00, 24 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Sound sample missing

this article lacks a sound sample

Schwa cleanup

(Below moved from User talk:Steverapaport)

That was a very ..er... enthusiastic cleanup, Nohat. Not a bad idea but I think you may have tossed a few of the important bits too.

I moved a fair bit of content to unstressed vowel, because a lot of the discussion on schwa wasn't about the schwa sound at all, but other reduced vowel sounds in English.

Here's what I think you missed:

1- Schwa is, in English (and Hebrew) considered a "null" sound, the equivalent of "no vowel at all". English and Hebrew speakers asked to pronounce, say "Mxpltzk", are pretty much guaranteed to use schwa at least 3 or 4 times. The sound appears in French or German too but has its own distinct identity. This is probably the reason the English sound is named after the Hebrew one, rather than the more obvious examples of the same sound in more-related French or German.

This is a fine point; I don't think it was clear in the article before I cleaned it up. The way you have explained it here would be fine on the page as far as I'm concerned.

Ok I did that, and pointed out as a bonus the reason for the lack of conflict in Hebrew between the two schwas.

2- Schwa is a sound that's never taught to English-speakers (it doesn't even have a fixed symbol) and so you need at least a few examples for English-speakers to recognize it by. You only left one, and a pedagogically-poor one at that. Anyone who doesn't know what schwa sounds like will probably go away thinking it sounds like /V/ or /A/. The US "uh" sound can also sound like these. Instead, use a drawn-out example that remains true to sound even when spoken slowly, like "third". Then mention that it shows up in many unstressed syllables like the "about" or "cycle".

The Merriam-Webster definition of schwa says "... the usual sound of the first and last vowels of the English word America", an equivalent example to about. In fact, schwa does sound like /ʌ/, as it's the closest stressed vowel to schwa—in fact Merriam-Webster uses the same symbol to represent both schwa and /ʌ/. They are admittedly different—schwa is somewhat closer than /ʌ/, but the vowel of third is NOT schwa, it's open-mid central unrounded vowel, or a rhotic version thereof, depending on dialect. For the 70% of native English speakers that are American English speakers (not to meantion that vast majority of foreign learners of English, who learn American English), the vowel sound of third is nothing like schwa. Also, there is no schwa in cycle. The 'le' represent a syllabic 'l'. The details of all the non-schwa unstressed vowels are on unstressed vowel.

Now I'm learning stuff. I'll be very interested to see your changes. I've listened to the sound sample for the open-mid central unrounded vowel and it's definitely not how I'd pronounce "third". (I'm from Toronto, I speak like newscaster Peter Jennings.) Having lived the last 5 years in Europe (Italy & Sweden) I'm starting to internationalize my accent a bit and dropping what remains of my Canadian bias, but I'm sure I can be confused, too. But I thought that the schwa was closer to a mid than a back vowel, and Webster notwithstanding, I can't believe /ʌ/' at all. I'd be more likely to agree with one of the other mid-central vowels such as /3/ as an approximation.

Well, it's complicated. The sound /ʌ/ as pronounced in English is rather more central than the IPA vowel chart would have you believe. But it's still traditional to use that symbol for the vowel in cut and run, even though that the particular vowel sound is really only a touch more open than schwa. The reason M-W uses the same symbol is because they are in complementary distribution—/ʌ/ and schwa never occur in the same environment because schwa only occurs in syllables without stress and /ʌ/ only occurs in syllables with stress. I don't actually agree with M-W—I think schwa and /ʌ/ are not merely allophones that occur in stressed and stressless syllables but separate phonemes. But there is some validity to the argument because the sounds are very close, at least in American English.

On the other hand, I don't think /3/ makes for a good approximation because only about 25% of English speakers have that sound. It's likely to be confusing to the other 75% of speakers who pronounce third with a rhoticized /3/ which sounds nothing like schwa. Nohat 20:23, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)

actually more like 70/30, but let's let that go. I've listened to the American samples at [2] and you're right that the schwa there does sound like a schwa. Could we agree for the sake of the 70 that the 'e' in "cinema" is a good example and use that? The last 'a' in 'cinema' and first 'a' in about are not such good examples because people are likely to pronounce words slowly when trying to hear for themselves how they sound, and in that case will likely pronounce both those 'a's more like /V/ and less like schwa. I'd also be happier if we used a transatlantic solution with an RP and an American example.

No, it really is 75%/25% because Canadian English (4.9%) is also rhotic. I think that your preference for 'e' in "cinema" over the 'a' in "about" for the example might be misleading. For those dialects that distinguish schwa and barred i, the 'e' in cinema would be barred i, not schwa. Maybe that's why you think they would be pronounced differently when pronounced slowly? For those dialects that don't make the distinction, they would both be pronounced the same—as schwa. Nohat 21:53, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)

See below, this is getting too nested --steve

1. The o in harmony is a schwa.
2. The u in medium is a schwa.
3. The y in syringe is a schwa.

Steverapaport 02:48, 13 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Yes, yes, and no. I usually pronounce the first two vowels in "syringe" with the same timbre. I think the problem is that because schwa is mid, central, essentially neutral, often epenthetic, and easily affected by rhoticism and consonantal environment, it's the most unstable vowel in English. I don't think it's even possible to give one word that manifests the same schwa in all dialects of English. If you hear a West Indies English speaker with a really thick accent, sometimes you begin to doubt whether schwa is present in that dialect at all. thefamouseccles 02:02, 26 Jul 2005 (UTC)

Pronunciation of 'synonym'

Schwa is the most common vowel sound in English, the unstressed vowel in many unstressed syllables, like the 'a' in about or the 'o' in synonym. In my area - northeastern New Jersey - people rarely, but sometimes, pronounce the 'o' in synonym as in ode, although it's usually a schwa... Has anyone heard the pronunciation sin-oh-nim, and should synonym be changed to a different word to avoid any ambiguity? --Lady~Macbeth 01:06, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

It's possible to give any schwa a "full" pronunciation by looking at the spelling; syn-O-nym, synth-E-sis, A-bout, etc., but no dictionary that I'm aware of sanctions these pronunciations. They should be considered like any other spelling pronunciation: hypercorrections without any orthoepic authority. Nohat 04:51, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

I can pronounce synonym with a full /o/, but then it grabs the stress of the word and I end up saying sin-OH-nim, and not SIN-uh-nim. --Suicidium 20:53, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Am I pronouncing this sound right?

Can anyone tell me if my pronunciation of this sound, timestamped 08:20, 26 July 2005, is accurate?  Denelson83  23:51, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

Sounds exactly like the Chinese word for "hungry", which AFAIK is a perfect [ə] in IPA. --Menchi 01:27, 7 August 2005 (UTC)

I'm fairly convinced that è (饿) is a close-mid back unrounded vowel. At the very least it would seem odd if it didn't properly rhyme with words containing an initial and/or a final like hē (喝) or gen (跟). There's a sound sample in the vowel article if you're interested.

