Ə: The Most Common Vowel in English

"Schwa" is the most common vowel in English. Every English speaker uses it, all the time, but most people have never heard of it. •

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REFERENCES:
Trask, R. (1997). A student's dictionary of language and linguistics. London : New York: Arnold ; Distributed by St. Martin's Press.
Lacabex, E., & Gallardo-del-Puerto, F. (2018). Explicit phonetic instruction vs. implicit attention to native exposure: phonological awareness of English schwa in CLIL, International Review of Applied Linguistics in Language Teaching (published online ahead of print).

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[TomScottGo]

I had to reshoot this entire video because I set the lighting up wrongly. When I made the /ɑ/ noise, the back of my throat was illuminated as brightly as my face. It was uncomfortable to watch.

[BadlyOrganisedGenius]

Imagine getting jumped by a gang of linguists and the leader says
"Reduce him to Schwa"

[RatelHBadger]

"I'll have a vowel please Rachel..."
"Schwa"
(Entire countdown audience dies of shock)

[yellobanana]

"Hey, what's a schwa?"
"Uhh..."
"Oh. Thanks!"

[lsswappedcessna]

mother: "does it feel good?"
baby, covered in peanut butter: *"ə"*

[besio]

teacher: "what are you thinking about?"
me: *ƏƏƏƏƏƏƏƏƏƏƏƏƏƏƏƏƏƏƏƏƏ*

[RifrafYT]

"This is interesting, and I don't know why." I feel like that's what I say to most of Tom's videos.

[arcanexd]

Me: Wait, it's all schwa?
Tom: **Pulls out gun** Always has been

[saltyralts]

This is why your kindergarten teacher telling you to "sound it out" is the worst possible advice. WENZDAY

[BlueLunarWater]

It's strange how fluent users of a language can use sounds in everyday conversation and not even realise it.

[TheGreatCalsby]

English language: what happened to the pronunciation?
Thanos: gone, reduced to schwa.

[PsychoSavager]

It's kind of ironic that Tom pronounces 'tongue' as 'tong', whereas the more common pronunciation is "tung", with a schwa sound.

[caseyglick]

The schwa is the vowel that's eating the entire English vowel range. More and more has been pulled in since the 1400s.

The schwa is also the key to the "English/American accent" in speaking other languages, I think. I listened to recordings of myself in Spanish and Japanese, and *every* vowel was colored by a schwa rather than going far enough. (it was really embarrassing)

[uncouthkoala]

"Where are the vowels?!"

"Gone, reduced to Schwa."

[blouiaie]

as a spelling bee kid, the schwa is the most common killer. the amount of times i’ve missed words because i didn’t know if i had to use an “a” or an “e” is countless.

[ArsenicApplejuice]

Schwa really makes the existence of writing systems that have generic vowel symbols or omit them entirely seem more reasonable to me

[beargreen]

Yes I remember Schwa it's one of the oldest symbols that even existed before IPA and even used in old English Dictionaries. At one time, people thought about adding it as a letter.

[jackdog]

Me: “I’ve never seen this vowel in my life”

Tom: “brə”

[triggethridge]

tom from previous video: "you need anything from the store?"
tom in this video: "uhmuhnuhguhtuhthuhstuh"

[gurrrn]

Depending on your accent, the word “and” sounds like /æɨənd/. One of the rare triphthongs in the English læɨənguage.