Talk:Standard German phonology/Archive 1

Phonology vs. Orthography

I'm wondering how the german ö can be the same as the french oeu. If I'm not mistaken the sounds are completely different between the 2 letter combinations.

They are as much the same as any two sounds of different languages can be said to be the same. Both French and German have two different pronunciations of that sound: [ø] (as in jeûne [ʒøn] "abstination" or Höhle ['hø:lə] "cave") and [œ] (as in jeune [ʒœn] "young" or Hölle ['hœlə] "hell").

I'm thinking that this might more properly go in the German language article under an 'Orthography' heading. What do you think? -- Djinn112 21:04, Feb 13, 2004 (UTC)

To Djinn112: I started this as a separate German_pronunciation article in the style of the Esperanto_pronunciation article. However, you have more Wikipedia exeprience than me, so if you think it should go as a subsection of German language, then you may go ahead and move it. -- Anon.

I made an orthography section in German language and put a link to here under it. I noticed that the grammar section in that article outsources like that, so I suppose this all is fine as is. -- Djinn112 01:01, Feb 14, 2004 (UTC)

Phonology vs. Orthography 2

It feels like it could turn into a Phonology of German article. It would need a fair amount of work of course. Secretlondon 22:24, Feb 13, 2004 (UTC)

As a native german speaker, I can tell you that a lot of this article is simply FALSE. For example, Bund and bunt are pronounced differently whereas the article tells that both are pronounced [t] at the end. Alas, I don't know SAMPA and so I can't correct the article... But there is really a lot of work to do. 195.14.206.167 13:36, 16 Jul 2004 (UTC)

The pronunciation described certainly is a rather odd one, to say the least. However, while that might not be true in your dialect, Bund and bunt are pronounced the same in Standard German. Prumpf 22:56, 20 Jul 2004 (UTC)

No, they aren´t. The "t" is spoken a little harder, than the "d". And you missed out some specialities like "Oer-Erkenschwick" (a City) the "e" of "Oer" ist quiet but the "O" is spoken longer. In many names for cities or places there is an "e" or "i" to show that the letter ahead of it is to be spoken longer. Kiss me, I´m German. 195.37.188.210 11:44, 10 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Please cite a source for the bund/bunt thing. I've never seen a description of Standard German that distinguishes final "voiced" plosives from their voiceless counterparts. I suppose we should add a note about proper names, but then those confuse even Germans.

Prumpf 17:47, 10 Aug 2004 (UTC)

"Bund" and "bunt" are pronounced the same in standard colloquial German, in spite of the fact that many native German speakers are misled by the spelling and by their schoolteachers to believe there is a difference. If asked to make it, they produce "Bund" with an unspirated final [t] and "bunt" with an aspirated final [t^h]. In ordinary speech when they're not thinking about it, though, people pronounce the two words the same. Certainly this page should not be concerned with the peculiarities of proper names. For example, is there any German word besides "(Bad) Oeynhausen" in which [ø:] is spelled "oey"? I don't think so. --Angr 07:09, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Interesting. I consistently distinguish Bund and bunt – lenis vs fortis (both voiceless, both unaspirated). But this only seems to happen after /n/. Rad and Rat are homophones for me (both end in a lenis).

David Marjanović | david.marjanovic_at_gmx.at | 17:30 CET | 2006/11/11

Erm, not quite. It happens after all consonants, including the [ɐ] allophone of /ʀ/ even when it fuses to a preceding /a(ː)/: kalt [kalt], zart [t͡saːt], hart [haːt]; a minimal pair is halt the imperative [halt] vs halt the not-quite-standard filling word [hald̥] (unquestionedly standard synonym: eben). David Marjanović 00:04, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

I would certainly prefer if this article didn't concern itself with orthography at all (as with all phonologies, to be honest). An article like this should concern itself mainly with the phonetis of German, allophones, phonotactics and such. Orthography should be explained in German language or maybe even in German orthography. Peter Isotalo 17:34, May 7, 2005 (UTC)