Peter ^Isotalo 08:34, 20 August 2005 (UTC)

Merger proposal

I am proposing that the section on the Mid-central unrounded vowel, in the article on the Close-mid central unrounded vowel, be moved here. From its own description, that sound is a mid vowel, not a close-mid vowel. FilipeS 14:16, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Actually, we should just delete the mention of a mid-central vowel in the close-mid article. I'm not a big fan of mentioning mid-central vowels in the articles about close-mid vowels anyway, and there's already an article on schwa. In addition, the claims that the section in the close-mid article makes need verification. AEuSoes1 21:04, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Schwa isn't the same thing as a mid-central vowel. kwami 06:08, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

...and you say this because...? AEuSoes1 06:05, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

Schwa is a reduced vowel. It is not necessarily mid, not necessarily central, and not necessarily unrounded, though it tends to be all of those. French schwa, for example, is a mid-front rounded vowel. On the other hand, a mid-central unrounded vowel is not necessarily reduced. (Sometimes such vowels are called 'full schwas', but 'mid-central unrounded vowel' may be considered less ethnocentric.) kwami 06:27, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

I'm sorry but, looking at the IPA vowel chart, I see a specific height and backness of [ə]. Even if the word "schwa" is ethnocentric, it is still silly to me to refuse to use the character for an actual mid-central unrounded vowel. The variation in its use is probably related to the same phenomenon that allows <ʌ> to be used instead of [ɐ], <ɹ> instead of [ɻ], etc. I really doubt that the French schwa is front. Do you have any sources to back up your claims? AEuSoes1 03:28, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, I got that partially wrong. (It was rather late!) I once had quite a nice French phonetics book that described /ə/ as [œ], but perhaps that was intended as a nearest equivalent. The IPA Handbook has it as (rounded) [ə]. I suspect the Handbook might be the more reliable of the two.

[ə] is a mid-central vowel, undefined for roundness, and the symbol <ə> is called 'schwa'. However, the symbol <ə> does not necessarily represent the phonetic value [ə], and the name 'schwa' is used for all manner of reduced vowels other than [ə]. That is, while [ə] is undoubtedly mid-central, schwa isn't. Does that make any sense?

However, I guess this isn't too different from using /r/ for English [ɹ] ([r] is a trill, but English /r/ isn't). Maybe we just need to be clear whether we mean 'schwa' phonologically, as a reduced vowel, or phonetically, as a mid-central vowel.

Anyway, phonetic schwa/mid-central vowel isn't the same as a mid-central unrounded vowel, as its roundness is ambiguous. kwami 05:00, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

It really is quite dreadfully confusing. The world of phonetics could really use a terminological clean sweep. There should be separate terminology and symbology when talking about phonetics and when talking about phonology. Someone like a Linnaeus needs to come along and just say this is this and that's that, and create a framework for resolving terminological imprecision and ambiguity, like biology has for naming organisms. I recognize that there is value in there being vagueness in certain terms, but we should separate the vague terms and the precise terms. *sigh* Nohat 06:53, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

The current introduction to the article on the Schwa has the following:

"In linguistics and phonology, schwa can mean:

• An unstressed and toneless neutral vowel sound in any language, often but not necessarily a mid-central vowel (rounded or unrounded). Such vowels are often transcribed with the symbol ə, regardless of their actual phonetic value.
• The mid-central unrounded vowel sound in the middle of the vowel chart, stressed or unstressed. In IPA phonetic transcription, it is written as ə. In this case the term mid-central vowel may be used instead of schwa to avoid ambiguity.
• The symbol ə is itself called schwa."

Either this definition is incorrect, or a Mid-central unrounded vowel is a schwa, since it satisfies the second definition. FilipeS 13:42, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

The definition was incorrect. kwami 05:42, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

All of this makes sense except this claim:

• If precision is desired, the symbol for the close-mid central unrounded vowel may be used with a lowering diacritic, [ɘ̞].

That's really the main thing I have a problem with. I'm also not so sure about the ambiguous rounding of schwa. There are three other IPA vowels that don't have a specific counterpart in roundness on the chart-[ʊ] [æ] [ɐ]-but their rounding is not ambiguous (although the first is used in English for an unrounded counterpart). AEuSoes1 06:12, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

[ʊ] and [æ] are defined as rounded and unrounded in the IPA Handbook ("near-close near-back rounded vowel" and "near-open front unrounded vowel"), but [ɐ] and [ə] are not ("near-open central vowel" and "mid central vowel"). Open vowels seldom have rounding contrasts, so that isn't much of an issue for [ɐ], but [ɐ] could be rounded too.

With [ɘ̞] you're clearly saying that the vowel is unrounded. With [ə] you're not (it could be [ɘ̞] or [ɵ̞]), and moreover only [ə] has the connotation of being a reduced vowel. For example, the Handbook says of French [ə] that it has "some rounding". kwami 08:39, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

So, if I'm understanding this correctly, the definition of schwa does not state its roundedness. It's an ambiguous notion (underspecified, I think is the term). Kwami's reading seems to be that this implies that a schwa cannot be unrounded. My interpretation is that it may be rounded or unrounded. If the vowel of French you mentioned can be denoted [ə] even though it's rounded, then I don't see why the other vowel we're discussing can't be denoted [ə] even though it's unrounded. (Is there no rounding/unrounding diacritic that can be added to the [ə], for a more specific description?) FilipeS 11:54, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, that's not what I meant to say. [ə] could be either [ɘ̞] or [ɵ̞]. That is, either rounded or unrounded, without specification. That means both [ɘ̞] and [ɵ̞] are more specific than [ə], and are therefore not equivalent to [ə]. Yes, you could use the 'more rounded' and 'less rounded' diacritics with <ə>, though I imagine a pedant might object "'more rounded' than what?", since it's not relative to a fixed reference point. It would be obvious what you mean, though, so I'd say go for it. kwami 17:19, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

I've moved it to it's own article, Mid central unrounded vowel. Voortle 15:48, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

"A" in about

Is it common for the "a" in about to be a schwa? I doubt this, it's more like a mid-central ɐ than ə. Can someone verify this, please? — ዮም (Yom) | contribs • Talk 00:49, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

It is schwa in the sense of mid-central unstressed vowel of indeterminate specific value. Nohat 01:21, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

Check any dictionary that provides a phonetic enough environment to distinguish between the two. AEuSoes1 02:04, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

On the definition of schwa again

• "The mid-central vowel sound in the middle of the vowel chart, stressed or unstressed. In IPA phonetic transcription, it is written as ə. In this case the term mid-central vowel may be used instead of schwa to avoid ambiguity."

