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Mid central vowel#Mid-central unrounded vowel
Template:Infobox IPA/format numbers
IPA number	322
Encoding
Entity (decimal)	Template:Infobox IPA/format numbers
Unicode (hex)	Template:Infobox IPA/format numbers
X-SAMPA	@
Kirshenbaum	@
Braille	25px
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IPA vowel chart
Front Near-​front Central Near-​back Back Close 320px •iy •ɨʉ •ɯu •ɪʏ •ɪ̈ʊ̈ ʊ •eø •ɘɵ •ɤo •e̞ø̞ •əɵ̞ •ɤ̞o̞ •ɛœ •ɜɞ •ʌɔ •æ ɐ •aɶ •äɒ̈ •ɑɒ Near-close Close-mid Mid Open-mid Near-open Open
Paired vowels are: unrounded • rounded
This table contains phonetic symbols, which may not display correctly in some browsers. [Help]
[[help:IPA#REDIRECTmw:Help:Magic words#Other This page is a soft redirect.IPA help]] • [[Help:IPA for English#REDIRECTmw:Help:Magic words#Other This page is a soft redirect.IPA key]] • [[:file:IPA vowel chart 2005.png#REDIRECTmw:Help:Magic words#Other This page is a soft redirect.chart]] • 11px [[IPA vowel chart with audio#REDIRECTmw:Help:Magic words#Other This page is a soft redirect.chart with audio]] • [[Template:IPA chart/table vowels#REDIRECTmw:Help:Magic words#Other This page is a soft redirect.view]]

The mid central vowel (also known as schwa) is a type of vowel sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ə, a rotated lowercase letter e. The same symbol may be used for both the unrounded and the rounded forms of the mid central vowel, although there exist certain other notations that may be used to represent either variant specifically.

Mid central unrounded vowel

The mid central unrounded vowel is frequently written with the symbol [ə]. However, this symbol may not specifically represent an unrounded vowel, and it is frequently used for almost any unstressed obscure vowel. If precision is desired, the symbol for the close-mid central unrounded vowel may be used with a lowering diacritic, [ɘ̞]. Another possibility is using the symbol for the open-mid central unrounded vowel with a raising diacritic, [ɜ̝].

Features

• Its vowel height is mid, which means the tongue is positioned halfway between a close vowel and an open vowel.
• Its vowel backness is central, which means the tongue is positioned halfway between a front vowel and a back vowel.
• It is unrounded, which means that the lips are not rounded.

