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A reduced mid central vowel is known as a schwa. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents either sound is ə , a rotated lowercase letter e . While the Handbook of the International Phonetic Association does not define the roundedness of [ə] , [ 1 ] a schwa is more often unrounded than rounded.
Ə, or ə, also called schwa, is an additional letter of the Latin alphabet. In the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), minuscule ə is used to represent the mid central vowel or a schwa. It was invented by Johann Andreas Schmeller for the reduced vowel at the end of some German words and first used in his 1820s works on the Bavarian dialects .
In Caribbean English, schwa is often not used at all, and unreduced vowels are preferred, but if there is a schwa, /ɪ/ remains distinct from it. [ 30 ] In traditional RP, the contrast between /ə/ and weak /ɪ/ is maintained, but that may be declining among modern standard speakers of southern England, who increasingly prefer a merger ...
The schwa /ə/ is a highly variable sound. For this reason, it is not shown on the vowel charts to the right. The word-final schwa in comma and letter is often lowered to so that it strongly resembles the STRUT vowel /a/: [ˈkɔmɐ, ˈleɾɐ].
Reduction to schwa in most unstressed syllables, as in about, along, Hilary, comma, solar, standard, breakfast. (Like other instances of schwa, this can combine with a following /l/, /m/ or /n/ to produce a syllabic consonant in certain environments, as in rival.)
Cardinal vowel chart showing peripheral (white) and central (blue) vowel space, based on the chart in Collins & Mees (2003:227). Phonetic reduction most often involves a mid-centralization of the vowel, that is, a reduction in the amount of movement of the tongue in pronouncing the vowel, as with the characteristic change of many unstressed vowels at the ends of English words to something ...
In the IPA, an r-colored vowel is indicated by a hook diacritic ˞ placed to the right of the regular symbol for the vowel. For example, the IPA symbol for schwa is ə , while the IPA symbol for an r-colored schwa is ɚ .
Up-gliding NURSE is a diphthongized vowel sound, [əɪ], used as the pronunciation of the NURSE phoneme / ɜːr /. This up-gliding variant historically occurred in some completely non-rhotic dialects of American English and is particularly associated with the early twentieth-century (but now extinct or moribund) dialects of New York City , New ...