Considering what was said when I proposed a merger, above, it seems that the definition would be clearer if it said that a schwa may be "stressed or unstressed, and rounded or unrounded". FilipeS 19:53, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Article split

I think this article should be split into two - schwa (letter) and mid central vowel. Schwa is a letter of Azerbaijani and Chechen alphabet and do not represent mid central vowel (actually it represents near-open front unrounded vowel). --Hello World! 11:28, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

You've seen Schwa (Cyrillic), right? AEuSoes1 11:40, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Azerbaijani uses Latin alphabet. Chechen uses both sets.--Hello World! 11:58, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

• Support. Schwa really seems to be the name of a letter, a grapheme. It’s not a vowel per se, but the sign which stands for one in a number of languages and in IPA. — Jéioosh 20:42, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
• Support. In addition to above, other vowels have alternate names (wedge, epsilon, open o, barred i, etc) but these aren't the article names. If it's good enough for Cyrillic, it's good enough for Latin. AEuSoes1 23:49, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose. The name "schwa" is from Hebrew, and can mean both the letter and the vowel. I think people who look for the schwa are likely to search for both. --Kjoonlee 00:49, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose. I do support the creation of an article Schwa (letter) (or possibly Schwa (grapheme)). The way to do it (IMHO) is to rename (move) Schwa (Cyrillic) to Schwa (letter) and edit the article to make it address both Cyrillic and Latin use. The disambiguation paragraph in the present article could put the meaning as a letter earlier, as in "schwa can mean: • A [[Schwa (letter)|letter]] occurring in the alphabets of various Turkic and other languages. • ...". Alternatively, the article could start off with: "This article is about the schwa as a phoneme. For the letter used in various alphabets, see Schwa (letter)." Further, if there is to be a new "split", the phonemic article should be called something like Schwa (phoneme) and not Mid central vowel. But both are problematic: as an unstressed vowel the schwa is often not mid-central, and also not necessarily a phoneme. Also this requires setting up a separate disambiguation page.  --Lambiam^Talk 01:08, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Ah, but there are separate articles for A and А, E and Е, as well as I and І despite homography and similar use. I forgot to ask, though. Is the letter called "schwa" in Azeri or is it a completely different name? Omniglot[3] would have me believe that it is called "schwa." That might be important in the discussion. AEuSoes1 02:49, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Then we should likewise have a (not redirected) article ə for the letter in Azeri and an article ə for the letter in Kazakh and other languages. An article called Schwa (letter) that does cover the use of the grapheme ə in the Latin alphabet but not in Cyrillic is not a good idea. --Lambiam^Talk 17:53, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Some comments. Near-open front unrounded vowel and Æ are two seperate articles because the former is a sound/phoneme and the latter is a letter. There should be another article called Æ (Cyrillic) (ru:Ӕ (кириллица)) too (It's an Ossetic letter).--Hello World! 15:01, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

If you do support the creation / split of articles, please vote as support. The naming of the articles can be negotiated then. --Hello World! 10:49, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

• Support. I think it's quite clear that if a word can mean more than one thing, the meanings should be reached through a disambiguation page. From the three meanings in the article I suggest these titles: Schwa (letter), Schwa (phoneme) and Mid central vowel. Even though "schwa" can mean "mid central vowel", it's more analogous with the rest of the vowel sounds to use the latter title. --Starylon 10:12, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
• Support. The grapheme and the phonological use are separate, and could usefully be separated. Schwa (Cyrillic) could be merged into the article on the grapheme (or used as its base), though AEuSoes1's comment does indicate that there is a precedent for having a separate article for the Cyrillic form. — Haeleth Talk 18:32, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
• Support splitting this article into one discussing the unstressed vowel and one discussing the letter. Letters and sounds are different things and should not generally be discussed on the same page. —Felix the Cassowary 07:25, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

How should we do next? --Hello World! 09:32, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Well, I guess someone should create the article Schwa (letter) for starters. I think we'll need an admin to adjust the redirect. AEuSoes1 18:29, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

• Before the split/cleanup/everythingelse to this article, I would want to know this first - does “schwa” equal to “mid-central vowel”? If yes, that's fine; but if no, there should be a page (in a narrower sense) taking about “mid-central vowel”, and another page for the history of schwa (may be a 3rd page for using the word “schwa” to describe another sound), and finally schwa as a separate letter in Azərbaijani alphabet) --Hello World! 16:52, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

• As far as “mid-central vowel” is concerned, please be advised that that vowel is as common in Bulgarian as it is in English, occurs both in stressed and unstressed position, and is represented by the special Cyrillic letter 'ъ' (that letter is traditionally called 'Er Golyam', i.e. 'Big Er'). Apcbg 10:36, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

As far as I know, the Estonian, French and Japanese Wikipedia have already have an article about the letter. And finally I have written down the Chinese and the English version today. --Hello World! 14:34, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Awesome. Thanks for doing the work. AEuSoes1 19:50, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Hebrew?

I think that שְוָא is actually an Aramaic form, and that the Hebrew form is שָוְא (as found in the Hebrew Bible at Exodus 23:1, etc. The forms are related, but distinct... AnonMoos 20:54, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

"The Schwa sound" -- misleading title

If the discussions in this talk page have shown anything, it's that there is no unique schwa sound. There are several schwa-like sounds, depending on the language, and in some cases within a single language. "Schwa" is a function, not a concrete sound. FilipeS 21:01, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

I see what you mean. What would a better title be? "Schwa as a reduced vowel"? No... there are languages with stressed schwa. Perhaps it's okay if the title is misleading as long as the section details the ways in which the title is misleading. This way the reader gets an in depth coverage of the issues with schwa. Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 01:01, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Not function, but set. -Pgan002 07:53, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

How about just "sound"?... FilipeS 18:09, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Ooh, Schwa as a phone might be good. That way we cover both phoneme and allophone. Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 22:35, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

What do you think of "schwa as a neutral vowel"? A little circular, but the term "neutral vowel" is often used for "schwa". FilipeS 15:00, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, that is a bit circular, but it works. Go for it! Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 19:48, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

I don't know about circular, but it's not clear. I have to learn what a neutral vowel is to even understand the title. That's not very helpful. If possible, use a simpler title. I think "Sounds" is a much clearer title. The section talks about the set of sounds represented by the concept. Or, use "Vowels". Both of these titles indicate that there is more than one sound. -Pgan002 07:53, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

examples

There are problems with every example presently given in the article.  :-( Sofa doesn't end with a /ə/, it ends with a /ʌ/, and sounds really silly if pronounced with a /ə/ (it actually sounds like how a German might pronounce it)... The "e" in "taken", the "i" in "pencil", the "o" in convince and the y in sibyl are actually all placeholder vowels for /ṇ/ and /ḷ/. The "e" in "the" and the "o" in "synonym" are /ɨ/ not /ə/. I think in an overeager effort to demonstrate that schwa isn't represented by any vowel, a systematic effort was made to demonstrate that it is represented variously by all vowels, and scholarship got lost somewhere along the way... I obviously regard such an effort as frivolous, but if it's felt to be necessary, perhaps the examples should be stacatto, antecedent, gallinule, eloquent, and incredulous. Including an example with a "y" is a bit tougher to come up with off the top of my head, but then again, the "need" to have it is mere pedantry regardless: "y" has never had a sound of its own as long as English has been a written language--it's nothing more than a hangover resulting from the etymologically-friendly spellings preferred by English. (In the case of sibyl, from Greek...) Tomer^talk 04:20, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure why you say that Sofa doesn't end with ə. English, at least in the dialects I've been exposed to, puts [ə] and [ʌ] in complementary distribution. The former in unstressed syllables and the latter in stressed syllables. This is one of the major inconsistencies in the phonemic transcription of English that the resident phonologist at my university chooses to fix by transcribing both as /ə/. I agree in large part to your criticism of the example words. Nasals and liquids muddy up the process of indicating to the reader the ways in which schwa is represented in English. I like your new example word suggestions but check a dictionary (preferably one that uses IPA) to, you know, satisfy the whole NOR thing. Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 07:03, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

