Does schwa have one?
Sunday Essay
Thank you to subscriber , who writes Closing the Loop, for asking:
I came across "Schwa" here: https://xkcd.com/2907 and had to look it up (perche non parlo molto bene inglese). Could you please explain to me how "Schwa" could be the word for the sound of, "uh" (rhymes with "huh")? More to the point, who came up with *that*?
What a great question! So, what is schwa? Uh…
It is the invisible sound that appears in so many words in dozens of languages and has an odd name. I say invisible because it’s an unstressed syllable in English and a rather uninteresting sound, which brings to mind the unenviable filler that absolutely no one wants to use when speaking publicly, and fewer than no one wants to hear.
Imagine Ug, the first cave dweller, and the first prehistoric sound: “uh”
Think of the most neutral sound you can make with your face—with your mouth, tongue and lips just hanging around doing nothing at all, that’s it. Beige and uncommitted.
It has a funky symbol, too, which is the letter “e” rotated 180° like this “ə”
That’s my unofficial, simplistic, no-frills definition, so let’s take a more learned look at what it is, why it is called that, and why it matters.
What is it?
The Cambridge Dictionary defines schwa in English:
schwa
noun
US /ʃwɑː/ UK /ʃwɑː/
the weak vowel sound in some syllables that is not emphasized, such as the first syllable of "about" and the second syllable of "given," or the ə symbol that represents this sound
The schwa is the most common vowel sound in English. Here are a few examples in which the sound is replaced with the schwa symbol:
əbove - astrənaut - bogəs - pilət - səppose - photəgraph - cactəs - sofə
Why is it called that?
The symbol ⟨ə⟩ was used first by Johann Andreas Schmeller for the reduced vowel at the end of the German language term Gabe. Alexander John Ellis, in his Palaeotype alphabet, used it for the similar English sound in but /bʌt/1.
The Online Etymology Dictionary offers this insight:
natural vowel; a vowel sound often found in weak, unstressed syllables (represented by an inverted e)
1895 in philology, from German Schwa, ultimately from Hebrew shewa "a neutral vowel quality," literally "emptiness."
Why does it matter?
Rather gray, isn’t it? But without it, English and many other languages would suffer terribly, sounding like overstressed gibberish. Verbal goulash. Aural jambalaya.
Here is a schmattering of schwa-related impact globally
In German, schwa is represented by the letter ⟨e⟩ and occurs only in unstressed syllables, as in gegessene.2
Schwa is not native to Bavarian dialects of German, which are spoken in Southern Germany and Austria. Vowels that are realized as schwa in Standard German change to /-e/, /-ɐ/, or /-ɛ/.
In Norwegian, the schwa is often found in the last syllable of definite masculine nouns, as in mannen [ˈmɑ̀nːn̩, ˈmɑ̀nːən] ('the man'), as well as in infinitive verbs like bite [ˈbîːtə] ('bite').
Schwa is normally represented in Yiddish by the Hebrew letter ⟨ע⟩ (Ayin) and, as in German, occurs only in unstressed syllables, as in געפֿילטע פֿיש (gefilte fish) /ɡəˈfɪltə fɪʃ/ ('stuffed fish'). In certain pronunciations of words derived from Hebrew, which retain their original orthography but have undergone significant phonological change, schwa may be represented by another letter, as in רבי (rebe) /ˈrɛbə/ ('rabbi'), or by no letter at all, as in שבת (shabes) [ˈʃa.bəs] ('Shabbat').
In European and some African dialects of Portuguese, the schwa occurs in unstressed syllables that contain the letter ⟨a⟩, such as luva ('glove'), manhã ('morning'), cama ('bed') and casa ('house'). In Neapolitan, a final, unstressed ⟨a⟩, and unstressed ⟨e⟩ and ⟨o⟩ are pronounced as a schwa: pìzza ('pizza'), semmàna ('week'), purtuàllo ('orange').
The inherent vowel in the Devanagari script, an abugida that is used to write Hindi, Marathi, Nepali and Sanskrit, is a schwa written ⟨अ⟩ either in isolation or word-initially. In most Sanskrit-based languages, the schwa ⟨अ⟩ is the implied vowel after every consonant and so it has no diacritic marks. For example, in Hindi, the character ⟨ क ⟩ is pronounced /kə/ without marking, but ⟨ के ⟩ is pronounced /ke/ (like "kay") with a marking.3
Based on the previous examples in English, try saying these words without the schwa:
əbove - astrənaut - bogəs - pilət - sodə - photəgraph - cactəs - sofə
Without the humble schwa, we’d have a very strange collection of mostly or completely unrecognizable and unpronounceable words. Even when that is not the case, schwa-less versions are
downright dangerous with pilts flying planes
overly wet with too many bogs
devoid of ubiquitous fizzy beverages—only lots of landscaping grass and jerks
and not very comfy, with nowhere soft to sit.
My verdict? For a beige, invisible weirdo, the schwa is pretty badass!
So, based on the information in this post, what is the answer to the title question, “Does schwa have one?”
(i.e., does the word schwa contain a schwa sound?)
As always, thank you for stopping by the Verbihund Café for a cuppa and convo about all things prosaic and prodigious!
Ogilvie, Sarah. (2023, October 17). What is left unsaid: How some words do-or don’t-make it into print. Literary Hub. https://lithub.com/what-is-left-unsaid-how-some-words-do-or-dont-make-it-into-print/
Wiese, Richard. (1986). "Schwa and the structure of words in German". Linguistics. 24 (4): 697–724.
Bhatia, T. (1987), A history of the Hindi grammatical tradition: Hindi-Hindustani grammar, grammarians, history and problems, BRILL, ISBN 90-04-07924-6
I was in elementary school in the early 1960s. I think the Hooked on Phonics movement didn't start 'til the 1980s. All I could do was shake my head when it was being promoted as something brand-new and revolutionary.
This is so helpful. I read dictionaries as a child, and have a BA in English Lit. But I’ve always had trouble with sounds of letters; I could not truly learn to read from phonics. (I think it’s some weird neurodivergence thing.) So explaining schwa is so wonderful! Thank you! 🫶🏻