[h]→[ə]Certainty: 5/5Commonality: 4/5

Voiceless glottal fricative to Mid central vowel

The reduction of the glottal fricative [h] into a neutral schwa [ə] is a common form of lenition, particularly in unstressed syllables where the consonantal quality is lost to a default vowel resonance.

Phonetic Effects

Lenition, Vocalization, Reduction

Language Examples

English Germanic

her [hɜː]→[ə]— Reduction of the pronoun in unstressed, connected speech.

Proto-Indo-European Indo-European

*h₁→[ə]— Vocalization of a laryngeal consonant into a neutral vowel in zero-grade positions.

Related Transformations

Reverse Elision

More Germanic Shifts

[a] → [ã] — Assimilatory Nasalization [a] → [∅] — Elision [a] → [ʔ] — Glottalization [a] → [ə] — Vowel Reduction [æ] → [ɛ] — Vowel Raising

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