Occurrence

Language		Word	IPA	Meaning	Notes
Adyghe		зы	About this sound [zəː]	'one'
Albanian		është	[ˈəʃtə]	'is'
Armenian		ընկեր	[əŋˈkɛɹ]	'friend'
Assyrian Neo-Aramaic		sətwa	[sətwɐ]	'winter'	Most speakers. Usually raised to [ɪ] in some Tyari dialects.
Catalan	Eastern Catalan	amb	[əm(b)]	'with'	See Catalan phonology
Dutch		beter	[ˈbeːtər]	'better'	See Dutch phonology
English	Most dialects	Tina	[ˈtʰiːnə]	'Tina'	Reduced vowel. See English phonology
	Cultivated Australian	bird	[bəːd]	'bird'	Higher for other speakers.
	Cultivated New Zealand				Rounded for other speakers.
	Cultivated South African				May be transcribed /ɜː/. Other varieties use a higher, more front and rounded vowel [[[close-mid front rounded vowel#REDIRECTmw:Help:Magic words#Other This page is a soft redirect.øː]] ~ ø̈ː].
	Norfolk
	Received Pronunciation				Often transcribed /ɜː/. It is sulcalized, which means the tongue is grooved like in [ɹ]. 'Upper Crust RP' speakers pronounce a near-open vowel [ɐː], but for some other speakers it may actually be open-mid [ɜː]. This vowel corresponds to rhotacized [ɝ] in rhotic dialects.
	Indian	bust	[bəst]	'bust'	May be lower. Some Indian varieties merge /ʌ/ and /ə/ like Welsh English.
	Wales				May also be further back; it corresponds to [ʌ] in other dialects.
	Yorkshire				Middle class pronunciation. Other speakers use [ʊ]. Corresponds to [ʌ] in other dialects.
German	Chemnitz dialect	Wonne	[ˈʋɞ̝n̪ə]	'bliss'	See Chemnitz German phonology
	Standard	bitte	[ˈbɪtə]	'please'	Unstressed allophone of /ɛ/. See German phonology
Hindustani		दस/دَس	[ˈd̪əs]	'ten'	See Hindustani phonology
Kabardian		щы	About this sound [ɕəː]	'three'
Kashubian		jãzëk	[jãzək]	'language'
Luxembourgish		dënn	[dən]	'thin'	Often realized with slight lip rounding.
Malay		Melayu	[məlaju]	'Malay'
Marathi		अकरा	[əkˈra]	'eleven'	See Marathi phonology.
Macedonian		к’смет	[ˈkəs̪mɛt̪]	'luck' (archaic)	Not considered a vowel phoneme. See Macedonian phonology
Palauan		tilobęd	[tilobəd]	'came'
Pashto		غوښه	[ˈɣwəʂa]	'meat'	See Pashto dialects
Piedmontese		përché	[pər'ke]	'why/because'	May be realized as [a] or [ɑ] instead, depending on the variety.
Portuguese	European	pagar	[pɜ̝ˈɣaɾ]	'to pay'	Often corresponds to a near-open vowel [ɐ] in Brazilian Portuguese. Across dialects, among most Brazilian speakers, may be further lowered to an open vowel in certain positions. See Portuguese phonology
	Some speakers	conviver	[kũviˈveə̯ɾ]	'to coexist'	Primarily in Portugal, but also stereotyped as a characteristic of the dialect of Rio de Janeiro (where [ə] for /ɐ/ is also dominant). See Portuguese phonology
Punjabi		ਅਮਨ	[əmən]	'peace'
Romanian		măr	[mər]	'apple'	See Romanian phonology
Russian		это	About this sound [ˈɛt̪ə]	'this'	See Russian phonology
Swedish		begå	[bəˈɡoː]	'to commit'	Unstressed allophone of /ɛ/, see Swedish phonology
Welsh		Cymru	About this sound [ˈkəmrɨ]	'Wales'	See Welsh phonology
West Frisian		gewoan	[ɡəˈʋoə̯n]	'normal'

Mid central rounded vowel

Mid central rounded vowel
ɵ̞
ə̹
ɞ̝
Encoding
Entity (decimal)	Template:Infobox IPA/format numbers
Unicode (hex)	Template:Infobox IPA/format numbers
Template:Infobox IPA/format numbers

Languages may have a mid central rounded vowel (a rounded [ə]), distinct from both the close-mid and open-mid vowels. However, since no language is known to distinguish all three, there is no separate IPA symbol for the mid vowel, and the symbol [ɵ] for the close-mid central rounded vowel is generally used instead. If precision is desired, the lowering diacritic can be used: [ɵ̞]. This vowel can also be represented by adding the more rounded diacritic to the schwa symbol, or by combining the raising diacritic with the open-mid central rounded vowel symbol, although it is rare to use such symbols.

Features

• Its vowel height is mid, which means the tongue is positioned halfway between a close vowel and an open vowel.
• Its vowel backness is central, which means the tongue is positioned halfway between a front vowel and a back vowel.
• It's rounded, which means that the lips are rounded rather than spread or relaxed.