I'll see what I can find...upon further reflection, regarding your use of the term "complementary", I think the "complementary" pronunciations may have more to do with open as opposed to closed syllables...which is probably why I find the example of "sofeh" to sound so alien... More later perhaps?  :-p Tomer^talk 07:40, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

(Upon further reflection, a refinement would indicate "open final" as opposed to simply "open"...and v.v.) Tomer^talk 07:42, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Dictionary.com has an IPA pronunciation guide. I'd check it out myself but I'm a bit busy with schoolwork. Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 09:16, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Okay I looked up the words myself in Oxford. Staccato works, but there's nothing wrong with about or sofa. Antecedent has an unstressed /ɪ/ which is [ɨ] in my dialect, probably [ɪ] in RP and so not a good example for what we're looking for (this may be the case for many or all e's and i's outside of foreign borrowings). Eloquent works but incredulous has [ʊ], not a schwa. Gallinule has the same problems as the current example words since the i precedes a sonorant. Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 00:48, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

There are a few issues here. The original commentator appears to be confusing phonetics with phonemics. [ɨ] is used as a particular realisation of /ə/ in some American dialects. But in some American dialects (possibly the same ones), /ə/ and /ʌ/ are actually the same vowel phonemically and they’re written differently because of tradition/other dialects. In very few English dialects is /ʌ/ actually pronounced as [ʌ]: It’s usually substantially more central. This is almost certainly the case for American speakers, so a /ʌ/ would be a good example of [ə] for them.

Futhermore, in (it seems to me) many dialects, word final /ə/ may be pronounced somewhat low: [ɐ] or even [ä] (i.e. a near-low or fully low central vowel). This certainly happens in my dialect where I hear no substantial difference between my utterence-final /ə/ and the utterence-final /a/ of languages like Italian or Spanish. The pronounciation may well generally correspond to the pronunciation of /ʌ/ in that particular dialect.

Also, in English /ə/ is essentially an unstressed vowel usually with no contrast for height, rounding or backness. Hence, the only thing your mouth/tongue actually needs to do to signal the vowel /ə/ between consonants is create sufficient space for a vowel. In practice, then, [ɨ] will actually be a very common pronunciation in many contexts. But this is in no way perculiar to English and so doesn’t hinder the utility of an example like ‘synonym’ /'sɪnənɪm/ or /sɪnənəm/. Even languages with only two vowels transcribed /ə/ and /a/ will realise /ə/ like [ɨ] (and very likely [i, e, ə, u, o] in different contexts). The fact that it’s essentially unspecified in English is also what allows the vowel to be completely elided and a word like ‘taken’ pronounced as [teɪkṇ].

This is obviously a bit different for languages/dialects which use /ə/ as a stressed vowel and contrast it with vowels like /i, u, e, o, a/. New Zealand English and Bulgarian are examples of this I think.

In some dialects (typically southeastern English English e.g. RP, Cockney), I think), /ə/ and /ɪ/ still contrast to some extent in unstressed syllables, and this is what Aeusoes observes when he notes the Oxford described ‘antecedent’ as having ‘an unstressed /ɪ/’. As I said, this is not generally the case in former colonial dialects like Australian or American, and any variation between [ɨ] and [ə] that occurs in those dialects is almost certainly free or allophonic variation. This contrast, I’m informed, is neutralised before /l/, so a word like ‘happily’ still manages to have i=ə /'hæpəli/.

So, long-and-short, none of the objections are objections. The schwa in English is a neutral vowel, so it’s absolutely not a surprise that it won’t always be realised as the canonical mid central vowel. Some of the words are poor examples because in some dialects there’s two unstressed vowels, which is an objection to some of the examples, but these can almost certainly be worked around.

—Felix the Cassowary 02:49, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

To begin with, I should clarify, I did not begin this discussion with the interest of forcing change nearly as much as forcing discussion, regarding the given examples. My primary protest had to do with the apparent thrust of the examples in demonstrating the diversity of spelling for the shwa sound in English, rather than in giving representative examples thereof. I highly doubt that someone pronouncing sofa with a schwa is going to cause confusion even where I live, I was simply stating that such a pronunciation sounds "odd". You could pronounce it "sofer" "sofie" or even "sofayei", and you'd no doubt be understood--the chief question would be why you're not calling it a "couch". Hell, you could even call it a "davenport", and probably still be understood; until you started calling it a "chesterfield", and then you'd be sent back to Canadia [sic].

Second, I'm not confusing phonemes with phonetics. From the above, that should be clear. I have striven long and hard to determine why "the neutral vowel" is pronounced two different ways in certain circumstances, and while I don't specifically address it in my manifesto on the subject, have wondered whether or not it's worth the time and effort to bother to differentiate between the two, specifically because the differences are not phonemic. What I have determined is that you can't sound "normal" by interchanging the two willy-nilly, and that they seem to represent two classes of reduced vowels, which, as it happens, are relatively easy to classify, especially when liquids and nasals aren't introduced to the question.

Moving on, my use of "gallinule" as an example does have an admitted weakness, which is dialect-specific in nature. In the kind of English I speak, the /n/ in "gallinule" is not palatalized, so the syllables are quite distinctly ga·lli·nule, without the possibility of ga·lin·[y]ule, and the incumbent possibility of syllabification of the /n/.

All of that aside, there is a tremendous difficulty with this whole topic inasmuch as the indeterminate/neutral vowel[s] in English depend not only upon idiolect and circumstance, but also the fact that the more you try to nail down how things are "really" pronounced, the more you affect the subject you're trying to study, in something of a Heisenbergian sense.

For example, if I say "say the word 'syllable'", everyone will presumably pronounce the "y" as [ɪ]. If we then go to "say the word 'syllabification'", most people are likely to pronounce the "y" as [ɨ], but if you ask them to say the sentence "The Ls in syllabification are syllabificationimized [sic]", they're more likely to pronounce the "y" in "syllabification" as a -/ḷ/ and the "y" in the made-up word "syllabificationimized" as [ɨ] if not [ɪ]. I.e., you destroy your research by asking the simplest question meant to garner information. Human speech is, as all of us here should be well aware, an incredibly fluid [and for those of us who love order, therefore, incredibly conflusterpating] phenomenon.

Another incredibly frustrating thing in trying to nail this all down is that we are all literate, as are the vast majority of any test subjects we or other researchers on this topic might interview, which also screws things up. For us, and for our testees, [no pun intended], there is a natural inclination when being "listened to", to "standardize" or pronunciation as much as possible, which means, in my dialect, pronouncing even a real schwa as one of the "standard" 11 vowels for my dialect [ʌ a ɛ e æ ɪ i o ɔ ʊ u], and squishing [ə] and [ɨ] into one of those vowels. [This doesn't bother to take into account that no speaker of "my kind of English" even realizes that [ɚ] is [ṛ] or that [ɝ] is [ṛ:], etc.]

