Most of the
vowels in the
English alphabet appear commonly as
schwa sounds in English: the 'e' in
flipper, the 'u'
& 'a' in
umbrella, the 'i' in
plenitude, or the 'o' in
proliferate. The letter '
y', as we all learned, occasionally makes an appearance as a vowel. In some
languages, particularly written
Welsh, the
y represents a
schwa sound quite frequently, as in dyfed, myned,
& cyfoeth. But how about English? There are only a very few words that I can think of.
Cylindrical is one.
Syringe is another. The
British spelling of
Pyjamas. Beyond these few
words, this elusive
grammatical treat remains
shrouded in the
dark mists of the
dictionary.
Sources: Gareth Morgan, Reading Middle Welsh: A Course Book Based on the Welsh of the Mabinogi University of Texas at Austin. http://www.flash.net/~joanmorg/rmw/index.html
The Merriam-Webster On-line Dictionary. http://www.m-w.com
Gritchka adds Tyrannical as another possibility.