It is currently used in Abkhaz, Bashkir, Dungan, Itelmen, Kalmyk, Kazakh, Khanty, Kurdish, Uyghur and Tatar.

It was also used in Azeri, Karakalpak, and Turkmen before those languages switched to the Latin alphabet.

In Abkhaz, it is a modifier letter, which represents labialization of the preceding consonant /ʷ/.

Digraphs with ⟨ә⟩ are treated as letters and given separate positions in the Abkhaz alphabet.

In 2013, Khanty alphabets represents it as the reduced mid central vowel /ə/.