[ə]→[a]Certainty: 4/5Commonality: 3/5

Mid central vowel to Open front unrounded vowel

The shift from [ə] to [a] is a form of fortition or vowel restoration. It occurs when an inherent or reduced neutral vowel is strengthened, often due to changes in stress or analogy with more open sounds.

Phonetic Effects

Fortition, Lowering

Language Examples

Indonesian/Malay Austronesian

datang [ə]→datang [a] / dateng [e]— Dialectal variation recovering the final reduced vowel.

Sanskrit to Hindi Indo-Aryan

inherent [ə]→[a] / [ɐ]— The ancient neutral vowel shifted to a more open quality in many modern descendants.

Related Transformations

Inverse: Reduction

More Indo-Aryan Shifts

[ai] → [e] — Monophthongization [ɡʲ] → [tɕ] — Palatalization [j] → [dʒ] — Fortition [j] → [dʑ] — Fortition [j] → [z] — Fortition

Sources & References

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