Schwa (Ә ә; italics: ''Ә ә'') is a letter of the

Cyrillic script The Cyrillic script ( ), Slavonic script or the Slavic script, is a writing system used for various languages across Eurasia. It is the designated national script in various Slavic languages, Slavic, Turkic languages, Turkic, Mongolic languages, ...

, derived from the Latin letter schwa. It is currently used in Abkhaz, Bashkir,

Dungan Dungan may refer to: * Donegan, an Irish surname, sometimes spelled Dungan * Dungan people, a group of Muslim people of Hui origin ** Dungan language ** Dungan, sometimes used to refer to Hui Chinese people generally * Dungan Mountains in Sibi Dist ...

Itelmen The Itelmens (Itelmen: Итәнмән, russian: Ительмены) are an indigenous ethnic group of the Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia. The Itelmen language is distantly related to Chukchi and Koryak, forming the Chukotko-Kamchatkan language ...

, Kalmyk, Kazakh,

Kurdish Kurdish may refer to: *Kurds or Kurdish people *Kurdish languages *Kurdish alphabets *Kurdistan, the land of the Kurdish people which includes: **Southern Kurdistan **Eastern Kurdistan **Northern Kurdistan **Western Kurdistan See also * Kurd (dis ...

, Uyghur and

Tatar The Tatars ()Tatar
in the Collins English Dictionary is an umbrella term for different

. It was also used in

Azeri Azerbaijanis (; az, Azərbaycanlılar, ), Azeris ( az, Azərilər, ), or Azerbaijani Turks ( az, Azərbaycan Türkləri, ) are a Turkic peoples, Turkic people living mainly in Azerbaijan (Iran), northwestern Iran and the Azerbaijan, Republi ...

, Karakalpak, and Turkmen before those languages switched to the

Latin alphabet The Latin alphabet or Roman alphabet is the collection of letters originally used by the ancient Romans to write the Latin language. Largely unaltered with the exception of extensions (such as diacritics), it used to write English and the o ...

. The Azeri and some other Latin-derived alphabets contain a letter of similar appearance ( Ə/ə).

Usage

In many

Turkic languages The Turkic languages are a language family of over 35 documented languages, spoken by the Turkic peoples of Eurasia from Eastern Europe and Southern Europe to Central Asia, East Asia, North Asia (Siberia), and Western Asia. The Turkic languag ...

such as

, Bashkir, Kazakh, Uyghur and

Tatar The Tatars ()Tatar
in the Collins English Dictionary is an umbrella term for different

, as well as the Kalmyk and

Khinalug Khinalug, Khynalyg, or Khinalyg ( az, Xınalıq; Khinalug: ''Kətş''; also rendered as Khanaluka, Khanalyk, Khinalykh, or Khynalyk), is an ancient Caucasian village going back to the Caucasian Albanian period. It is located high up in the mounta ...

languages, it represents the near-open front unrounded vowel , like the pronunciation of in "cat". It is often transliterated as . In

, it represents the

close-mid back unrounded vowel The close-mid back unrounded vowel, or high-mid back unrounded vowel, is a type of vowel sound, used in some spoken languages. Its symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet is , called "ram's horns." This symbol is distinct from the symbol f ...

. In

it represents the

schwa In linguistics, specifically phonetics and phonology, schwa (, rarely or ; sometimes spelled shwa) is a vowel sound denoted by the IPA symbol , placed in the central position of the vowel chart. In English and some other languages, it rep ...

or the sound . In Abkhaz, it is a modifier letter, which represents

labialization Labialization is a secondary articulatory feature of sounds in some languages. Labialized sounds involve the lips while the remainder of the oral cavity produces another sound. The term is normally restricted to consonants. When vowels involve ...

of the preceding consonant . Digraphs with are treated as letters and given separate positions in the

Abkhaz alphabet Abkhaz and Abkhazian may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Abkhazia, a de facto independent region with partial recognition as a sovereign state, otherwise recognized as part of Georgia * Abkhaz people or Abkhazians, persons from Abkh ...

. It is

transliterated Transliteration is a type of conversion of a text from one script to another that involves swapping letters (thus '' trans-'' + '' liter-'') in predictable ways, such as Greek → , Cyrillic → , Greek → the digraph , Armenian → or ...

into Latin as a high

ring Ring may refer to: * Ring (jewellery), a round band, usually made of metal, worn as ornamental jewelry * To make a sound with a bell, and the sound made by a bell :(hence) to initiate a telephone connection Arts, entertainment and media Film and ...

Related letters and other similar characters

*Ӛ ӛ: Cyrillic Schwa with diaeresis *Ä ä: Latin letter A with diaeresis *Ӓ ӓ: Cyrillic letter A with diaeresis *Æ æ: Ligature Æ, an Icelandic, Danish and Norwegian letter. *Ӕ ӕ: Cyrillic letter Æ *Ə ə: Latin schwa, used to transliterate Azerbaijani's Cyrillic schwa and 1927—1940 Turkmen's schwa. (Now ä for a schwa in Cyrillic)

Computing codes

References

{{Reflist Cyrillic letters Ә