All of that pontification aside, Felissowary's example of /'hæpəli/ is inaccurate...since it's actually /'hæpɨli/ where I live.  :-p

I'd like to shuck WP:NOR for this, but right now I think it's probably the foremost thing preventing us from getting into an edit war over the topic... :-p Cheers [and good night!], Tomer^talk 09:26, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

I'd like to contrast the idea that [ɨ] is a realization of [ə] in some American dialects. I myself can distinguish between roses and rosa's. It's possible that [ɨ] is the epinthetic vowel of choice, but I've seen languages with [ʏ] as the epinthetic vowel of choice. Also, the actual height and backness is not quite as important in the section because it's the vague "neutral vowel" idea. In French, the schwa is slightly rounded. Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 21:39, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Concerning the proposal to merge mid central unrounded vowel back into Schwa

Strongly oppose. "Schwa" clearly has a broader sense than "mid central unrounded vowel". Plainly put, not all so-called "schwa sounds" are the mid central unrounded vowel. The common terminology is unfortunately confusing, giving the wrong impression that people are talking about a single sound, when in fact "schwa" seems to be more like a placeholder term for any reduced vowel. See also the reasons why the two articles were split in the first place. FilipeS 16:41, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

I've never liked the idea of having separate articles for every conceivable phonetic entity. Most of these articles on sounds don't even grow beyond a short description and a few examples. Say what you want about phonetic pin-point accuracy, but I find this fragmenting of sound articles to be an extremely unpractical way of providing encyclopedic information on phonetics. I feel we should stick to about one article per IPA symbol, not because it's a reflection of reality, but because it's practical. Kinda the point of establishing the IPA to begin with. Having twice the articles is a lot more difficult to manage than simply pointing out in the articles that language sounds are not precise entities and may vary.

Like many times before, I really feel I must stress that the importance of trying to focus on general readership, not peers and experts.

Peter ^Isotalo 02:21, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

The schwa is not necessarily a mid-central vowel, even though the symbol for the mid-central vowel (which may itself be rounded or unrounded!) is often used indiscriminately for all schwas. The ambiguity of the word "schwa" is therefore a source of great confusion, and that is why I remain a strong supporter of dissecting this concept as much as possible. Whether you do that in one, two, or five articles is less important, but I think that, at this stage of Wikipedia, and given the huge confusion that surrounds this term, separate articles would contribute to avoiding further conflations of non-synonymous terms. FilipeS 13:20, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

I believe that the dichotomy between exact phonetics and inexact phonology is rather misleading, since human speech production per se is vary varied. No matter how many articles we split off, it'll still be an approximation. The problem is not that the concept of a schwa is vague, but that the IPA is a theoretical entity intended to be reasonably exact, but never 100% correct. If anything, it's supposed to be practical, and splitting off one article per minor variant is anything but practical. Except for those who are immersed in it, of course...

Peter ^Isotalo 13:36, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

Sure, every IPA symbol actually corresponds to a broad area in the vowel chart, not to an exact point (and things get even murkier when the same symbol is used to represent quite different sounds, just because they're considered dialects of the same language, or just because it's traditional to use that symbol even though it's not the most accurate one). But the so-called "schwa" is even more ambiguous than that. In this Talk Page, people have described it as:

• a mid-central unrounded vowel;
• a mid-central rounded vowel;
• a near-open central vowel.
• a close central unrounded vowel.

If the IPA has different names for all four of these, why should Wikipedia treat them as the same? FilipeS 13:54, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

The French schwa

I have studied French phonology and the language itself for several years although I am not a native speaker, but my understanding is that the [ə] in words like de and le is realized as [ø] when stressed (as in when the word is pronounced in isolation or enunciated for clarity). The vowel is indeed more neutral when spoken as part of a full sentence. Actually, I have read that many experts do not even consider the schwa a phoneme in French. This means a phonemic transcription of le is actually just /l/. Schwas are inserted according to a regular pattern basically to keep clusters of three or more consonants from occurring (one common exception is parce que), but this is phonetic rather than phonemic.--NeantHumain 20:17, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

You got a source? I've read that French schwa is rounded and that it is somewhat low, but that it's a central vowel. Not the front close-mid vowel. Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 23:07, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Turkish?

Is there a schwa in Turkish? Is this written using an e with two dots over it? -Pgan002 08:01, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes there is — written by a dotless 'i'; the 'e' with two dots over it is the Albanian schwa I believe. Apcbg 08:38, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

No, a dotless i in turkish represents /ɯ/. Not a schwa. As far as I know, Turkish doesn't have this sound or at least doesn't represent it in its writing. Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 00:23, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

There is no mid-central vowel in Anatolian Turkish, however, /ɯ/ acts as the epenthetic schwa in consonant cluster breaking. Turkish people can pronounce clusters in the beginning, however, in casual speech, not shown in writing, they epenthesise a schwa(not the mid-central vowel). There is no such cluster breakup practice in the end. Turkish syllabication is the reverse of English one: (C)VCCC.CV(C)

188.56.140.138 (talk) 21:03, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

In Istanbul Dialect (Modern standard Turkish), there is no schwa sound. However, in some other accents it exists. Example: In Denizli Accent, in the word "Arkadaslar", the second syllable is a schwa sound. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.62.232.103 (talk) 11:11, 1 June 2016 (UTC)

List of languages and examples

Can someone who knows enough about this make a list of languages that have schwa sounds, with examples from each? -Pgan002 08:15, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

What exactly are these examples of? The same sound (near enough) used in languages other than English? How the English Schwa is represented in other languages? In Korean ㅓ is clearly not the same sound as the schwa but it is indeed used in place of the schwa in numerous loan words of English origin in the Korean language. 27.96.215.179 (talk) 04:57, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

Toneless?

The article currently says "An unstressed and toneless neutral vowel sound in any language, often but not necessarily a mid-central vowel." What is meant by "toneless"? Right now the word links to Tone (linguistics), but I'm doubtful that's what was actually meant. More likely, "toneless" was being used in its old sense of "atonic," i.e. "unstressed." I don't think it's possible, in a tonal language, for any vowel to not have a tone. 24.159.255.29 22:39, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

That would make it redundant. Why do you doubt that this is what is meant? Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 02:26, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I believe it is redundant. I doubt the writer's intention, because I believe a vowel must have some pitch. I will grant that it is possible for a vowel to be underspecified for tone though. In any case, I'd like to see a source for the assertion that lack of tone or tone underspecification is really part of the definition. 71.82.214.160 04:36, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

In Northern Mainland Mandarin, there are vowels that lose their inherent quality and tone, becoming a toneless schwa. There are probably more languages than that, where both tone and vowel quality are simplified to get to a mid-central vowel without a specified tone. --SameerKhan 03:25, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Rhotacization

"In General American, schwa is one of the two vowel sounds that can be rhotacized." Who says only two vowel sounds can be rhotacized? What is the other one? R-colored vowel says "The r-colored vowels of General American are written with vowel-r digraphs. Any vowel can be used: ...." In my experience, this seems to be true. 24.159.255.29 22:44, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

The other vowel is [ɜ], an open-mid central vowel. The r-colored vowel article is talking about written vowels in use with orthographic r. Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 02:19, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

If R-colored vowel is talking only about orthography, the term rhotacized here should not link there. And I didn't realize that vowels like /ar/ were not rhotacized in the way that /ər/ and /ɜr/ are. 71.82.214.160 04:40, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

In English, the rhotic schwa [ɚ]/[ɝ] can be spelled with any vowel + r. /ɑr/ is not strictly r-colored as it is a sequence of a vowel and a sonorant. What is represented /ər/ phonemically in English is phonetically one sound. There are languages that have rhotic /i/, /u/, etc but English is not one of them. Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 05:33, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Schwa (symbol/glyph)

I understand that the term "schwa" refers to at least two or more different concepts, including the sound spoken (phoneme) and the symbol (or glyph or grapheme or letter or character) that is printed, typed, or written. The word "schwa" is said to come from Hebrew, but the symbol/letter "schwa" clearly looks like an upside down, reversed "e". I think the article (or an additional article?) should explain the history of the symbol/letter for "schwa" as well. Shanoman 16:01, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Judaism Project?

