schwa

Each Play button uses your device's default local English voice, or a natural local fallback. The selected voice name appears after playback. This is synthesized speech, not a source recording.

• shwä
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• /ʃwɑ/
  Play
• US: Recorded audio is listed in the source snapshot.
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• humorous: /ʃwə/
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• humorous: /ʃwʌ/
  Play
• rhymes with -ɑː
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• rhymes with -ʌ
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• CMU ARPABET: SH W AA1 Digits mark lexical stress: 1 primary, 2 secondary, 0 unstressed.
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Borrowed from German Schwa, from Hebrew שווא / שְׁוָא (shva, šəwā, “(mark indicating reduction or absence of a vowel)”), borrowed from Classical Syriac ܫ̈ܘܰܝܳܐ (š'wayyā, literally “even, equal”), in Syriac a term for a sign consisting of two vertical dots used to separate parts of a sentence. Doublet of shva.

37 source translations are retained for this English entry.

• Arabic: شْوَا (šwā) — indeterminate central vowel
• Bulgarian: шва (šva) — indeterminate central vowel
• Catalan: vocal neutra — indeterminate central vowel
• Catalan: schwa — indeterminate central vowel
• Chinese Mandarin: 中央元音 (zhōngyāng yuányīn) — indeterminate central vowel
• Chinese Mandarin: 涮音 (shuànyīn) — indeterminate central vowel
• Czech: šva — indeterminate central vowel
• Dutch: sjwa — indeterminate central vowel
• Dutch: doffe e — indeterminate central vowel
• Esperanto: ŝvao — indeterminate central vowel
• Finnish: švaa — indeterminate central vowel
• French: e muet — indeterminate central vowel
• French: schwa — indeterminate central vowel
• German: Schwa — indeterminate central vowel
• Hebrew: שווא \ שְׁוָא (shva) — indeterminate central vowel
• Hindi: श्वा (śvā) — indeterminate central vowel
• Hungarian: svá — indeterminate central vowel
• Indonesian: pepet — indeterminate central vowel
• Italian: schwa — indeterminate central vowel
• Italian: scevà — indeterminate central vowel
• Japanese: シュワー (shuwā) — indeterminate central vowel
• Korean: 슈와 (syuwa) — indeterminate central vowel
• Persian: واکهٔ بیرنگ — indeterminate central vowel
• Persian: شوا (švâ) — indeterminate central vowel
• Polish: szwa — indeterminate central vowel
• Portuguese: schwa — indeterminate central vowel
• Portuguese: xevá — indeterminate central vowel
• Portuguese: xuá — indeterminate central vowel
• Portuguese: chevá — indeterminate central vowel
• Russian: шва (šva) — indeterminate central vowel
• Serbo-Croatian: poluglas — indeterminate central vowel
• Slovak: šva — indeterminate central vowel
• Slovene: polglasnik — indeterminate central vowel
• Spanish: schwa — indeterminate central vowel
• Swedish: schwa — indeterminate central vowel
• Ukrainian: шва (šva) — indeterminate central vowel
• Võro: svaa — indeterminate central vowel