Agreed. But unfortunately, German orthography redirects to German pronunciation. Someone needs to start that as a new page. BTW, should it be called "orthography" or "spelling"? Parallel articles are English spelling and Dutch orthography. (The technical difference is: orthography = spelling + punctuation.) I suppose whoever makes the effort to start the article gets to decide. There is, of course, already an article on the German spelling reform of 1996. --Doric Loon 19:27, 7 May 2005 (UTC)

This seems to be the place to ask/request something: Can someone add something about the 19th-century (or whenever it was) spelling reform, the one that eliminated -th for -t in words like Thal? I came to this article trying to find out about the change from -th to -t, and whether there was any real-life pronunciation difference at the time, and whether such differences still exist in dialects of today, and such questions. These questions seem to me to straddle the boundaries between orthography/spelling and phonology, as well as including a bit of history. Where should one put such topics? I don't know the answer. Dveej 13:48, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

There was no sound change corresponding to that spelling change. I think these issues are discussed at German orthography. I do know that at least until the unification of the German Empire in 1871, and maybe for some years after it, the different German states had different standards, so while you might encounter späth and Thal in some places, you'd encounter spät and Tal in others. Angr (t • c) 14:04, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

There simply was no standard orthography of German before 1901 (!). Without exception, th in native words was purely cosmetic (maybe to make it look like Greek), and elsewhere it was purely etymologic (Greek again).

David Marjanović | david.marjanovic_at_gmx.at | 17:31 CET | 2006/11/11

Phonology & tables

This article could use a reorganization into tables, similarly to other articles in the Language phonology category, and maybe a moving to German Phonology.

Would anyone object to moving this article to German phonology? Peter Isotalo 17:20, May 7, 2005 (UTC)

It would certainly sound more serious and academic: "pronunciation" sounds like a section in a phrase-book for tourists. --Doric Loon 19:27, 7 May 2005 (UTC)

OK, I moved it as requested, hopefully there aren't any objections to it now after the fact. Everyking 10:52, 8 May 2005 (UTC)

As far as I can tell, there's been consensus for this kind of naming for some time now at Wikipedia:WikiProject Phonetics. And it is rather logical, when you think of it. Peter Isotalo 10:57, May 8, 2005 (UTC)

Colloquial German phonology

It might be useful to include a section on colloquial German (which obviously varies by region). Maybe info on various phonological processes that occur only colloquially. -- jonsafari 19 May 2005

ʔ

The minimal pair [ʔaɪs raɪs] is not very illustrative as long as it's not opposed to the corresponding pair of Southern varieties [aɪs raɪs]. J. 'mach' wust • tskʃpræːx 00:58, 20 May 2005 (UTC)

"Tau-chen" or "Täu-chen"?

The diminutive ending usually triggers umlaut. This should be mentioned. -- j. 'mach' wust ^{ˈtʰɔ̝ːk͡x} 14:09, 26 May 2005 (UTC)

Velar vs. uvular

It makes no sense to mention the uvular allophone of /x/ if the uvular allophones of /k/, /g/, /ŋ/ are not mentioned. -- j. 'mach' wust ^{ˈtʰɔ̝ːk͡x} 29 June 2005 22:23 (UTC)

Do you have uvular allophones of these in Switzerland? And are they considered standard? ~:-| David Marjanović 10:20, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Yes, Allemannic speakers have these allophones (and to a lesser extent also Tyrolian speakers). But I don't think they are considered standard, at least in Austria. Switzerland may be another case, though (and Vorarlberians would surly object, too). Qubux 00:42, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Varieties of Standard German

The main problem of this article is the problem of the varieties. Most of this article describes the standard pronunciation of Germany, vowels and consonants. But then other varieties are included. This is misleading. You would have to include the differences of the varieties in the entire article; vowels, consonants, ich-Laut and ach-Laut and so on. At least make clear every time, if only the German of Germany is tackled.