Why is this article part of the Judaism project? Almost the entire article is about the schwa sound as it occurs in English. The word's origin is Hebrew and there is a very brief paragraph about the sound's occurrence in the Hebrew language. None of it has any relationship to the Jewish Religion per se. Roger (talk) 11:35, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree, except for its etymology, Schwa has nothing to do with Hebrew, let alone Judaism. Dan Pelleg (talk) 20:52, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

BrE 'concerted'?

Could somebody please explain to me how this is an exception? I'm only aware of (indeed, can only conceive) one pronunciation and it doesn't disobey the unstressed rule. LaFoiblesse 21:14, 04 June 2008 (GMT)

Curious assertion

"Many British English (BrE) dialects have two schwa sounds, whereas many American English (AmE) dialects have only one."

The entry currently states the preceding rather odd sentence and then does not explain it. What are the supposed two different schwa sounds in "many British English dialects" ? Eregli bob (talk) 14:34, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

looks like a e upside down

just to say Btzkillerv (talk) 23:43, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

Do you have a point or are you simply placing some "cyber-grafitti" here? Roger (talk) 16:25, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

Add Sounds files?

This article might benefit from audio, for the benefit of readers who find the IPA difficult. --Alecmconroy (talk) 07:37, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Most of the IPA in this page is for English words and with the examples written normally as well. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 17:05, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

True enough-- but there's a gazillion ways to pronounce English words. I suspect sound files would help people "hear" the schwa that's in all the different words. --Alecmconroy (talk) 22:39, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

I'm unaware of any dialect that doesn't have a schwa in any of the examples. If someone wants to make the sound files, they're welcome to do so but IMHO it'd be pretty superfluous. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 03:00, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Eloquent

I don't like the word "eloquent" used as an example of a "neutral vowel" because I don't pronounce it that way (and I'm sure there are others). Is there any better examples that can be used? Tavix (talk) 22:36, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

• "Nation" would be a better choice, I think. I've also seen "women" used as such an illustrative example. 147.70.242.54 (talk) 00:17, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

Women isn't good because many people pronounce it [ˈwɪmɪn]. Nation should work. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 04:53, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

In German?

Isn't the schwa the vowel at the end of the words Porsche, bitte, and danke in German? If so, shouldn't this article mention that...? RobertM525 (talk) 11:11, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

In fact, this site shows just that. RobertM525 (talk) 01:08, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Schwa in Gilaki (Giliki) and Taleshi (Talishi)

The most significant vowel in Gilaki and Talesh language is Schwa. Strong accent of northen Iranian (Gilak and Talish people) come from too many words emphasing this vowel. When these men try to speak Farsi taht has lack of Scowa it sounds funny for Farsi speakers! and because of bsence of natioanl alphabet or eduvation gradually these languages are assimilating

I've removed this section from the article; it clearly needs attention from a fluent English speaker, ideally one with some knowledge of Giliki and/or Talishi (or even Farsi); I don't feel qualified to edit it, but it detracts from the article as is. Dave.Dunford (talk) 12:13, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

Sound files in Schwa and Mid-central vowel

The sound files in the info boxes in Schwa and in Mid-central vowel are exactly the same. This article claims that the word Schwa has two meaning: one is the neutral vowel and the other is the mid-central vowel. Since mid-central vowel has its own article, it seems that Schwa should be about the first meaning. Therefore, these articles should have different sounds in their info boxes.

In addition, sound files of /ɜ/ and /ə/ seem to be messed up. You can see it there: IPA vowels chart with audio.

It seems that the button ɜ really represents the sound /ə/, while the button ə really represents the sound /ɜ/. Ufim (talk) 04:04, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

Currently, they both use the same IPA symbol /ə/ (322) and (so) the same single soundfile. If a different soundfile should be used for one of them, please let me know.

• Mid central vowel

File:Mid-central vowel.ogg

ə

-DePiep (talk) 10:03, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

Adding: if schwa is correctly defined as IPA /ə/, then the sound should be the same. If the /ə/ soundfile is incorrect, then the symbol used is incorrect. In other words: the soundfile is not where this question arises, but the IPA symbol definition of schwa. -DePiep (talk) 11:59, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

Old dictionaries use the same IPA symbol, for example, Mueller-1961 (V. K. Mueller, English-Russian Dictionary, 7 Edition; "State Publishing House of Foreign and National Dictionaries", Moscow, 1961) writes:

• alike [ə`laık]
• fur [fə:]

Most newer dictionaries use different symbols, for example, Oxford-8 (Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary 8th Ed.) writes:

• alike BrE [əˈlaɪk] NAmE [əˈlaɪk]
• fur BrE [fɜː(r)] NAmE [fɜːr]

Ufim (talk) 15:57, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

Proposed redirects

Possible redirects:

• Backwards e
• Reverse e

Thoughts? 71.146.20.62 (talk) 07:41, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

Maybe to the disambiguation page. Is there a way to see if people ever try to look these up in the search? — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[ãːɱ ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɪ̃ə̃nlɪ]} 19:02, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

Confused about different meanings

The intro gives two different meanings of 'schwa'; the begining of the section "Description" adds a third possible meaning. Then the article goes on to talk about schwa in several different languages, but it's not clear which meaning of the term is used for the rest of the article. It would be helpful if this could be clarified. AxelBoldt (talk) 16:56, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

5.2 car(a)mel

Car(a)mel seems like it would be a good entry in 5.2, AE schwa deletion, but we don't need a huge list of words there either. On the gripping hand, it might warrant mention since it exists stronglywith and without deletion? -Belg4mit (talk) 15:12, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

I think that's a little more than schwa deletion. The two pronunciations are /ˈkɑrməl/ and /ˈkærəˌmɛl/. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[ãːɱ ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɪ̃ə̃nlɪ]} 15:48, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

Ridondance

There is already an article about this kind of sound called "mid-central vowel" which is also the kind of article title that identifies these IPA vowel by describing their characteristics. What sense has to add another article about the same thing? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.3.18.177 (talk) 18:59, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

Always unstressed?

