Does pronouncing “medieval” as /mədˈiːvəl/, with the first "e" as a schwa, sound natural to native speakers?

Can't say for others, but I'd say having the first part sound like "mid" is more common

Might be regional but I say that as a native speaker (mid-atlantic US)

Personally, I say it all three ways. (Born in the southern US, living in New York, and consume a lot of UK history media) If I’m speaking quickly, it’s muh-deevil. If I’m speaking a bit more carefully, it’s mid-evil. If I’m actually thinking about it, I say it closer to the UK way - med-ee-evil.

I say /mɪdˈiː.vəl/ (US), but there are other pronunciations, of course. It wouldn’t be an issue for me unless that person told me I was pronouncing the word wrong and it should be pronounced MUD-EVIL or whatever.

It wouldn’t sound natural if by schwa you mean an imitation of a short U sound. Doesn’t mean we couldn’t figure it out by context but it would sound weird to me, no matter what part of the US country I’m in.

I'm convinced the top commenters have no idea how IPA works. The word "mud" is definitely not pronounced like /məd/.

No, it would sound like "mid" or maybe "med". Not "mud".

No

Native speaker here - sorry for the phonetic struggle on my part. Not certain what sound the schwa is supposed to represent exactly but I think this is correct. mehd-Evil (mehd is unstressed and I think this is the schwa) miD-Evil Both sound correct to me and I say them interchangeably.

It's probably more common to say "mid" or "med", but if I heard someone say "mud" I can't imagine that it would impede my understanding. Some native accents probably say it with the schwa sound anyway.

"mud"-"evil" is done, though it's not super common. People say it in the southern USA, particularly the more rural areas.

If you say it fast you might get away with it You're better off with "mid"

Those are merged for most Americans. That could have something to with it.

I still find US pronunciation of the word weird. There's another syllable there! In the UK, it's mainly "med-i-EE-vuhl".

Another thing that others habe not pointed out is the pronunciation for "-ieval". The first phonetic spelling on wiktionary: /ˌmɛd.iˈiː.vəl/ is how it should be pronounced in RP/British English- both i and e are pronounced separately making it 4 syllables.

Yep, sounds natural to me. I think this happens regularly in even slightly fast speech (NE American, at least) even if people think they’re saying [ɛ] or [ɪ]. I wouldn’t blink if I heard it even in regular-speed speech; my brain would probably interpret it immediately as the “correct” vowel! Lots of vowels like that get reduced without any fanfare, depending on the accent, but I couldn’t tell you the rule(s). (Note that [ə] ≠ [ʌ]. (at least in my experience; it’s a subtle difference, admittedly. but different people/accents have different schwas, so.) So the comparison to “mud” [mʌːd] in a couple other comments is not really relevant imo. If it really *did* sound like “mud-evil”, it wouldn’t sound natural.)

I say the first syllable just like M'Lady. M'Dieval

Usually mid evil Sometimes med evil

Mid is more common in the U.S. but my history professors said med very consistently. I've never heard anyone say mud.

No

yes this is the default that I would come up with, I had to read the comments to see how else it would be pronounced.

Yes.

So the American pronunciation derives from American English dropping the diphthong. Mediaeval is the English word, me-di-ae-val, whereas when without the diphthong this appears to be med-ie-val. Similar to how Americans pronounce Oedipus as Edipus, again due to dropping the diphthong and inadvertently altering pronunciation in the process.

Usually if there is an "e" between two consonants like that, I would pronounce it in as "э" [ɛ] (Cyrillic E).

From the UK, I’d say MEDevil, but I’ve also heard MIDeval

Not with a schwa, no. Where I live in England we’d pronounce it ‘med’, rhymes with ‘bed’

If the syllable is short, yes. But mid is more common in the us and med is more common in the uk. That said, mid often gets reduced to schwa in rapid speech if it’s unstressed.

most people pronounce the word medieval as "mid evil" or "med evil" generally speaking. no one will typically catch the differences between mid or med in normal conversation.

Med (rhymes with bed) i (pronounced like the letter "e") Evil

UK:**UK and possibly other pronunciations /ˌmɛdiˈiːvəl/ US:/ˌmidiˈivəl, ˌmɛdi-, ˌmɪdi-, mɪdˈivəl/ US:(mē′dē ē′vəl, med′ē-, mid′ē-, mid ē′vəl) No one with schwa [WordReference ](https://www.wordreference.com/es/translation.asp?tranword=medieval)

(UK accent) Me personally i would say it as med (rhymes with bed) - e (rhymes with key) - evil

It's not something that would stand out if I heard someone say it, but mid and med sound more correct

I’d know what you’re saying, but it would sound wrong. I’ve never heard it pronounced that way. A lot of Americans pronounce it as ‘mid-evil’. I’m American, but I pronounce it ‘med-ee-evuhl’, which is the British way I think.

/mədˈiːvəl/ exactly.

i say mid-evil

Pretty sure that’s how I pronounce it.

US - med-EE-vol

for speakers with the weak vowel merger (The Lenin Lennon merger if you will), that might be correct, as the phoneme is usually marked as schwa but in terms of actual realization I'm not sure if that's common. Personally I tend to say something more like [mɨɾˈijvəɫ] or [mɪɾijvəɫ]

What’s a schwa?

No because then it sounds like mud. I’d accept the short e or i sounds for the first syllable. Long E for second and long O or short u aka the schwa sound for the last.