The schwa is the most common sound in many varieties of English, But not often found in other languages, or in some dialects or different accents. The Real reason for its existence, is to allow English to develop its noticeable stress pattern, with weak and strong syllables. Most words of two or more syllables will have a schwa in them somewhere. Think about the pronunciation of PHOtoGRAPH, phoTOGrapher, PHOtoGRAPHic and you can see where we stress the sound, and that immediately afterwards we lose the stress on the next syllable- that is the job of the schwa!
The schwa doesn't like the /r/ sound in Southern British Standard English. It will always find a way to reduce the vowel. Think about Car /Ka:/ . We don't really hear the ending. Now watch the following video.
The schwa doesn't like the /r/ sound in Southern British Standard English. It will always find a way to reduce the vowel. Think about Car /Ka:/ . We don't really hear the ending. Now watch the following video.
https://youtu.be/Nco2ifowuTk