Worth Repeating: 9 Fun Facts About the Schwa

21st May, 2014

23 May 2014, Newsletter, SLP

Thank You to Ann Kulichik of the SLPeeps FB Group for posting this article!
[Source: Mental Floss.com]
schwa
We all know that English spelling is rarely a good guide to pronunciation. One big reason for this is the prevalence of schwa in the spoken language. That’s why dictionaries and other written guides to pronunciation make use of a special symbol to represent the schwa sound. It looks like this: ǝ—an upside down e. But what is schwa anyway? Here are nine things to help you get to know this very important vowel.

1. ANY WRITTEN VOWEL CAN BE A SPOKEN SCHWA.

A schwa is the ‘uh’ sound found in an unstressed syllable. For example, the first syllable in amazing (ǝ-MA-zing), the first syllable in tenacious (tǝ-NA-cious), the second syllable in replicate (RE-plǝ-cate), the second syllable in percolate (PER-cǝ-late), the first syllable in supply (sǝ –PLY), the first syllable in syringe (sǝ-RINGE). That’s a written A, E, I, O, U and even a Y coming out as schwa in the spoken version.

Read the Rest of this Article on Mental Floss

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