Occurrence

Language		Word	IPA	Meaning	Notes
Dutch	Standard Belgian	neus	About this sound [nɵ̞ːs]	'nose'	Usually transcribed /øː/; in the Netherlands it's often a diphthong [ɵʉ]. See Dutch phonology
	Southern	hut	[ɦɵ̞t]	'hut'	Corresponds to [ɵ] in standard Netherlandic Dutch and [ʊ̈] in standard Belgian Dutch.
French		je	[ʒɵ̞]	'I'	This may be more front for a number of speakers. See French phonology
German	Chemnitz dialect	Wonne	[ˈʋɞ̝n̪ə]	'bliss'	See Chemnitz German phonology
Irish	Munster	scoil	[skө̠˕lʲ]	'school'	Somewhat retracted; allophone of /ɔ/ between a broad and a slender consonant. See Irish phonology
Limburgish	Weert dialect	[blɵ̞ts]		'bump'	Somewhat fronted.
Russian		тётя	[ˈtʲɵ̞tʲə]	'aunt'	Allophone of /o/ in the environment of palatalized consonants. See Russian phonology
Swedish	Central Standard	dum	[d̪ɵ̞mː]	'dumb'	Pronounced with compressed lips, more closely transcribed [ɵ̞ᵝ] or [ɘ̞ᵝ]. See Swedish phonology
West Frisian		skowe	[ˈskoːwə̹]	'to shove'

See also

• Schwa

Bibliography

• Barbosa, Plínio A.; Albano, Eleonora C. (2004), "Brazilian Portuguese", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 34 (2): 227–232, doi:10.1017/S0025100304001756 
• Collins, Beverley; Mees, Inger M. (2003), The Phonetics of English and Dutch, Fifth Revised Edition (PDF), ISBN 9004103406 
• Crosswhite, Katherine Margaret (2000), "Vowel Reduction in Russian: A Unified Account of Standard, Dialectal, and 'Dissimilative' Patterns" (PDF), University of Rochester Working Papers in the Language Sciences 1 (1): 107–172 
• Cruz-Ferreira, Madalena (1995), "European Portuguese", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 25 (2): 90–94, doi:10.1017/S0025100300005223 
• Engstrand, Olle (1999), "Swedish", Handbook of the International Phonetic Association: A Guide to the usage of the International Phonetic Alphabet., Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 140, ISBN 0-521-63751-1 
• Fougeron, Cecile; Smith, Caroline L (1993), "French", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 23 (2): 73–76, doi:10.1017/S0025100300004874 
• Gilles, Peter; Trouvain, Jürgen (2013), "Luxembourgish" (PDF), Journal of the International Phonetic Association 43 (1): 67–74, doi:10.1017/S0025100312000278 
• Heijmans, Linda; Gussenhoven, Carlos (1998), "The Dutch dialect of Weert" (PDF), Journal of the International Phonetic Association 28: 107–112, doi:10.1017/S0025100300006307 
• Jones, Daniel; Ward, Dennis (1969), The Phonetics of Russian, Cambridge University Press 
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• Lodge, Ken (2009), A Critical Introduction to Phonetics, ISBN 978-0-8264-8873-2 
• Mangold, Max (2005), Das Aussprachewörterbuch, Duden, ISBN 9783411040667 
• Ó Sé, Diarmuid (2000), Gaeilge Chorca Dhuibhne (in Gaeilge), Dublin: Institiúid Teangeolaíochta Éireann, ISBN 0-946452-97-0 
• Roach, Peter (2004), "British English: Received Pronunciation", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 34 (2): 239–245, doi:10.1017/S0025100304001768 
• Sailaja, Pingali (2009), Indian English, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press Ltd, pp. 17–38, ISBN 978 0 7486 2594 9 
• Stoddart, Jana; Upton, Clive; Widdowson, J.D.A. (1999), "Sheffield dialect in the 1990s: revisiting the concept of NORMs", Urban Voices, London: Arnold, pp. 72–89 
• Verhoeven, Jo (2005), "Belgian Standard Dutch", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 35 (2): 245, doi:10.1017/S0025100305002173 
• Wells, J.C. (1982), Accents of English, 2: The British Isles, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 

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