Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definition: Schwa |
SchwaNoun1. A neutral middle vowel; occurs in unstressed syllables. Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
Date "schwa" was first used: 1582. (references) |
Synonym: SchwaSynonym: shwa (n). (additional references) |
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
It is a characteristic of English (and the English accent in other languages) that unaccented neutral vowel sounds, especially before 'r' or 'l', tend to become a schwa. A schwa sound can therefore be represented in English by any vowel. In most dialects, for example, the schwa sound is found in the following words:
For non-English speakers, it may be useful to know that the sound is very similar to a short French unaccented e, or a German ö (an o with umlaut). It is a central, half-open vowel, exactly in the middle of the International phonetic alphabet vowel chart.
Quite a few languages have a schwa sound. It is almost always unstressed. Bulgarian is a language that does allow stressed schwas.
Some browser fonts will show the schwa symbol here: ə. Others may show either a box, a question mark, or capital Y.
The word "schwa" (shəwa, later shəva) originally referred to one of the vowel points used with the Hebrew alphabet, which looks like a vertical pair of dots under a letter. This sign has two uses, one to indicate the schwa vowel-sound and one to indicate the complete absence of a vowel. In practice these two uses do not conflict.
Schwa is also the way Arabian rap group sensation "Group X" pronounce and spell the word "what" on their website. http://groupxarab.com The schwa symbol is used in Azeri as a letter, representing a front a vowel. But using ə, Azeri have problems with Turkish encoding. So, they used ä in their texts before Windows NT appeared.
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Schwa."
Crosswords: Schwa |
| English words defined with "schwa": murmur, murmur vowel. (references) |
| Non-English Usage: "Schwa" is also a word in the following language with the English translation in parentheses. German (schwa). |
| Domain | Title |
Books | |
Music |
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Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| "Schwa" is generally used as a noun (singular) -- approximately 100.00% of the time. "Schwa" is used about 10 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Noun (singular) | 100% | 10 | 111,207 |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Expression | Frequency per Day |
schwa | 52 |
arnold schwa | 9 |
charles schwa | 4 |
corporation schwa | 2 |
schwa symbol | 2 |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Language | Translations for "schwa"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | ||||||||||||||||
German | schwa. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||
Pig Latin | aschway нейтральный гласный. (various references) vokalmummel. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||
| Language | Period | Translations |
| Classical Hebrew | 200 BCE-Modern | shewa. (various references) |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
Derivations | |
Words beginning with "schwa": schwarmerei, schwarmereis, schwas. (additional references) | |
| |
"Schwa" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: hcha, sahiwal, sch, scha, Schaal, Schaar, Schak, schal, schap, schea, schla, Schlaf, schw, schwab, schwach, schwag, Schwak, Schwake, Schwan, Schwed, Schweiz, Schwob, Shewa, shwa, skaw, Tschaa, Zschau. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
Direct Anagrams: chaws. | |
| Words within the letters "a-c-h-s-w" | |
-1 letter: cash, caws, chaw, haws, shaw, wash. | |
-2 letters: ash, caw, has, haw, sac, saw, sha, was, wha. | |
-3 letters: ah, as, aw, ha, sh. | |
| Words containing the letters "a-c-h-s-w" | |
+1 letter: cahows, cashaw, cashew, cushaw, schwas, swatch, whacks. | |
+2 letters: carwash, cashaws, cashews, chawers, cumshaw, cushaws, hacksaw, kwachas, salchow, thwacks, watches, wauchts, whackos. | |
+3 letters: archways, backwash, chainsaw, cowhages, cowhands, crawfish, cumshaws, eschewal, hacksaws, kickshaw, rickshaw, salchows, sandwich, showcase, swatches, watchers, whackers. | |
+4 letters: bushwhack, carwashes, chainsaws, eschewals, hackworks, hatchways, kickshaws, rickshaws, scrimshaw, showcased, showcases, showplace, stopwatch, switchman, thwackers, wahcondas, washcloth, watchcase, watchdogs, watcheyes, watchouts, whackiest, wheyfaces, whimsical, whinchats, whitecaps, whitracks, woodchats. | |
+5 letters: backwashed, backwashes, buckwheats, bushwhacks, cartwheels, catchwords, chainsawed, chawbacons, chinawares, coachworks, crawfished, crawfishes, dogwatches, flowcharts, hawfinches, matchwoods, midwatches, outwatches, patchworks, sandwiched, sandwiches, scrimshaws, showcasing, showplaces, switchable, switchback, switchyard, throwbacks, washcloths, watchables, watchbands, watchcases, watchcries, watchwords, whalebacks, whitefaces, witchgrass, wristwatch. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
Hexadecimal (or equivalents, 770AD-1900s) (references)53 63 68 77 61 |
| Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519; backwards) (references)
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| American Sign Language (origins from 1620-1817 in Italy and, especially, France) (references)
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| Semaphore (1791, in France) (references)
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| Braille (1829, in France) (references)
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Morse Code (1836) (references)... -.-. .... .--. .- |
| Dancing Men (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, 1903) (references)
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Binary Code (1918-1938, probably earlier) (references)01010011 01100011 01101000 01110111 01100001 |
HTML Code (1990) (references)S c h w a |
ISO 10646 (1991-1993) (references)0053 0063 0068 0077 0061 |
| British Sign Language (Fingerspelling, BSL; 1992, British Deaf Association Dictionary of British Sign Language) (references)
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Encryption (beginner's substitution cypher): (references)5369748967 |
| 1. Definition 2. Synonyms 3. Crosswords 4. Usage: Commercial | 5. Usage Frequency 6. Expressions: Internet 7. Translations: Modern 8. Translations: Ancient | 9. Derivations 10. Anagrams 11. Orthography 12. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
