Schwa

In linguistics, specifically phonetics and phonology, schwa (, rarely or ; sometimes spelled shwa) is a vowel sound denoted by the IPA symbol , placed in the central position of the vowel chart. In English and some other languages, it represents the mid central vowel sound (rounded or unrounded), produced when the lips, tongue, and jaw are completely relaxed, such as the vowel sound of the in the English word ''about''.

In English, some long-established phonetic transcription systems assert that the mid central vowel as an unstressed vowel and transcribed with schwa (ə) is always a different vowel sound from the open-mid back unrounded vowel as a stressed vowel and transcribed with turned v ( ʌ), although they may recognize allophony between the pair. As Geoff Lindsey explains, within these systems, it is said that "schwa is never stressed"; but other authorities (including Lindsey himself) recognize that in some varieties of English, such as General American English, the stressed vowel and the unstressed vowel are the same sound, and therefore the "never stressed" dictum is false. Lindsey gives examples of major dictionaries that use each system.

In Albanian, Romanian, Slovene, Balearic Catalan, Mandarin and Afrikaans, schwa can occur in stressed or unstressed syllables.

The name ''schwa'' and the symbol may be used for some other unstressed and toneless neutral vowel, not necessarily mid central.

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 epenthetic vowel. Across languages, schwa vowels are commonly deleted in some instances, such as in Hindi, North American English, French and Modern Hebrew. In phonology, syncope is the process of deleting unstressed sounds, particularly unstressed vowels such as schwa.

Etymology

The term schwa was introduced by German linguists in the 19th century from the Hebrew (  , classical pronunciation:   �ə̑wɔː the name of the sign used to indicate the phoneme. It was first used in English texts in the early 1890s.

The symbol ⟨ə⟩ was used first by Johann Andreas Schmeller for the reduced vowel at the end of the German language term . Alexander John Ellis, in his Palaeotype alphabet, used it for the similar English sound in ''but'' . The symbol is an ⟨e⟩ rotated by 180 degrees. A subscript small schwa (in Unicode as ) is used in phonetic transcription of Indo-European languages.

In English

In English, schwa is the most common vowel sound. It is a reduced vowel in many unstressed syllables especially if syllabic consonants are not used. Depending on dialect, it may be written using any of the following letters:

*⟨a⟩, as in ''about''
*⟨e⟩, as in ''taken''
*⟨i⟩, as in ''pencil''
*⟨o⟩, as in ''memory''
*⟨u⟩, as in ''supply''
*⟨y⟩, as in ''sibyl''
*unwritten, as in ''rhythm''

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

In General American English, schwa occurs in both stressed and unstressed syllables, while in Received Pronunciation schwa only occurs in unstressed syllables. For example, the word ''above'' is pronounced in General American English and in Received Pronunciation. Confusingly, some dictionaries use to represent a stressed schwa in American English (as well as representing the open-mid back unrounded vowel in Received Pronunciation). Dictionaries that do this include the ''Longman Pronunciation Dictionary'' and the '' Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary''. Dictionaries that use for schwa regardless of whether it is stressed or unstressed include the ''Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary'', the ''Oxford English Dictionary'', and the ''Routledge Dictionary of Pronunciation for Current English''.

In New Zealand English, the high front lax vowel (as in the word ''bit'' ) 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 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 when it appears in a mid-word syllable that comes 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. Other examples include ''fam(i)ly'' , ''ev(e)ry'' , and ''diff(e)rent'' . See also stress and vowel reduction in English.

Examples from other languages

Albanian

In Albanian, schwa is represented by the letter , which is also one of the letters of the Albanian alphabet, coming right after the letter . It can be stressed like in words and ('sweet' and 'dream', respectively).

Caucasian

Many Caucasian languages and some Uralic languages (like Komi) also use phonemic schwa, and allow schwas to be stressed. In Armenian, schwa is represented by the letter (capital ). It is occasionally word-initial but usually word-final, as a form of the definite article. Unwritten schwa sounds are also inserted to split initial consonant clusters; for example, () 'sparrow'. In the Azerbaijani alphabet, the schwa character is used, but to represent the sound.

Germanic languages

In Dutch, the digraph in the suffix , as in ('probably'), is pronounced as a schwa, while the independent word ''lijk'' is never a schwa. The article ''een'' (meaning 'a' or 'an') is pronounced using the schwa, , while the number ''een'' ('one') is pronounced , which is why it's also written as ''één''. And if an falls at 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 () and the diminutive suffix ().

In German, schwa is represented by the letter and occurs only in unstressed syllables, as in . The vowel alternates freely with syllabic consonants /l, m, n/, as in ''Segel'' �zeːgəl – ˈzeːglˌ'sail'. It also alternates with its absence, as in Segel 'sail' – ''Segl-er'' 'sailor'. Thirdly, 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 spoken in Southern Germany and Austria. Vowels that are realized as schwa in Standard German change to , , or .

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

Schwa is normally represented in Yiddish by the Hebrew letter ( Ayin) and, as in German, occurs only in unstressed syllables, as in () /ɡəˈfɪltə fɪʃ/ ('stuffed fish'). In words derived from Hebrew, which retain their original orthography but undergo significant phonological change, schwa may be represented by another letter, as in () ('rabbi'), or by no letter at all, as in שבת () ('Shabbat').

