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, Turkic, Mongolic, Uralic, Caucasian and Iranic-speaking c ...
, 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 Di ...
,
Itelmen,
Kalmyk,
Kazakh,
Kurdish,
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 people living mainly in northwestern Iran and the Republic of Azerbaijan. They are the second-most nume ...
,
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 ...
. 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 Turki ...
such as
Azeri
Azerbaijanis (; az, Azərbaycanlılar, ), Azeris ( az, Azərilər, ), or Azerbaijani Turks ( az, Azərbaycan Türkləri, ) are a Turkic people living mainly in northwestern Iran and the Republic of Azerbaijan. They are the second-most nume ...
,
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 languages, it represents the
near-open front unrounded vowel , like the pronunciation of in "cat". It is often transliterated as .
In
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 Di ...
, it represents the
close-mid back unrounded vowel .
In
Kurdish 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 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 into Latin as a high
ring .
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