Mbasa Vowels (HTML Reply; look out!)

<<Officially, the rhotic vowel [3'] is used in stressed syllables
like "bird", while the rhotic schwa [@'] is used in unstressed
like "player". In practice, I don't think most really dialects
distinguish them, at least phonemically.>>

     I can say that, officiously, no such vowel exists in my English, and,
since I've lived and studied all my life in California, this is probably why
I'd never seen this vowel until I saw British English transcribed.  In all my
Linguistics classes the "er" vowel was transcribed as rhotic schwa in all
stressed and unstressed positions, if not just written as syllabic [r].  The
only vowels I can have in front of [r] are [E], [o] and [A].

-David