Long Schwa

[Sikta Das]

Hi,

Want to know if there's a long schwa sound in phonetics. I have an illusion that the long vowel sound in "bird" is also known as a long schwa sound. Is that correct? Anyone please look this up..
Thanks.

[Raymott]

Hi,

Want to know if there's a long schwa sound in phonetics. I have an illusion that the long vowel sound in "bird" is also known as a long schwa sound. Is that correct? Anyone please look this up..
Thanks.

The current IPA symbol for the sound in bird is a reversed epsilon: /bɜ:d/ or /bɜ:rd/.
A lengthened turned e, /ə:/, has been used for this sound in the past, and there have been disputes about the relative locations of /ɜ/ and /ə/ in the vowel chart.
Pullum and Ladusaw, Phonetic Symbol Guide, Chicago, 1996.

"Compression reduces two syllables to one, producing a long schwa which makes the word sound identical to myrrh [mɜː]."
John Wells's phonetic blog

So, the term long schwa refers to this sound, as you say, rather than to any symbolic representation of it.