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. • Written with Molly Ruhl and Gretchen McCulloch. Gretchen’s podcast Lingthusiasm is at Gretchen’s book BECAUSE INTERNET, all about the evolution of internet language, is available: 🇺🇸 US: 🇨🇦 CA: 🇬🇧 UK: (Those are affiliate links that give a commission to me or Gretchen, depending on country!) Graphics by William Marler: Audio mix by Graham Haerther: 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). I’m at on Twitter at on Facebook at and on Instagram as tomscottgo