Schwa

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Revision as of 17:22, 26 April 2008 by imported>Ro Thorpe (natural > weak, more accurate)
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Schwa[1] is the name linguists use for the most neutral of vowel sounds, the gentle grunt of the first syllable of 'uh huh', the usual, weak, pronunciation of the indefinite article 'a'. Its phonetic symbol is ə.

In English, it can be represented by a number of vowel-letters: it is the u in 'careful', the e in 'worker', the 'a' in above' and the 'o' in 'person'.

Some languages have more than one schwa. In addition to the English one, Portuguese has ɐ, which, as its 'a'-like symbol implies, is a little more open.

Notes

  1. IPA /ʃwɑː/