Talk:Schwa
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- 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)
- 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)
I thought the schwa was in all the Germanic languages as a sound made by unstressed E. I do know that it is a sound in Catalan, which is a Romance language. (I don't know of any other Romance languages with this sound, except for possibly French.)
- It might well be in many languages, but only in English, that I know of, is it called "Schwa". I already pointed out on the page that the same sound is represented in German and French in various ways, (as well as many other languages) but in those languages it is explicitly specified, has a name and a graphic representation of its own. In English, most native speakers use it by imitation, but wouldn't even believe it was a legit English sound if you asked them. In my view, that's what makes it worth an entry in the first place. After all, there's no interesting encyclopedia entry for "E". --User:Steverapaport
"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
As for the article, in Hebrew, the proper pronunciation is still sh'tayim (with a shwa). People may skip over it, but in proper spoken Hebrew it is still there. Danny
- Can you provide an example where it is silent, then? -phma
- Hebrew has two shwas, both written with the same sign. The schwa you gave is called a sheva na' and is always sounded. The silent is a sheva nah. It depends on the placement in the word. In the first syllable (a shwa is not considered a syllable grammatically) it is always sounded. after a short vowel it is silent, but the tendency in Hebrew today is not to include them so as to avoid confusion. Generally, though, the vowels are not written at all except in prayer books, children's books, and poetry. I hate reading Hebrew with vowels personally. Danny
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...
- 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)
this article lacks a sound sample
Schwa cleanup
(Below moved from User talk:Steverapaport)
That was a very ..er... enthusiastic cleanup, Nohat. Not a bad idea but I think you may have tossed a few of the important bits too.
- I moved a fair bit of content to unstressed vowel, because a lot of the discussion on schwa wasn't about the schwa sound at all, but other reduced vowel sounds in English.
Here's what I think you missed:
1- Schwa is, in English (and Hebrew) considered a "null" sound, the equivalent of "no vowel at all". English and Hebrew speakers asked to pronounce, say "Mxpltzk", are pretty much guaranteed to use schwa at least 3 or 4 times. The sound appears in French or German too but has its own distinct identity. This is probably the reason the English sound is named after the Hebrew one, rather than the more obvious examples of the same sound in more-related French or German.
- This is a fine point; I don't think it was clear in the article before I cleaned it up. The way you have explained it here would be fine on the page as far as I'm concerned.
- Ok I did that, and pointed out as a bonus the reason for the lack of conflict in Hebrew between the two schwas.
2- Schwa is a sound that's never taught to English-speakers (it doesn't even have a fixed symbol) and so you need at least a few examples for English-speakers to recognize it by. You only left one, and a pedagogically-poor one at that. Anyone who doesn't know what schwa sounds like will probably go away thinking it sounds like or . The US "uh" sound can also sound like these. Instead, use a drawn-out example that remains true to sound even when spoken slowly, like "third". Then mention that it shows up in many unstressed syllables like the "about" or "cycle".
The Merriam-Webster definition of schwa says "... the usual sound of the first and last vowels of the English word America", an equivalent example to about. In fact, schwa does sound like , as it's the closest stressed vowel to schwa—in fact Merriam-Webster uses the same symbol to represent both schwa and . They are admittedly different—schwa is somewhat closer than , but the vowel of third is NOT schwa, it's open-mid central unrounded vowel, or a rhotic version thereof, depending on dialect. For the 70% of native English speakers that are American English speakers (not to meantion that vast majority of foreign learners of English, who learn American English), the vowel sound of third is nothing like schwa. Also, there is no schwa in cycle. The 'le' represent a syllabic 'l'. The details of all the non-schwa unstressed vowels are on unstressed vowel.
- Now I'm learning stuff. I'll be very interested to see your changes. I've listened to the sound sample for the open-mid central unrounded vowel and it's definitely not how I'd pronounce "third". (I'm from Toronto, I speak like newscaster Peter Jennings.) Having lived the last 5 years in Europe (Italy & Sweden) I'm starting to internationalize my accent a bit and dropping what remains of my Canadian bias, but I'm sure I can be confused, too. But I thought that the schwa was closer to a mid than a back vowel, and Webster notwithstanding, I can't believe ' at all. I'd be more likely to agree with one of the other mid-central vowels such as /3/ as an approximation.
- Well, it's complicated. The sound as pronounced in English is rather more central than the IPA vowel chart would have you believe. But it's still traditional to use that symbol for the vowel in cut and run, even though that the particular vowel sound is really only a touch more open than schwa. The reason M-W uses the same symbol is because they are in complementary distribution— and schwa never occur in the same environment because schwa only occurs in syllables without stress and only occurs in syllables with stress. I don't actually agree with M-W—I think schwa and are not merely allophones that occur in stressed and stressless syllables but separate phonemes. But there is some validity to the argument because the sounds are very close, at least in American English.
- On the other hand, I don't think /3/ makes for a good approximation because only about 25% of English speakers have that sound. It's likely to be confusing to the other 75% of speakers who pronounce third with a rhoticized /3/ which sounds nothing like schwa. Nohat 20:23, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)
- actually more like 70/30, but let's let that go. I've listened to the American samples at [2] (http://www.antimoon.com/how/pronunc-soundsipa.htm) and you're right that the schwa there does sound like a schwa. Could we agree for the sake of the 70 that the 'e' in "cinema" is a good example and use that? The last 'a' in 'cinema' and first 'a' in about are not such good examples because people are likely to pronounce words slowly when trying to hear for themselves how they sound, and in that case will likely pronounce both those 'a's more like and less like schwa. I'd also be happier if we used a transatlantic solution with an RP and an American example.
- No, it really is 75%/25% because Canadian English (4.9%) is also rhotic. I think that your preference for 'e' in "cinema" over the 'a' in "about" for the example might be misleading. For those dialects that distinguish schwa and barred i, the 'e' in cinema would be barred i, not schwa. Maybe that's why you think they would be pronounced differently when pronounced slowly? For those dialects that don't make the distinction, they would both be pronounced the same—as schwa. Nohat 21:53, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)
- See below, this is getting too nested --steve
- The o in harmony is a schwa.
- The u in medium is a schwa.
- The y in syringe is a schwa.
Steverapaport 02:48, 13 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Pronunciation of 'synonym'
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)