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| Schwa | |
|---|---|
| Ə ə | |
 | |
| Usage | |
| Writing system | Latin script |
| Type | alphabetic |
| Sound values | [æ] [ə] [ɨ] |
| In Unicode | U+018F,U+0259 |
| History | |
| Development | |
| Time period | ~1922 to 1939, 1992 to present |
| Descendants | • Ә |
| Other | |
| Writing direction | Left-to-right |
| This article containsphonetic transcriptions in theInternational Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, seeHelp:IPA. For the distinction between[ ],/ / and ⟨ ⟩, seeIPA § Brackets and transcription delimiters. | |
Ə, orə, is an additionalletter of theLatin alphabet. It is also calledschwa, from another name for themid central vowel, the sound represented by minuscule ə in theInternational Phonetic Alphabet (IPA).
It was invented byJohann Andreas Schmeller for the reduced vowel at the end of some German words and first used in his 1820s works on theBavarian dialects.
The word, schwa, comes from theHebrewShva (via German),[1][2] aNiqqud, which in most cases in Modern Hebrew denotes a de-emphasis of an accompanying vowel that would otherwise be pronounced strongly. Shva itself is silent and is not a mid central vowel, which does not exist in Modern Hebrew.
It is or was used in several languages around the world, including theAzerbaijani,Gottscheerish,Karay·a andAdyghe languages, theAbenaki language of Quebec, and in the hən̓q̓əmin̓əm̓ dialect ofHalkomelem. Both themajuscule andminuscule forms of this letter are based on the form of a turnede, while inBalinese it is not written formally but the final orthographic-a is a schwa [ə] and sometimes represented byǎ letter.[3][4] Meanwhile thePan-Nigerian alphabet has a distinct letter based on a lowercase turned e (U+01DD ǝLATIN SMALL LETTER TURNED E), paired with its uppercase version,Ǝ (U+018E ƎLATIN CAPITAL LETTER REVERSED E).
A superscript minuscule (U+1D4A ᵊMODIFIER LETTER SMALL SCHWA) is used to modify the preceding consonant to have a mid central vowel release, though it is also commonly used to indicate possiblesyllabicity of the followingsonorant, especially in transcriptions of English. The latter usage is non-standard.
In theAzerbaijani alphabet,⟨Ə⟩ represents thenear-open front unrounded vowel,/æ/, like the pronunciation of⟨a⟩ in "cat". The letter was used in the 1992Chechen Latin alphabet proposal where it represented theglottal stop,/ʔ/, like the pronunciation of⟨tt⟩ inGA "button". It was also used in theUniform Turkic Alphabet, for example inJanalif for theTatar language in the 1920s–1930s. Also, in a romanization ofPashto, the letter⟨Ə⟩ is used to represent[ə]. When some Roman orthographies in the Soviet Union were converted to use theCyrillic script in the 1930s and 1940s,this letter has been adoptedverbatim.
In theKaray·a alphabet, the letter represents/ə/.
In the Latin transliteration ofAvestan, the corresponding long vowel is written as schwa-macron,⟨Ə̄ ə̄⟩.
AnR-colored vowel can be represented using⟨ɚ⟩.
A schwa with a retroflex hook⟨ᶕ⟩ is used in phonetic transcription.[5]
In the 2020s, the schwa has been proposed to replace thegenderedsuffixes of theItalian language, in order to keep wordsgender neutral: for example, the use of the schwa in the wordtuttə (all/everyone), as opposed totutti (all/everyone, used both as a masculine plural and as a plural without gender marking[6]).
This niche usage is controversial—as well as mainly limited to written language, as there is no real consensus on how the-ə suffix should be pronounced—and has been criticized by theAccademia della Crusca. The president of the Accademia opposed its use,[7] and the Accademia answered to a question posed by the Equal Opportunities Committee of the Supreme Court of Cassation for the introduction of the schwa in juridical language, stating that "juridical language is not the place to experiment with minority-led innovations that would lead to irregularity and idiolects".[8]
| Preview | Ə | ə | ᵊ | ₔ | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Unicode name | LATIN CAPITAL LETTER SCHWA | LATIN SMALL LETTER SCHWA | MODIFIER LETTER SMALL SCHWA | LATIN SUBSCRIPT SMALL LETTER SCHWA | ||||
| Encodings | decimal | hex | dec | hex | dec | hex | dec | hex |
| Unicode | 399 | U+018F | 601 | U+0259 | 7498 | U+1D4A | 8340 | U+2094 |
| UTF-8 | 198 143 | C6 8F | 201 153 | C9 99 | 225 181 138 | E1 B5 8A | 226 130 148 | E2 82 94 |
| Numeric character reference | Ə | Ə | ə | ə | ᵊ | ᵊ | ₔ | ₔ |
Since the legacy fixed 8-bitISO/IEC Turkish encoding contains neitherƏ norə,Ä ä has sometimes been used for theAzerbaijani language instead, as in theTatar andTurkmen languages.
In Windows, the characters can be generated by holding the⎇ Alt key and pressing the respective decimal Unicode number, which can be found in the table (e.g. 399, 601), on the number pad preceded by a leading0. With aLinuxcompose key, the lowercase letter is by default generated byCompose+e+e.
