[ʔ]→[ə]Certainty: 4/5Commonality: 4/5

Vocalization Lenition Schwa Primum Indo-European Semitic

Glottal stop to Mid central vowel

The vocalization of a glottal stop into a neutral schwa [ə] represents a form of lenition where the consonantal closure is lost, leaving behind a default mid-central vowel.

Phonetic Effects

Vocalization, Lenition, Schwa Primum

Language Examples

Proto-Indo-European Indo-European

*h₁ (between consonants)→[ə]— Vocalization of the neutral laryngeal into the 'schwa primum'.

Hebrew Semitic

[ʔ]→[ə]— Weakening of Aleph often results in a reduced 'shva' vowel or helper vowel.

Related Transformations

Reverse Elision

More Semitic Shifts

[ã] → [õ] — Raising [a] → [∅] — Elision [ʕ] → [a] — Vocalization [ʕ] → [ʔ] — De-pharyngealization [b] → [v] — Spirantization

Sources & References

Spotted a mistake or have a better example?

EchoDrift is community-driven. You can suggest a change directly through GitHub.

Propose an Edit on GitHub