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ә

cyrillic small letter schwa

Cyrillic Small Letter Schwa

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ә is a Cyrillic letter used as a vowel in Kazakh, Tatar, and Bashkir, usually for a sound near the “a” in “cat.” In Abkhaz it marks labialization. Azerbaijani uses Latin Ə in its current alphabet.

Text symbol

What ә means

It marks a language-specific sound or modifier. The name “schwa” does not tell you how to pronounce it in every language.

The familiar upside-down-e shape appears as a Latin phonetic sign in 1821. It later entered Turkic Latin alphabets, including Yañalif, before the form was used in Cyrillic.

The spelling changes answered different needs: Arabic-based Tatar writing left vowel qualities underspecified. Tatar shifted to Latin in 1927, then to Cyrillic in 1939/40; Azerbaijani returned to Latin in 1991.

Part of the collection

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Kazakhstan Emoji & Symbols
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Who writes ә

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What it means when someone sends it to you

2 readings

A vowel, usually /æ/, near the “a” in “cat.”

Don't confuse it with

1
ə
Latin Small Letter Schwa
For ә vs ə, note that Latin ə is a separate character. Use ә in Cyrillic text and ə in Latin or IPA text.

Alphabet

Kazakh alphabet42 letters

АаӘәБбВвГгҒғДдЕеЁёЖжЗзИиЙйКкҚқЛлМмНнҢңОоӨөПпРрСсТтУуҰұҮүФфХхҺһЦцЧчШшЩщЪъЫыІіЬьЭэЮюЯя

Questions people ask

1

Why does ә show as a box on some devices?

Because that device's fonts have no glyph for it. The character is still correct and still copies correctly — the box is a missing glyph, not a broken character.

How to type or find ә

Search it as
ә · ə · ä · schwa · Kazakh · Tatar · Bashkir · Azerbaijani
Shows up in
Anything that takes text · its shape is whatever your font draws
Windows (Word)
⎇Alt+XType 04D9, then AltX to get ә.
Windows
⊞Win+Rrun charmap for the full table, or use the emoji picker's Ω symbols tab (Win .).
macOS
⌃Control+⌘Command+␣SpaceOpen the character viewer and search “cyrillic small letter schwa”.
Linux
⎈Ctrl+⇧Shift+UType 04d9, then Enter or Space.
HTML
ә
CSS
\04D9
How to type ә
Choose a Kazakh, Bashkir, Tatar, or Azerbaijani Cyrillic keyboard layout; CLDR 43 lists these layouts.
Codes and encoding1 code points
HTML decimal
ә
HTML hex
ә
CSS content
content: "\04D9";
Each escape is closed by the next backslash; a trailing space is needed before a literal hex digit.
URL encoded
%D3%99
1
On screen
1
Code points
1
JS .length
2
UTF-8 bytes

A visible symbol can contain several code points. JS .length counts UTF-16 units; UTF-8 counts bytes.

Families this belongs to

2

European scripts1,468 symbols

ͰͱͲͳ͵ͶͷͺͻͼͽͿ

Cyrillic506 symbols

ЀЁЂЃЄЅІЇЈЉЊЋ