Schwa

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 usually 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.
The name schwa and the symbol may be used for some other unstressed and toneless neutral vowel, not necessarily mid central, as it is often used to represent reduced vowels in general.
In English, is traditionally treated as a weak vowel that may occur only in unstressed syllables, but in accents with the – merger, such as Welsh English, some higher-prestige Northern England English, and some General American, it is merged with and so may then be considered to occur in stressed syllables.
In Albanian, Romanian, Slovene, Balearic Catalan, Mandarin and Afrikaans, schwa can occur in stressed or unstressed syllables.
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: [ʃə̑wɔː]), 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 havoc
⟨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.
While in Received Pronunciation schwa only occurs in unstressed syllables, in General American English, it may be analyzed that schwa occurs in both stressed and unstressed syllables. Some dictionaries use to represent what may be analyzed as a stressed schwa in American English (as in Received Pronunciation). Dictionaries that do so 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 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. Other examples include fam(i)ly , ev(e)ry , and diff(e)rent .
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 languages
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, but the independent word lijk is never a schwa. The article een (meaning 'a' or 'an') is pronounced using the schwa and the number een ('one') is pronounced and so it is also written as één. Also, if an 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 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 [ˈzeːgəl – ˈzeːglˌ] 'sail'. It also alternates with its absence, as in Segel 'sail' – Segl-er 'sailor'. 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 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 certain pronunciations of words derived from Hebrew, which retain their original orthography but have undergone 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 that is 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 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 (which is 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 that is 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", which makes 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:
– 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, once 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. That 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 (<Arabic , Malay pronunciation ).
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 that 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 Bulgarian, schwa exists as a sound and is written with the letter ъ. The vowel ⟨a⟩ is usually reduced to a schwa when unstressed: книгата /'knigətə/ ('the book'). In eastern Bulgarian, some are also pronounced like a schwa: Това ме кара да се смея / tu'va mə 'karə də sə 'smɛjə/ ('that made me laugh').
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 and is replaced by if the following word starts with a vowel. For example, the word ysbyty ("hospital") is pronounced .
References
Further reading
Niqqud
Vowels.