Talk:Schwa

message: :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)
replies: text: 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)
thread_title: French schwa

message: "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 ). --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)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: Why not about? W. P. Uzer (talk) 09:36, 15 February 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Erbout is fine if you're Ermairikern. :o) 2.99.114.91 (talk) 20:31, 12 April 2021 (UTC)
thread_title: "Adept"

message: 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)
thread_title: Catalan

message: 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)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: 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)
thread_title:  Pronunciation of 'synonym' 

message: 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)
replies: text: It is schwa in the sense of mid-central unstressed vowel of indeterminate specific value. Nohat 01:21, 3 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Check any dictionary that provides a phonetic enough environment to distinguish between the two. AEuSoes1 02:04, 3 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  "A" in about 

message: *"The mid-central vowel sound in the middle of the vowel chart, stressed or unstressed. In IPA phonetic transcription, it is written as . 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)
thread_title: On the definition of schwa again

message: 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)
replies: text: You've seen Schwa (Cyrillic), right? AEuSoes1 11:40, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Azerbaijani uses Latin alphabet. Chechen uses both sets.--Hello World! 11:58, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: 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 would have me believe that it is called "schwa." That might be important in the discussion. AEuSoes1 02:49, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: 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. --LambiamTalk 17:53, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: 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)

text:  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)

text: 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)

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

message: 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)
thread_title: Hebrew?

message: 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)
replies: text: 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.  Æµ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 01:01, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

text: Not function, but set. -Pgan002 07:53, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Ooh, Schwa as a phone might be good.  That way we cover both phoneme and allophone.  Æµ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 22:35, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah, that is a bit circular, but it works.  Go for it!  Æµ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 19:48, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  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)
thread_title: "The Schwa sound" -- misleading title

message: 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)
replies: text: 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.  Æµ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 23:07, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  The French schwa 

message: Is there a schwa in Turkish?  Is this written using an e with two dots over it? -Pgan002 08:01, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: No, a dotless i in turkish represents .  Not a schwa.  As far as I know, Turkish doesn't have this sound or at least doesn't represent it in its writing.  Æµ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 00:23, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

text: There is no mid-central vowel in Anatolian Turkish, however,  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)

text: 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)
thread_title:  Turkish? 

message: 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)
thread_title:  List of languages and examples 

message: 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)
replies: text: That would make it redundant.  Why do you doubt that this is what is meant?  Æµ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 02:26, 18 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: 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)
thread_title:  Toneless? 

message: "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)
replies: text: The other vowel is , an open-mid central vowel.  The r-colored vowel article is talking about written vowels in use with orthographic r.  Æµ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 02:19, 18 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: In English, the rhotic schwa / can be spelled with any vowel + r.   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.  Æµ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 05:33, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Rhotacization 

message: 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)
thread_title: [[Schwa (symbol/glyph)]]

message: 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)
replies: text: 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)
thread_title: Judaism Project?

message: "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)
thread_title:  Curious assertion 

message: just to say Btzkillerv (talk) 23:43, 15 November 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Do you have a point or are you simply placing some "cyber-grafitti" here? Roger (talk) 16:25, 16 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  looks like a e upside down 

message: This article might benefit from audio, for the benefit of readers who find the IPA difficult. --Alecmconroy (talk) 07:37, 22 December 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Most of the IPA in this page is for English words and with the examples written normally as well.  — Æµ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 17:05, 22 December 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: 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.  — Æµ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 03:00, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Add Sounds files? 

message: 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)
replies: text: Women isn't good because many people pronounce it .  Nation should work.  — Æµ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 04:53, 20 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Eloquent

message: 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)
replies: text: In fact, this site shows just that. RobertM525 (talk) 01:08, 16 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  In German? 

message: 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)
thread_title:  Schwa in Gilaki (Giliki) and Taleshi (Talishi) 

message: Possible redirects:
*Backwards e
*Reverse e
Thoughts? 71.146.20.62 (talk) 07:41, 24 November 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Maybe to the disambiguation page.  Is there a way to see if people ever try to look these up in the search? — Æµ§œš¹ [ãːɱ ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɪ̃ə̃nlɪ] 19:02, 27 December 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Proposed redirects

message: 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)
thread_title:  Confused about different meanings 

message: 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)
replies: text: I think that's a little more than schwa deletion.  The two pronunciations are  and .  — Æµ§œš¹ [ãːɱ ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɪ̃ə̃nlɪ] 15:48, 5 August 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  5.2 car(a)mel 

message: 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)
thread_title: Ridondance

message: There are many words with stressed schwa, like cup, butt, upwards, under, etc. Ticklewickleukulele (talk) 16:12, 3 March 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Those aren't considered schwa, though some minority interpretations of English phonology do consider them the same since they are in complementary distribution. — Æµ§œš¹ [ãːɱ ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɪ̃ə̃nlɪ] 16:16, 4 March 2013 (UTC)
replies: text:  To be precise, the vowel you refer to in those words is ʌ.  --Thnidu (talk) 21:05, 20 August 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Always unstressed? 

message: Can a schwa occur in English at the end of a word? --Zinoural (talk) 17:57, 9 June 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: You betcha. Victor Yus (talk) 18:41, 9 June 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Occurence of the schwa at the end of the word 

message: 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)
thread_title:  Sofa 

message: 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)
thread_title:  Original research: Schwa in Korean 

message: 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)
replies: text: 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)
thread_title:  "Etymon"? Exsqueese me? 

message: 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)
thread_title:  Taken? 

message: 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)
thread_title:  Confusing phonetics, phonology, graphemics, dialects and what 

message: 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)
thread_title:  I propose a pronunciation guide for the word schwa 

message: 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)
replies: text: That's not the only problem with this article. Tagged. Peter238 (talk) 19:56, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Examples in other languages 

message: 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)
replies: text: (I was initially confused by a typo here. (there is who "sch/shh" sound heard) should be (there is  "sch/shh" sound heard). --Thnidu (talk) 04:25, 22 August 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Clearer discussion of the word itself

message: 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)
thread_title:  Quranic Arabic 

message: Section etymology says
: The word schwa is from the Hebrew word  (  , classical pronunciation:   ), designating the Hebrew niqqud vowel sign shva (two vertical dots written beneath a letter): in Modern Hebrew, it indicates either the phoneme  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)
thread_title:  Contradiction in § Etymology 

message: 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)
thread_title:  Syncope in British English 

message: 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)
thread_title:  "American English", but British English too 

message: 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)
replies: text: 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)
thread_title:  Can we please move a lot of the sound-related stuff to [[Mid central vowel]]? 

message: 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)
replies: text:  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)
replies: text:  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)
thread_title:  @ sign 

message: 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)
replies: text: 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)
thread_title:  American accent required. 

message: In § Etymology, the article claimed that the classical pronunciation is , 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 , not , in classical Hebrew. Third, א only constitutes a glottal stop when before a vowel, not after a vowel. Therefore, the classical pronunciation is . SapphireBrick (talk) 21:03, 16 January 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Classical Hebrew Pronunciation 

message: 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)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text:  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)
replies: text:  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  or  as approximations of the French and German, but  and  are the naturalized pronunciations. Quercus solaris (talk) 06:05, 23 March 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Why pronounce the word Schwa with an English W instead of a German W? 

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

message: a better example for  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)
thread_title:  Schwa in English examples 

message: 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." -2003:CA:871E:B68:7708:BDF1:B52B:2174 (talk) 01:28, 19 July 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  o example 

message: 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)
thread_title:  Phonetic differences between languages