Ə: The Most Common Vowel in English
2,502,830
Published 2020-05-25
Written with Molly Ruhl and Gretchen McCulloch. Gretchen's podcast Lingthusiasm is at lingthusiasm.com/
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Graphics by William Marler: wmad.co.uk/
Audio mix by Graham Haerther: haerther.net/
REFERENCES:
Trask, R. (1997). A student's dictionary of language and linguistics. London : New York: Arnold ; Distributed by St. Martin's Press.
Lacabex, E., & Gallardo-del-Puerto, F. (2018). Explicit phonetic instruction vs. implicit attention to native exposure: phonological awareness of English schwa in CLIL, International Review of Applied Linguistics in Language Teaching (published online ahead of print).
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All Comments (21)
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I had to reshoot this entire video because I set the lighting up wrongly. When I made the /ɑ/ noise, the back of my throat was illuminated as brightly as my face. It was uncomfortable to watch.
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Imagine getting jumped by a gang of linguists and the leader says "Reduce him to Schwa"
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Teacher: What’s the most common vowel? Me: uhh Teacher: correct
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"Hey, what's a schwa?" "Uhh..." "Oh. Thanks!"
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mother: "does it feel good?" baby, covered in peanut butter: "ə"
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teacher: "what are you thinking about?" me: ƏƏƏƏƏƏƏƏƏƏƏƏƏƏƏƏƏƏƏƏƏ
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English language: what happened to the pronunciation? Thanos: gone, reduced to schwa.
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Me: Wait, it's all schwa? Tom: *Pulls out gun* Always has been
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This is why your kindergarten teacher telling you to "sound it out" is the worst possible advice. WENZDAY
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Me: “I’ve never seen this vowel in my life” Tom: “brə”
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"Where are the vowels?!" "Gone, reduced to Schwa."
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Schwa really makes the existence of writing systems that have generic vowel symbols or omit them entirely seem more reasonable to me
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It's kind of ironic that Tom pronounces 'tongue' as 'tong', whereas the more common pronunciation is "tung", with a schwa sound.
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English lessons: "I don't know" Real life: "ə ə ə"
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- Where're my vowels? - Gone, reduced to schwa.
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The schwa is the vowel that's eating the entire English vowel range. More and more has been pulled in since the 1400s. The schwa is also the key to the "English/American accent" in speaking other languages, I think. I listened to recordings of myself in Spanish and Japanese, and every vowel was colored by a schwa rather than going far enough. (it was really embarrassing)
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Yes I remember Schwa it's one of the oldest symbols that even existed before IPA and even used in old English Dictionaries. At one time, people thought about adding it as a letter.
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"I'll have a vowel please Rachel..." "Schwa" (Entire countdown audience dies of shock)
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I feel like ‘reduced to schwa’ has massive insult potential
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Depending on your accent, the word “and” sounds like /æɨənd/. One of the rare triphthongs in the English læɨənguage.
