Transliterating the Schwa Phoneme

[u/Zinaima]

In my language the schwa phoneme is a separate sound (and letter in the neograph), but I really struggle with how to transliterate it in a way that is easy to read.

My other vowels:
/i/ - transliterated as "i"

/u/ - transliterated as "u"

/o/ - transliterated as "ò"

/eɪ/ - transliterated as "è"

/ɔ/ - transliterated as o, unless it precedes an r, then it's "ar"

Here are my unsatisfactory transliteration rules for /ə/:

- if the syllable does not have a coda consonant, then it's "a"

- if the vowel precedes an r, then it's "er"

- otherwise it's "uh", but I don't like this

So, if you use the schwa as a dedicated (?), intentional phoneme, not simply an unstressed vowel, how do you transliterate in your language?

(I understand that many unstressed vowels will shift to a schwa sound over time.)

[u/Jonlang_]

Welsh uses <y> to write its phonemic schwa.

[u/Sofia_trans_girl]

In your case, since you have <o>, <ò> and <è> but no <e>, that would seem the most elegant choice.

[u/MikeMilburysShoe]

In the natlangs I know of it’s usually just <e>.

[u/AnaverageItalian → u/MikeMilburysShoe]

in albanian it's ë

[u/eyewave]

ă supremacy (shamelessly stolen from romanian)

[u/Live_Put1219]

french uses e, english uses like everything, mandarin uses e for /ɵ/, close enough to schwa, indonesian uses e, russian uses y (ы) for /ɨ/ which is close enough

[u/sparktrfy]

i don't have any languages with phonemic schwa, so no grapheme. the closest would be /ɘ/ in bặlfó which i transliterate <ă> (with additional tone marker).

[u/SavingsOdd2766]

You can use y, ä, ë, ə, e sometimes, etc..

NOTE: Əə ≠ /ə/

[u/thatguythoma]

‘ë’ works really well, so do ‘ǝ’ and ‘ė’.

[u/Pezychips]

My two languages with phonemic schwa use ă and e respectively

[u/horsethorn]

Iraliran doesn't have a q (always kw), so I use that when I'm writing a schwa.

[u/Thalarides]

In my old sketch of Azevzhì, a language distantly related to Elranonian, /ə/ is represented by 〈ë〉 when stressed and 〈ÿ〉 when unstressed. The different letters reflect the phonetics. Stressed /ə/ is lowered and fronted towards [a~æ], while unstressed /ə/ is raised to [ɘ] and for some speakers also fronted to [ɪ], merging with unstressed /i/ (represented by 〈y〉).

stem	nom.sg. {-∅}	nom.pl. {-r}
(1) {dʒ-ˊ} ‘man’	dëzh /də́ʒ/	dzhër /dʒə́r/
(2) {ɑlh-ˊ} ‘god’	alëh /ɑlə́h/	alʼhër /ɑlhə́r/
(3) {θiw-ˊ} ‘horse‘	thyw /θíw/	thywër /θiwə́r/
(4) {ɔ́kθ-} ‘knowledge, experience’	okÿth /ɔ́kəθ/	okthÿr /ɔ́kθər/
(5) {θíw-} ‘language’	thŷw /θíw/	thywÿr /θíwər/

In (1–3) stress is tied to the last syllable, in (4–5) to the stem vowel. Schwa emerges to break up final clusters. ‘Horse’ & ‘language’ are homophonous in nom.sg., the circumflex accent in thŷw serves only to disambiguate the two words.

[u/AnlashokNa65]

My only language with phonemic /ə/ uses <a> since /ə/ is the closest to an a-like vowel in the inventory (the other vowels are /u i/). There is a fourth vowel <ä> that is /a~æ~ə/ depending on the dialect.

[u/Atom_Tester]

Ageutan either uses unstressed a or e or the letter è like in la sistèma, mè, tè, sè, tchè, and chè

[u/Awkward-Stam_Rin54]

I use ù. Not much reason other than the fact it's on my french laptop keyboard, all the other diacritic vowels on the keyboard have already been used up (except à).

[u/Jesanime]

Mbox Ail uses ę

[u/creepmachine]

Kýrrits uses <i> for /ə/, which doesn't really help you since <i> is spoken for. If it had phonemic /i/ I might be tempted to use <ı> for /ə/. Don't know why, it just makes sense to me.

[u/Blue22111]

I’m always fond of using <ă> (as Romanian marks schwa) or <ë> (as Albanian marks schwa) personally, if it’s a sound that can be anywhere. I generally use <ă> more often though.

Obviously that depends on what aesthetic you want though. What does your language look like when written out? That may help us recommend a representation that better fits the overall look of your language better than solely showing how you transcribe your other vowels.

Purely based on what you’ve already detailed, you seemingly don’t have /a/ or anything else similar, so I’d say to just use <a> to represent /ə/ and just have /ɔr/ written as <or> instead of <ar>

One comment on the other vowels as well. I’d suggest just having <e> = /eɪ/ instead of using a diacritic for it, then either have <e> with some diacritic represent /ə/ instead of the other way around like you have it or just go for the <a> = /ə/ suggestion from before and never have <e> be /ə/

[u/Maleficent-Pie8040]

⟨ë⟩ or just ⟨ə⟩

[u/StarfighterCHAD]

It seems like <e> could handle /ə/ as you list <è> as the only e. Both /ə/ and /eɪ/ could be either <e> or <è> depending on your preference.

[u/al_x22]

Just write V for all vowels and let the reader imphere which vowel that is from context

[u/SuitableDragonfly]

I just transliterate it as <a> in all contexts, with /a/ being <ä>.

In Hebrew, schwa is usually either <e> or <'>, you could do one of those. 

[u/Curious-Painter-194]

I haven't seen anyone mention Cherokee's use of <v> It's one of my favorites fs

Although, in my conlangs I tend to go with various diacritics over <a, e, o>. Usually, it's <é> because it looks like the ipa symbol and it's the first symbol I ever used so it stuck. But closest sound-wise for me is my pronunciation of /a/ which begats <á> or <à> depending on how lazy of a typer I wanna be. (my keyboard defaults to à, and i have to swipe over to write á)

If accented vowels are already plentiful, I might go for the diagraph <eo> or the <œ> symbol.

[u/suxtula]

I use the good old double dotted ï