schwa symbol

[agentnew]

How can I enter the schwa(upside down, lower case e)
symbol in MS Word?

thanks!

 

[Eric Lawrence [MSFT]]

Choose "Symbol" on the Insert menu inside Microsoft Word. Scroll down to
the correct character.

--
Thanks,

Eric Lawrence
Program Manager
Assistance and Worldwide Services

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

 

[SA]

In

How can I enter the schwa(upside down, lower case e)
symbol in MS Word?

thanks!

Hi. Try the character map that comes with your system. good luck.

 

[James Silverton]

Choose "Symbol" on the Insert menu inside Microsoft Word. Scroll down to
the correct character.

--
Thanks,

Eric Lawrence
Program Manager
Assistance and Worldwide Services

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

It might take a while to find unless you display symbols in Unicode (hex).
It is also, IMHO, in an unlikely place: the Cyrillic subset with hex code
04D9!

 

[Gary Smith]

It might take a while to find unless you display symbols in Unicode (hex).
It is also, IMHO, in an unlikely place: the Cyrillic subset with hex code
04D9!

That's a Cyrillic schwa. The original poster probably wanted a
Latin schwa. The lowercase Latin schwa is 0259; the uppercase
version is 018F.

 

[James Silverton]

That's a Cyrillic schwa. The original poster probably wanted a
Latin schwa. The lowercase Latin schwa is 0259; the uppercase
version is 018F.

You are correct but what difference does it make? I certainly can't see any
at normal sizes with Arial or Times New Roman. It's easier to find the
Cyrillic schwas because, unlike the Latin, upper and lower case appear
adjacent to each other as the hex codes indicate.

Jim.

 

[Gary Smith]

You are correct but what difference does it make? I certainly can't see any
at normal sizes with Arial or Times New Roman. It's easier to find the
Cyrillic schwas because, unlike the Latin, upper and lower case appear
adjacent to each other as the hex codes indicate.

If all you're interested in is the appearance of the printed page, it
probably makes no difference. However, if you're entering data that
someone may want to search, it's important to use the appropriate
character. The Latin capital A, Greek capital alpha, and Cyrilliccapital
A look pretty much the same in much fonts, but if you arbitrarily
substitute one for another, your data will be hash. You may also get some
surprises when you change fonts. Two characters that look identical in
one font may look quite different in another, and nt all fonts include all
characters.

 

[James Silverton]

probably makes no difference. However, if you're entering data that
someone may want to search, it's important to use the appropriate
character. The Latin capital A, Greek capital alpha, and Cyrilliccapital
A look pretty much the same in much fonts, but if you arbitrarily
substitute one for another, your data will be hash. You may also get some
surprises when you change fonts. Two characters that look identical in
one font may look quite different in another, and nt all fonts include all
characters.

Absolutely fascinating and true! I guess it's logical enough since the
characters are presumably stored as codes in the document. I'm no language
specialist but can you give an example using the English language where it
would be important to distinguish between the Latin and Cyrillic schwas?

It's certainly true that some caution is needed for arbitrary font changes.
I noticed recently that some characters which normally print as squares
become Arabic letters when switching from Arial to Courier New! I find it
difficult to see why all TrueType alphabetic fonts should not have same
equivalence of character and code.

 

[Gary Smith]

Absolutely fascinating and true! I guess it's logical enough since the
characters are presumably stored as codes in the document. I'm no language
specialist but can you give an example using the English language where it
would be important to distinguish between the Latin and Cyrillic schwas?

I'm not at all familiar with the routine use of schwas, Latin or Cyrillic,
but I suspect that someone who was recording pronunciations in an
English-language document would want to be careful to choose the correct
character so that subsequent searches of the document would retrieve all
relevant entries. Someone writing Cyrillic text would want to be careful
to use the Cyrillic schwa for the same reason.

