The
schwa deletion or
schwa syncope phenomenon occurs in
Hindustani (Hindi-Urdu),
Bengali,
Marathi,
Nepali,
Kashmiri,
Punjabi,
Gujarati,
Maithili and several other
Indo-Aryan languages, where
schwas implicit in the written scripts of those languages are obligatorily deleted in pronunciation. Schwa syncope is important in these languages for intelligibility and unaccented speech. It also presents a challenge to non-native speakers and
speech synthesis software because the scripts, including
Devanagari, do not provide indicators of where schwas should be dropped.