Hindi and other Indo-Aryan languages

In Hindi grammar Schwa deletion is known as swaraaghaat स्वराघात

The inherent vowel in the Devanagari script, an abugida used to write Hindi, Marathi, Nepali and Sanskrit, is a schwa, written either in isolation or word-initially. In most Sanskrit-based languages, the schwa is the implied vowel after every consonant and so has no didactic 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 (, sometimes written as ) implicit in each consonant of the script is "obligatorily deleted" at the end of words and in certain other contexts. The phenomenon has been termed the "schwa deletion rule" of Hindi. One formalization of the rule has been summarized as ''ə → ∅ /VC_CV''. In other words, when a vowel-preceded consonant is followed by a vowel-succeeded consonant, the schwa inherent in the first consonant is deleted. However, the formalization is inexact and incomplete (it sometimes deletes a schwa that exists, and it fails to delete some schwas that it should) and so can yield errors. Schwa deletion is computationally important because it is essential to building text-to-speech software for Hindi.

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, is (expected: ), is (expected: ), is (expected: ) and is (expected: ).

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. For instance, the sequence in ("the heart started beating") and in ("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.

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

Madurese

In Madurese, an 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. Examples are:
* () – Javanese, Java Island
* () – sea, ocean
* () – to sail
* () – Surabaya
* () – Madurese, Madura Island
* () – 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 (the final syllable is usually the second syllable since most Indonesian root words consist of two syllables). In some cases, the vowel is pronounced as a stressed schwa (only when the vowel is located between two consonants in a syllable), but never in formal speech:
* ('come'), pronounced , and often informally written as .
* ('viscous'), pronounced .
* ('black'), pronounced , informally written as .
* ('deep', 'in'), pronounced , often written as .
* ('night'), pronounced , informally written as .

Indonesian orthography formerly used unmarked only for the schwa sound, and the full vowel was written . Malaysian orthography, on the other hand, formerly indicated the schwa with (called ), and unmarked stood for .

In the 1972 spelling reform that unified Indonesian and Malaysian spelling conventions (''Ejaan yang Disempurnakan'', regulated by MABBIM), it was agreed to use neither diacritic. There is no longer an orthographic distinction between and ; both are spelled with an unmarked . For example, the word for 'wheeled vehicle' in Indonesia and Malaysia, which was formerly spelled in Indonesia and in Malaysia, is now spelled in both countries. This means that the pronunciation of any given letter in both Indonesian and Malaysian variants is not immediately obvious to the learner and must be learned separately. However, in a number of Indonesian dictionaries and lesson books for foreign learners, the notation is preserved to help learners.

In Southern Malaysian pronunciation, which is predominant in common Malaysian media, the final letter represents schwa, and final stands for . The dialect of Kedah in northern Malaysia, however, pronounces final as also. In loanwords, a non-final short /a/ may become schwa in Malay such as (

Romance languages

In European and some African dialects of Portuguese, the schwa occurs in many unstressed syllables that end in , such as ('night'), ('afternoon'), ('peach'), and ('sin'). In Neapolitan, a final, unstressed , and unstressed and are pronounced as a schwa: ('pizza'), ('week'), ('orange').

In the Eastern dialects of Catalan, including the standard variety, based in the dialect spoken in and around Barcelona, schwa (called , 'neutral vowel') is represented by the letters or in unstressed syllables: ('father'), . In the Balearic Islands, the sound is sometimes also in stressed vowels, ('pear').

In Romanian, schwa is represented by the letter , , which is considered a letter on its own (the second in the Romanian alphabet). It can be stressed in words in which it is the only vowel such as ('hair' or 'pear tree') or ('I see'). Some words which also contain other vowels can have the stress on : ('the books') and ('rooms').

Schwa is deleted in certain positions in French.

Slavic languages

In Kashubian schwa is represented by the letter , it derives from historical short ''u'' and ''i'' vowels, and thus may alternate with ''u'' and ''i'' stemming from historical long vowels in different grammatical forms of a given word. It never appears word initially, except for the word ''ë (and)'' and its derivates. In most dialects of Russian unstressed ⟨a⟩ and ⟨o⟩ reduce to either or schwa.

In the Bulgarian language, schwa exists as a sound. It is written with the letter ъ. In Serbo-Croatian, schwa is not a phoneme, but it is often colloquially used to pronounce names of consonants. For example, the official name of the letter is pronounced , but in everyday speech, it is often called .

Welsh

The schwa is denoted in Welsh by the letter to represent schwa, which is a phonemic vowel rather than the realisation of an unstressed vowel. It is a very common letter as is the definite article with being the definite article if the following word starts with a vowel. For example, the word ''ysbyty'' ("hospital") is pronounced .

References

Further reading

*
*{{cite web , url=http://www.vanoostendorp.nl/fonologie/schwaip.htm , title=Schwa in Phonological Theory , access-date=2008-01-29 , author=Marc van Oostendorp , year=1999

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Vowels