But then, there's another problem. Other varieties (Austrian, Swiss) are not codified nor widely accepted. I believe, this article should AT LEAST make clear, what the standard of German pronunciation in Germany is. It's the only widely accepted, well described and codified form of German standard pronunciation today. This is the point to start and this is what is most useful to students of the language.

There is no codified standard pronunciation, not even in Germany. The article describes the pronunciation shared by all varieties as well as important differences. If you think more differences should be included, go ahead and do so. From my Swiss point of view, I think the article is acceptable. -- j. 'mach' wust ^{ˈtʰɔ̝ːk͡x} 3 July 2005 22:51 (UTC)

One should make a clear distinction between codified standard(s) and spoken standard(s). Confusing students of the languages with the peculiarities of spoken standards of "northern varieties" and "southern varieties" doesn't seem to be right for me. There is a de facto codified standard pronunciation for the teaching of German as a foreign language in Germany. This should be the core of the article probably even from the Swiss point of view. BTW, I do not volunteer for the job.

So by codified you mean 'put on record' rather than 'officially sanctioned' or even 'prescriptive'. This article is not intended to be a teaching aid for German. If I remember correctly, there's a wikibook with that purpose. -- j. 'mach' wust ^{ˈtʰɔ̝ːk͡x} 5 July 2005 07:35 (UTC)

It's not just a teaching aid for German, but its purpose is to serve the reader and you have to be open about who might be using it. A lot of people looking up this article will be people wanting to learn German. That's OK. Indeed, I suspect that people NOT wanting to learn German will not be too interested in this kind of detail anyway. So yes, we should think (among other things) about what is helpful for students of the language. --Doric Loon 5 July 2005 16:23 (UTC)

/ch/-Laut-Section

This section is much to long. After all, this is only a phonological process. There are many others not yet tackled.

Front and back a

The article mentions that /a/ and /ɑ/ are free allophones. But there are quite a few minimal pairs. For example:

• wann /ʋɑn/ "when"
• wahn /ʋan/ "delusion"

and

• bann /bɑn/ "spell"
• bahn /ban/ "road"

In my opinion they are really different phonemes. Anyone comment? −Woodstone 08:05, August 3, 2005 (UTC)

I agree with Woodstone. --Doric Loon 08:25, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

Sorry, I think I reversed the symbols, now corrected. −Woodstone 11:12, August 3, 2005 (UTC)

I haven't seen any analysis yet that doesn't mark the length. Sources? However, many analysis don't mark any difference in vowel quality but use /a/ vs. /aː/, for instance A. Linke/M. Nussbaumer/P. R. Portmann (1996): Studienbuch Linguistik, Tübingen:Niemeyer, p. 428.

There seems to be no consensus on which of the two a-phonemes should be the back vowel. In the phonology course at Bern university, I have been teached it's /ɑ/ vs. /aː/ (similar to Woodstone's correction), whereas I've seen /a/ vs. /ɑː/ in other places (similar to Woodstone's first version). Therefore, I think the distinction of two different vowel qualities among the two a-phonemes is somewhat arbitrary. -- j. 'mach' wust | ‽ 11:28, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

The Bantam New College German and English Dictionary lists the German pronunciation entirely as quality, not length. The back a is the long one (Wahn) and the front a the short one (wann). This is supported by Comrie The World's Major Languages p. 121, which asserts that the length distinction is "more accurately described as a difference of tense versus lax articulation". The reason is that "There are perceptible differences between tense /i:/ in /di:ne:/ Diner and lax /i/ in /difu:s/ diffus, ... and yet both i vowels are technically short." I don't know if a similar distinction exists for /a/, and if so, what the quality difference is in unstressed syllables. Benwing 06:51, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

The IPA handbook has only /a/ (hatten) and /aː/ (baten) for German. However for Dutch it has back /ɑ/ (bad) and front /aː/ (zaad). "Zaad" sounds similar to "Wahn" and "bad" to "wann" so the Dutch choice is just the reverse of the Bantam dictionary cited above by Benwing. In Dutch the opposition between front and back a is very phonemic (but usually accompanied by a slight lengthening of the front a). Listening to the sound files at the IPA site, I would say the Durch assignment is correct. This leaves me to believe that the choices for German (Bantam) and French /ɑ/ (pâte) and /aː/(patte/) is wrong. So I'm still utterly confused. Who can help me?