There are many words with stressed schwa, like cup, butt, upwards, under, etc. Ticklewickleukulele (talk) 16:12, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

Those aren't considered schwa, though some minority interpretations of English phonology do consider them the same since they are in complementary distribution. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[ãːɱ ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɪ̃ə̃nlɪ]} 16:16, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

@Ticklewickleukulele: To be precise, the vowel you refer to in those words is ʌ. --Thnidu (talk) 21:05, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

Occurence of the schwa at the end of the word

Can a schwa occur in English at the end of a word? --Zinoural (talk) 17:57, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

You betcha. Victor Yus (talk) 18:41, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

Sofa

Sofa is not the best example for the sound of a schwa, as its colored to /ʌ/ "but", but still has some color in the /ɑː/ "ah," and the use of the "a" anyway symbolically puts it in the character of an /ɑː/ moreso than just a schwa sounding vowel like the /e/ in "vowel," or the /e/ in "gender." The schwa is best found where the vowel is almost unncessary, and where the vowel is more like a placeholder, and the word could be written without uncolored vowels at all, such as if "vowel" could be written "vowl," or "gender" as "gendr." -Kenologica (talk) 21:47, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

Original research: Schwa in Korean

I have tagged the following text as possibly original research:

This Korean vowel appears to have stress. Koreans when pronouncing an English word like "banana" usually say "ba-na-na", pronouncing each vowel clearly, which indicates that the Korean schwa is independent of stress.

This reads like someone's personal supposition or reflection. It also seems somewhat contradictory: is the Korean schwa stressed, or independent of stress? I have not deleted it (yet!), because while it remains it might attract someone with the necessary knowledge to give a verifiable description of the Korean schwa. -- Perey (talk) 13:45, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

"Etymon"? Exsqueese me?

WTF is an etymon?

This article needs to go on a pretty brutal diet.

We are talking about the "uh" sound, right? That grunt noise that we attribute to cavemen? MrDemeanour (talk) 19:29, 6 June 2015 (UTC)

You'll be excused (that's the correct spelling) if you look up etymon and learn the definition. I'll be generous and quote it to you: "The source word of a given word." Thnidu (talk) 19:18, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

Taken?

I've never heard 'Taken' pronounced with a schwa sound. What english dialects pronounce this word in such a way? Moss Ryder (talk) 02:06, 10 June 2015 (UTC)

Confusing phonetics, phonology, graphemics, dialects and what

The article confuses phonetics with phonology, mentions dialects without making clear distinctions between them. After all, each individual dialect has a phonology, lexicon etc. of its own. In a sense, they are all different language systems. Logically, then, hardly any word indented as an example of schwa can be universally accepted cross-dialectally. I would suggest, for instance, creating a table listing some examples with dialect information in the column- or row-headers. It would become much more lucid and way more useful for non-native speakers like me. Also, I think whatever part focuses on the phonetics of schwa should be moved to the mid-central vowel article instead (one that is far from perfect, admittedly, but definitely a more appropriate place for that, I suppose). Whatever part deals with the English phoneme schwa, however, should be moved to the article on English phonology. And finally, whatever part deals with the symbol or grapheme should probably be part of an article dealing with the symbol as such. The article in its present state is, I'm afraid, completely unsatisfactory. I wouldn't mind at all if it only became a disambiguation page in the end. Not to mention obvious problems such as missing the fact that there are syllabic consonants in English, such as, for example, [m̩], [n̩], or [l̩].Pet'usek ^{[petrdothrubisatgmaildotcom]} 22:46, 12 July 2015 (UTC)

I propose a pronunciation guide for the word schwa

I had to go to Wiktionary to figure out that instead of there being a schwa sound at the end of the word schwa, that the a is pronounced like in father. My first guess at pronunciation was actually right. But then it occurred to me that ending the word schwa with a schwa sound seems more self consistent. So then I didn't know. Oh heck I'll just add it myself. I might mess it up though. I'll copy Wiktionary. Mindbuilder (talk) 08:10, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

Examples in other languages

This title heading is rather confusing. Other than which? Most of the languages referred to here have already been mentioned in the preceding section. RoachPeter (talk) 11:17, 15 February 2016 (UTC)

That's not the only problem with this article. Tagged. Peter238 (talk) 19:56, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

Clearer discussion of the word itself

This will sound silly but when I was in school the teachers rather poorly taught the schwa sound. For one thing - and this is for real - they never indicated that you don't actually SAY "schwa" when you see the upside-down e. Needless to say, confusion and some rather bizarre pronunciation issues eventuated. Even though the audio file in the infobox makes this clear (there is who "sch/shh" sound heard) it might be handy for non-native English speakers (and frankly some native English speakers as well - my misadventure with "schwa" happened in a Canadian school) for it to be pointed out. 68.146.233.86 (talk) 01:02, 16 March 2016 (UTC)

(I was initially confused by a typo here. (there is who "sch/shh" sound heard) should be (there is no "sch/shh" sound heard). --Thnidu (talk) 04:25, 22 August 2018 (UTC))

Quranic Arabic

The Schwa is also used in Quranic Arabic when the Quran is read for certain letters where vibrations must be heard, but not when talking to people, an interesting phenomenon. Alexis Ivanov (talk) 23:41, 12 June 2016 (UTC)

Contradiction in § Etymology

Section etymology says

The word schwa is from the Hebrew word shva (שְׁוָא  IPA: [ʃva], classical pronunciation: shewa’  [ʃəˈwa]), designating the Hebrew niqqud vowel sign shva (two vertical dots written beneath a letter): in Modern Hebrew, it indicates either the phoneme /e/ or the complete absence of a vowel. (The Hebrew shva is also sometimes transliterated using the schwa symbol ə, but the schwa vowel has never been pronounced that way, neither in Modern Hebrew nor in any earlier pronunciation, such as the Tiberian vocalization.)

But this very paragraph contradicts itself. It spells the Hebrew word "schwa" with a schwa (shva) diacritic ְ and gives its Classical Hebrew pronunciation with the ə symbol. --Thnidu (talk) 21:11, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

Syncope in British English

I feel like it needs to be mentioned that schwa syncope is definitely a thing in British English (and maybe other English dialects but I can't speak for those.) As a Brit, I also say "memry" "choclate" "camra". Thing is, I can't find a source for that apart from 'I'm British.' Could anyone help me find an academic source so we can get this changed? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.21.134.22 (talk) 22:54, 7 July 2019 (UTC)

"American English", but British English too

Is this not a more common phenomenon in British/Commonwealth English than American English? Library becoming libry, military becoming militry, territory becoming territry, etc. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2405:6E00:1EEC:FC01:F0B9:4728:C3A1:7340 (talk) 21:56, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

Can we please move a lot of the sound-related stuff to Mid central vowel?

The sound has an article Mid central vowel. Could we please move all of that stuff over there and have this article be about the character? 69.181.244.207 (talk) 06:50, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

Ə is the article about the character. The discussion in this article doesn't really fit Mid central vowel, which is a very specific phonetic value that not all sounds described as schwa have. Vowel reduction is probably a better destination if we were to move any portion of this article at all. Nardog (talk) 06:57, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

@ sign

The article at sign contains this statement: "* A schwa, as the actual schwa character "ə" may be difficult to produce on many computers. It is used in this capacity in some ASCII IPA schemes, including SAMPA and X-SAMPA." but it is not mentioned in this article. Is it true? and if so, is there a citation for it? --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 00:12, 25 March 2021 (UTC)

@John Maynard Friedman:: SAMPA and X-SAMPA have references and probably include the encoding of schwa. I don't know if it is relevant enough. --Error (talk) 19:27, 30 August 2022 (UTC)

it's a while back now but I suspect what I was looking for was an RS that says that @ is sometimes used as a stand-in for a schwa. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 21:56, 30 August 2022 (UTC)

American accent required.

