Ə

ʃwâ (uppercase: Ə, lowercase: ə) is the twenty-fourth letter in Orish. Its sound is /ə/, mid central vowel (schwa).

Pronunciation
To pronounce the sound of the letter Ə, open your mouth and drop your jaw into a neutral position, and relax your tongue and your lips.

Role
Unlike most letters in Orish, Ə has a special role, to make the pronunciation easier, and comes when pronouncing a word without it is difficult.

Breaking Difficult Consonant Clusters to Pronounce
Pronouncing 2 consonants that are way too similar to each other in a row can really be difficult. To solve this problem, Orish breaks them with by inserting Ə between them These types of consonant clusters are likely to be difficult to pronounce:
 * Two identical consonants (for example, /tt/).
 * Two consonants that differ only in their phonation (for example, /td/).
 * Plosive and fricative with the same (or a too close) place of articulation that are not an affricate (for example, /tz/, /tʒ/) (only if the plosive is the first one and the fricative is the second one).
 * Two nasal consonants (for example, /mn/).

Preventing Consonants from Being Syllabic without Vowels
Some consonants tend to be syllabic when the is no vowel before or after them, but in Orish consonants can't be syllabic and all syllables must have a vowel. If the syllabic consonant comes before the primary stress the Ə will come after it, and if the syllabic consonant comes after the primary stress the Ə will come before it. The consonants M, N, L and R are likely to be syllabic when there is no vowel before or after them. Another consonant that is difficult to pronounce without vowels is H, and it has the same rule of adding Ə before or after it as other consonants that tend to be syllabic. However, semivowels without "true" vowels before or after them will be replaced by their syllabic counterpart (Y will be replaced with I and W will be replaced with U).

Keeping Voiced Obstruent Consonants Voiced
Voiced obstruent consonants can be difficult to pronounce when there is no voiced sound before or after them, and they are likely to be devoiced in this position. But in Orish, voiced obstruent consonants must never be devoiced. To solve this problem, Orish inserts Ə before or after the voiced obstruent so that it will be easier to keep it voiced in its pronunciation. The rules of adding Ə before or after voiced obstruents are identical to the rules of adding Ə before or after consonants that tend to be syllabic. The voiced obstruents in Orish are B, D, G, V, Z and Ʒ.