Schwa (letter)

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Ə, or ə, is an additional letter of the Latin alphabet. It is also called schwa, from another name for the mid central vowel, the sound represented by minuscule ə in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). It was invented by Johann Andreas Schmeller for the reduced vowel at the end of some German words and was first used in his 1820s works on the Bavarian dialects. The word, schwa, comes from the Hebrew Shva (via German), a Niqqud, which in most cases in Modern Hebrew denotes a de-emphasis of an accompanying vowel that would otherwise be pronounced strongly. Shva itself is silent and is not a mid central vowel, which does not exist in Modern Hebrew.

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