Catalan shares many similarities with Spanish. However, the vowel system is not identical. Spanish has five vowels phonemes but Catalan has seven. As in Italian, Catalan has closed and open mid vowels represented by the orthographic e and o. In addition, Catalan has a schwa.
The schwa of Catalan is represented by the orthographic a or e. It is present in the words pare (father) and casa (house). However, the schwa is not restricted to word-final position. In Barcelona, the schwa occurs in every unstressed syllable, the first, second and fourth.
The schwa often occurs in unstressed syllables of Catalan. This is a vowel which does not occur in Spanish. Though the schwa is not a vowel phoneme of Catalan, it occurs in many words.
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