Being British I would never pronounce the examples in the Description section as suggested.

〈a〉, as in about [əˈbaʊ̯t] -- as in erbout

〈e〉, as in taken [ˈtʰeɪ̯kən] -- as in takern

〈i〉, as in pencil [ˈpʰɛnsəl] -- as in pencerl

〈o〉, as in memory [ˈmɛməɹi] -- as in memery

〈u〉, as in supply [səˈpʰlaɪ̯] -- as in serply

〈y〉, as in sibyl [ˈsɪbəl] -- as in siberl

unwritten, as in rhythm [ˈɹɪðəm] -- as in rhytherm

These sound great if I'm putting on an American accent but they just sound weird in British English. 2.99.114.91 (talk) 20:16, 12 April 2021 (UTC)

Agreed. From a British perspective this article seems not just inaccurate but illiterate. An actual researcher would have clarified all of this. That’s Wikipedia for you. 2A02:C7E:4C19:3E00:8B6:5B6D:7437:E154 (talk) 06:44, 22 April 2023 (UTC)

Classical Hebrew Pronunciation

In § Etymology, the article claimed that the classical pronunciation is [ʃəˑwɒːʔ], which is wrong in a number of ways. First of all, the classical schwa is extra short, not half-long. Secondly, the vowel קמץ is pronounced ɔː, not ɒː, in classical Hebrew. Third, א only constitutes a glottal stop when before a vowel, not after a vowel. Therefore, the classical pronunciation is [ʃə̑wɔː]. SapphireBrick (talk) 21:03, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Why pronounce the word Schwa with an English W instead of a German W?

The word Schwa announces itself as being German by starting "Sch-" rather than "Sh-" so why don't modern English linguists pronounce it as a German word? I learned about this word over 40 years ago from a reprint of a 19th century English textbook of Hebrew, where it was called "Sh'va". So, knowing that the teaching of Hebrew was largely a German field, perhaps because such a high proportion of Jews lived in Germany, when I saw the word "Schwa" I recognised it as an almost exact German equivalent of what I had seen in English and therefore pronounce it pretty much the same way - though I would pronounce "Sh'va" as two syllables - with a "Schwa" in the middle!

I do understand that Hebraists now believe that the Hebrew letter Vav once had a sound somewhat similar to the English W - no idea how they know this or whether they really do know it or whether it is just a fashionable theory. Do they believe that the current Hebrew pronounciation (like an English V) comes from German? PeterR2 (talk) 01:07, 4 October 2022 (UTC)

I'd bet money that the explanation is simply that this word is just one of many examples of words that are naturalized into English with only a partial approximation of the pronunciation of the source language rather than a complete one, whereas a facet or too that English speakers found trickiest were simply forgone. The difference then becomes frozen as an established and idiomatic fact, regardless of whether anyone might argue that it ought not to have done. Thus for example loess as an English word naturalized from German is usually /ˈlɛs/, /ˈlʌs/, or /ˈloʊ.əs/—anything except /ˈlœs/! Many naturalizations from French into English also have this characteristic. In English it is not unusual that people want to hypercorrect them, but the idea that they require correction is a misapprehension, by virtue of the very fact that the established pronunciation is established; that's simply English as she is spoke, regardless of how she maybe coulda-woulda-shoulda be spoke. Quercus solaris (talk) 02:32, 13 October 2022 (UTC)

You are mistaking spelling pronunciation for naturalization. The difference with your example is that English does have /v/ as a phoneme (unlike /œ/), meaning there is no reason you couldn't say it as 'shvah'. 178.69.215.152 (talk) 10:57, 3 January 2023 (UTC)

Nope, not mistaking anything. It's not about what English could do but rather what it does do despite what it could do, and why. Native English speakers certainly can pronounce "-schw-" as /ʃv/, but they tend to consider doing so as consciously matching or approximating the German pronunciation, whereas /ʃw/ feels more naturalized, from an emic viewpoint. Compare the most common way of saying "accoutrement" in English, which is /ə​ˈkuː​trə-​mənt/. It is not that native/monolingual English speakers are unable to say a closer approximation of the French pronunciation (such as /ə​ˈkuː​trə-​mɑ̃/ or nearly); rather, it is that they have a widespread convention of not bothering to do so because doing so feels overwrought, trying too hard to be Frenchy. English speakers can say /ʃvɑː/, but they generally don't, by prevailing norm/convention. English speakers have never been incapable of saying /pəˈriː/ or /bɛrˈliːn/ as approximations of the French and German, but /ˈpærɪs/ and /bɜːrˈlɪn/ are the naturalized pronunciations. Quercus solaris (talk) 06:05, 23 March 2023 (UTC) (Update: I just was reminded of the word for when people "try too hard" with phonetic approximations that aren't necessary in the borrowing language: hyperforeignism. Quercus solaris (talk) 13:42, 3 May 2023 (UTC))

Schwa deletion in Hindi

In Hindi grammar Schwa deletion is known as swaraaghaat स्वराघात Ajayjo (talk) 09:16, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

Schwa in English examples

a better example for <i> would be good, that renders as schwa for accents that don't have the weak vowel merger. Perhaps "definite"?

Also, phonemic rather than phonetic transcriptions would be much more appropriate for the examples; what's important is what words have a schwa in them, not a narrow transcription of how each word is rendered in some particular dialect/accent of English. Take [səˈpʰlaɪ̯] ; we don't care about aspiration of the p, or precise demarcations of vowel quality in one particular accent ([aɪ̯]?, really?), that are superfluous, restrictive, and that basically no one can read anyway. (I couldn't tell you off the top of my head without looking it up what the diacritic on the I is there, and I doubt many readers, including 99% of those who can read IPA for English, can.)

Furthern more, if you are going to do narrow phonetic instead of phonemic transcriptions, then most of the schwa-n should in fact be syllabic n; therefore defeating the point of the examples (since taken, and fore many speakers, pencil, have syllabic n and l respectively)

Also, "memory" is not the best "o", since for many speakers, "memory" is reduced to 2 syllables.

--Tomatoswoop (talk) 17:10, 28 April 2023 (UTC)

o example

I've replaced "memory" as the example for o, as the r immediately following changes the pronunciation of the vowel in many dialects, making it more mem-er-ree, rather than mem-uh-ree. And some other dialects simply omit the middle syllable entirely, rendering it as mem-ree. I believe that "love" is more consistently pronounced with a schwa type sound. Some dictionaries transcribe it as "lʌv," but Webster's has it as "ˈləv."[4] -2003:CA:871E:B68:7708:BDF1:B52B:2174 (talk) 01:28, 19 July 2023 (UTC)

Phonetic differences between languages

Maybe the phonetic differences in the Schwa between languages should be pointed out more. E.g. the German Schwa is very much distinct from the English Schwa. So much so that it's pretty easy to detect a native English speaker by the way they pronounce Schwa when speaking German. --Kraligor (talk) 11:39, 4 March 2024 (UTC)