Mid central vowel [ə]

The mid central vowel [ə], also known as the schwa is a vowel phone. It is a vowel sound located between a close-mid vowel and an open-mid vowel in the vowel space.

Features

The mid central vowel has the following features:

• Vowel height: It’s a mid vowel, which means the tongue is positioned between a close-mid vowel and an open-mid vowel.
• Vowel backness: A central vowel, which means the tongue is positioned in the center of the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant.

Occurrence

This commonly occurs in most English accents. It’s typically used for the 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘮ᴀ lexical set, and for the 𝘭𝘦𝘵𝘵ᴇʀ lexical set in non‑rhotic accents with the 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘮ᴀ–𝘭𝘦𝘵𝘵ᴇʀ merger.

Representation

In the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), the mid central vowel is represented by the symbol [ə], which is the schwa letter. Its IPA number is 322.