Phonological history of English high front vowels  From
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The high front vowels of English have undergone a variety of
changes over time, which may vary from dialect to dialect.
Weak-vowel merger[edit]  The weak-vowel merger is a phonemic
merger of /ə/ (schwa) with unstressed /ɪ/ (sometimes transcribed
as /ɨ/ or /ᵻ/) in certain dialects of English. As a result of
this merger the words abbot and rabbit rhyme; in accents without
the merger they are distinct. The merger is nearly complete in
the Southern Hemisphere accents and General American, and
complete in Hiberno-English.[1]  Even in accents that generally
maintain the distinction, it may still likely merge in other
circumstances:    • /ər/ and /ɨr/ have merged in virtually all
accents when they occur at the end of a word or before
consonants.[dubious ] These two sequences are otherwise less
likely to merge before vowels, but still more likely to merge
than /ə/ and /ɨ/ alone. In Received Pronuncia