The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #117308   Message #2525832
Posted By: Q (Frank Staplin)
27-Dec-08 - 08:38 PM
Thread Name: BS: Phonetics Q: what's an upsidedown e ?
Subject: RE: BS: Phonetics Q: what's an upsidedown e ?
Schwa-sheva-shwa are all acceptable spellings.

It came from Hebrew through Greek, and was introduced in 1895.
In the OED (Oxford); that spelling wasn't added until the 1987 supplement. They used the Hebrew sheva and the main entry is still under sheva.
Also Shwa.