It's certainly true that some caution is needed for arbitrary font changes.
I noticed recently that some characters which normally print as squares
become Arabic letters when switching from Arial to Courier New! I find it
difficult to see why all TrueType alphabetic fonts should not have same
equivalence of character and code.

TrueType fonts don't have to be Unicode-based, although most are. The
problem with alphabetic fonts like Arial and Courier New isn't that they
have differenct equivalences between code and glyph, but that they don't
all have the same set of glyphs. The open rectangle you sometimes see is
the fallback glyph used when a font doesn't have a glyph for a particular
character. The font could actually use anything at all for that glyph,
but the open rectangle has become customary.

 

[James Silverton]

I'm not at all familiar with the routine use of schwas, Latin or Cyrillic,
but I suspect that someone who was recording pronunciations in an
English-language document would want to be careful to choose the correct
character so that subsequent searches of the document would retrieve all
relevant entries. Someone writing Cyrillic text would want to be careful
to use the Cyrillic schwa for the same reason.

code.

This may well be true but I don't think it should be necessary for a general
purpose office program to cater to a particular highly technical academic
pursuit. After all, the supplied approaches to mathematical formulation are
pretty primitive. In any case, a schwa is an *International* Symbol
representing, for example, the e in "the" and I'll bet has same meaning in
Russian and English.

TrueType fonts don't have to be Unicode-based, although most are. The
problem with alphabetic fonts like Arial and Courier New isn't that they
have differenct equivalences between code and glyph, but that they don't
all have the same set of glyphs. The open rectangle you sometimes see is
the fallback glyph used when a font doesn't have a glyph for a particular
character. The font could actually use anything at all for that glyph,
but the open rectangle has become customary.

It's about time that TrueType fonts were systematized to avoid unnecessary
complications and I see no reason for continuing to accommodate those that
deviate from the general rule.

 

[Gary Smith]

This may well be true but I don't think it should be necessary for a general
purpose office program to cater to a particular highly technical academic
pursuit. After all, the supplied approaches to mathematical formulation are
pretty primitive. In any case, a schwa is an *International* Symbol
representing, for example, the e in "the" and I'll bet has same meaning in
Russian and English.

The Latin schwa is the IPA character used for phonetic transcriptions.
The Cyrillic schwa is a character names for its similar appearance which
is used in writing languages such as Abkhaz, Azerbaijani, Bashkir, Dungan,
Itelmen, Kalmyk, Karakalpak, Kazakh, Khanty, Tatar, and Turkmen. It most
likely represents somewhat different sounds in different contexts, just as
Latin "a" does.

Someone who uses either IPA or Cyrillic extensively will probably be using
an input method to ease entry of the appropriate characters. The
"catering" isn't in the office application, it's in the support
processes.

It's about time that TrueType fonts were systematized to avoid unnecessary
complications and I see no reason for continuing to accommodate those that
deviate from the general rule.

TrueType fonts, except for symbol fonts, *are* systematized. The problem
is that no one font can include all characters. Even Arial Unicode MS is
lacking, and it's 23 megabytes. The Code2000 font contains over
34,000 glyphs and is 30 megabytes in size. Font makers have had to choose
subsets of the defined characters, based on space constraints and
their perceived users' needs. TrueType technology is now outmoded, but
even OpenType is an incomplete solution.

 

[James Silverton]

The Latin schwa is the IPA character used for phonetic transcriptions.
The Cyrillic schwa is a character names for its similar appearance which
is used in writing languages such as Abkhaz, Azerbaijani, Bashkir, Dungan,
Itelmen, Kalmyk, Karakalpak, Kazakh, Khanty, Tatar, and Turkmen. It most
likely represents somewhat different sounds in different contexts, just as
Latin "a" does.

Wow! I'll bet that is not common knowledge!

Jim.

 

[Gary Smith]

Wow! I'll bet that is not common knowledge!

I believe that makes three who know it now: you, me, and the guy whose web
site I copied it from.