This article contains phonetic transcriptions in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA. For the distinction between [ ], / / and ⟨⟩, see IPA § Brackets and transcription delimiters.
Shva or, in Biblical Hebrew, shĕwa (Hebrew: שְׁוָא) is a Hebrew niqqud vowel sign written as two vertical dots (ְ) beneath a letter. It indicates either the phoneme /ə/ (shva na', mobile shva) or the complete absence of a vowel (/Ø/) (shva naḥ, resting shva).
It is transliterated as ⟨e⟩, ⟨ĕ⟩, ⟨ə⟩, ⟨'⟩ (apostrophe), or nothing. Note that use of ⟨ə⟩ for shva is questionable: transliterating Modern Hebrew shva naḥ with ⟨ə⟩ is misleading, since it is never actually pronounced [ə] – the vowel [ə] does not exist in Modern Standard Hebrew. Moreover, the vowel [ə] is probably not characteristic of earlier pronunciations such as Tiberian vocalization.
A shva sign in combination with the vowel diacritics patáẖ, segól and kamáts katán produces a ẖatáf: a diacritic for a tnuʿá ẖatufá (a 'reduced vowel' – lit. 'abducted').
indicates either the phoneme /ə/ (shva na', mobile shva) or the complete absence of a vowel (/Ø/) (shva naḥ, resting shva). It is transliterated as ⟨e⟩,...
/e/ in some places where non-Oriental speakers do not have a vowel (the shva na). A limited number of Oriental speakers, for example elderly Yemenite...
silent: Shva was used both to indicate lack of a vowel (quiescent šwa, shva nah) and as another symbol to represent the phoneme /ă/ (mobile šwa, shva na)...
Hebrew keyboard All shvas in the words "קִמַּטְתְּ" and "הִתְמוֹטַטְתְּ", also those marked under the letter tet ("Hebrew: ט"), are shva naḥ. Gonen, Einat;...
vowel may be long, short, or ultrashort. The vowel "shva" may be sounded (shva na) or silent (shva nach). Consonants that have been used historically to...
corresponding to Tiberian dagesh and rafe, though not used identically. Shva quiescens (shva nah) is unmarked. The complex system may be subdivided into perfect...
reduced (or ħataf) niqqud exist for segol, patah, and kamatz which contain a shva next to it. The following table contains the pronunciation and transliteration...
enlightenment is also of the same species. Adi Shankara derives it from shva (tomorrow) and stha (that which remains). Ashva (horse) and stha (situated)...
Shva Salhoov (in Hebrew: שבא סלהוב; born in 1963) is an Israeli poet, essayist, writer and art critic. Salhoov was born in Kiryat Ekron in 1963, to Libyan...
conjunction is shva na (וְ־ [və]), but before the labial consonants bet (ב), waw (ו), mem (מ) and pe (פ), and before any letter with shva (except yodh)...
rafe, but utterly unrelated, is used to mark instances of "moving sheva" (Shva Na). The rafe is similar in function to the buailte (dot above, denoting...
schwa was introduced by German linguists in the 19th century from the Hebrew shva (שְׁוָא IPA: [ʃva], classical pronunciation: shəwāʼ [ʃəwɔː]), the name of...
Name Symbol Israeli Hebrew IPA Transliteration English example Shva [e̞] or ∅ apostrophe, e, or silent met or silent Reduced Segol [e̞] e met Reduced Patach...
the rationale for its usage is different: it replaces the shva on letters which require a shva according to the grammar, but where the traditional pronunciation...
(the dual quality of qameṣ (אָ) as /a/, /o/; the pronunciation of simple shva (אְ) as /ɛ̆/). The phonology of Tiberian Hebrew can be gleaned from the collation...
reduced (or ḥaṭaf) niqqud exist for pataḥ, qamatz, and segol which contain a shva next to it. In Yiddish orthography, a pataḥ (called pasekh in Yiddish) has...
in Ossetian and Abkhazian. It derives from the Greek letter Φ (phi). ჷ (shva "schwa"), also called yn, is used for the schwa sound in Svan and Mingrelian...
instead of צַּ, cf. note d. In Ezra 2:1. נְבוּכַדנֶאצַּר – without the shva quiescens. In Jeremiah 28:3, and Ester 2:6. "Akkad" here refers to Babylonia...
for details). In declension tzere sometimes changes to other vowels or to shva. The full rules for these changes were formulated the Academy of the Hebrew...
téjša instead of Sephardic sifré and tésha) the partial elimination of vocal Shva < ְ > (zmán instead of Sephardic zĕman) in popular speech, penultimate stress...
(see qere perpetuum). ĕ is hataf segol; ǝ is the pronounced form of plain shva. In the Dead Sea Scrolls and other Hebrew and Aramaic texts the Tetragrammaton...
vowel before a shva. Also, the shvá nang in the beginning of a word is normally pronounced as a short eh (Shemang, berít, berakháh). Shva nang is also normally...
with niqqud, The main exception is the i vowel in a syllable that ends with shva naḥ. For example the words סִדְרָה (series) and סִדְּרָה (she organized)...
using AltGr+4. (⇧ Shift+4 makes the dollar sign and AltGr+A is used to type shva.) On most Unix heritage systems, it can be entered by holding down Ctrl+Shift+u...