In German, the difference between Stadt and Staat is both quantitative and qualitative, but the length distinction is more obvious. We should definately transcribe in a way which indicates both aspects. This applies to all Germanic languages including English, though in English length is less obvious. But even there, a trascription which covers both aspects can't be wrong. --Doric Loon 13:42, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

The answer above misses my point. I agree that indicating both aspects is of value. But the real question is which is the "front" and "back" variant of a.

• German "Staat", "Wahn", "baten", Dutch "zaad" and French "pâte" have a similar a sound
• German "Stadt", "wann", "hatten", Dutch "bad" and French "patte" have a similar a sound

As I hear them (comparing to IPA sound file) the former is the long front a /aː/, the latter the short back a /ɑ/. This corresponds to the IPA handbook usage in Dutch, but conflicts with the Bantam dictionary for German (as quoted above) and several sources for French usage.

Dutch a and aa vary between [ɑ, aː] and [a, ɑː] depending on the generation of the speaker, even just within Amsterdam. The French distinction has collapsed for most speakers, but where maintained it is definitely patte [a], pâte [ɑ]. The former is like Spanish casa, the latter like English father. (I don't believe there's much difference in length any more, but if there were, it would be [a, ɑː].) Ladefoged has [a, ɑː] for German in an exercise in his introductory A Course in Phonetics. kwami 11:29, 2005 August 7 (UTC)

Kwamikagami is right, the French distinction is not much present any more, but when it was, the sound in pâte was much farther back than that in patte, and, I´m pretty sure, rounded; hence it is actually more like the sound in British ´not´, but longer. The â sound was long, as is the sound in ´faute´, as is the sound in jeûne "fast (n.)", as are all nasal vowels, and as are all vowels before /r/, /v/, /vr/, /z/, and ezh (as in ´plage´). (Hint: assuming the actual value for French /r/, what do all five of these conditions have in common?)

The real question is, though, are the two a´s distinguishable in non-stressed syllables? German native speakers, is there a difference between the first a in Kanone vs. Kannibale? Is there a difference in the unstressed first a´s in kanonisieren vs. Kannelüre, or Kanone vs. kanadisch? What about between any of the previous six? (I.e. are they all alike, or some different?) If all six are alike, is there a difference in the first vowel between Diner and diffus? Benwing 12:16, 7 August 2005 (UTC)

Kanone vs Kannibale --> There is a difference for some speakers, for some there isn't. As a native speaker of German, I think the article is correct in saying that /a/ and /ɑ/ are free allophones. According to Siebs, it should be /a/ and /ɑ:/, but this distinction is now obsolete. For present-day German, there is no standardised distribution I am aware of. In fact /a/, /a:/, /ɑ/, /ɑ:/ can occur in all possible combinations depending on the speaker's native dialect.

It's not becoming much clearer. There seems to be wide disagreement on what the symbols stand for. On the question of unstressed a, I would say that the difference collapses both in German and Dutch (to [ɑ]). In the Amsterdam dialect all a's are close to [ɑ]. In French, to widen the question: would it be correct to say that "accepter" has [ɑ] and "aligner" has [a]?

No, they should both be [a]. In Amsterdam there is great speaker variation, so no, I don't think all aes are close to [ɑ]. Given the variety of German dialects, is everyone talking about the same one? kwami

I, as a native speaker of both German and Dutch experience German 'ah' (as in Hahn) and Dutch 'aa' (as in haan) as [a], and German and Dutch 'a' (as in 'kann' and 'kan') as [α]. People who thus pronounce these characters will call the first a 'long a', the second a 'short a'. [oliver lenz]

Anthony Fox used /ɑ/ and /a/ for long and short a's in his book. It's the opposite of the above. He used in the following way:

/i/ : /ɪ/ = bieten : bitten

/e/ : /ɛ/ = beten : Betten

/u/ : /ʊ/ = spuken : spucken

/o/ : /ɔ/ = Ofen : offen

/ɑ/ : /a/ = Staat : Stadt (neutralized when not stressed)

The last line doesn't seem correct. Is it Siebs's pronunciation? - TAKASUGI Shinji 03:31, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

french version

hi. i saw the french version here: fr:Prononciation_allemande. maybe everyone has already seen this, but if not, maybe its useful. anyway, has nice pictures. peace – ishwar  (speak) 01:19, 2005 August 6 (UTC)

Very nice, however they mention the soft English th /θ/ as a standard phoneme, when in reality it is a loan phoneme at best and generally replaced with /s/ (older speakers) or /f/ (younger speakers).Cameron Nedland 20:04, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

I have never heard a German speaker of any age replace /θ/ with /f/. Londoners, yes; Germans, no. —Angr 21:10, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

That's what I've heard, I could be wrong. I think I read that on Non-native pronunciations of English. Cameron Nedland 01:22, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

Merge current orthography article

The article German orthography is not about German orthography at all. (See Orthography.) It discusses phonology as related to or discernable from the spelling of a word. It might therefore make a good addition to this article.

There is no phonological information in the orthography article whatsoever. It merely describes the pronunciations of certain letters or letter combinations. If you're not satisified with the other article, fix it or redirect it to German language. Merging it with this article will only make people add more irrelevant orthography information here. I'm taking the merge sign down for now.

Peter ^Isotalo 20:42, 29 August 2005 (UTC)

Affricates missing ‼

The affricates [ʦ], [ʧ] and most importantly, [pf] MUST be mentioned. This article won't be complete without them. By the way, [ʤ] (often written as 'dsch') could be included as well, but it exists in loanwords only. --Pipifax 19:40, 8 September 2005 (UTC)

They've been already listed. By the way, some linguists think the German [ʧ] is not a single phoneme but a sequence of /t/ and /ʃ/ because it doesn't appear in a consonant cluster while the true phonemes /pf/ and /ʦ/ do like Pfropf /pfropf/ and zwei /ʦvaɪ/, and treat the /tʃ/ in /dɔʏtʃ/ (Deutsch) just like the /pʃ/ in /hʏpʃ/ (hübsch). What do you guys think? - TAKASUGI Shinji 04:53, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Phonologically you can treat it that way - but phonetically, it's an affricate, not a simple stop followed by a fricative. Well, in this case we should also mention other non-phonological, phonetical affricates (like <bsch>, <x>, <ps> and so on... Qubux 17:24, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Äch, Öch, Üch

Are Äch, Öch, and Üch pronounced /ɛx/, /œx/, /yx/; or /ɛç/, /œç/, /yç/?

The information in the article is correct: The allophone [x] occurs after back vowels and [a] (for instance in Bach [bax] 'brook'), the allophone [ç] after front vowels. Since /ɛː ɛ øː œ yː ʏ/ are all front vowels, the following ch is pronounced as [ç] in the standard. -- j. 'mach' wust | ‽ 22:39, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

Given the disagreement earlier about whether /a/ is [a] or [ɑ] and /aː/ as [aː] or [ɑː], does /x/ vary based on the quality of the vowel, or are /a/ and /aː/ always considered back for the purposes of this consonant? —Felix the Cassowary (ɑe hɪː jɐ) 06:31, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

It can only be followed by [x] (unless it is followed by the notorious diminutive suffix "no-umlaut-[çən]" which is not sensitive to the previous sound), so by this criterion, it is always to be considered back. -- j. 'mach' wust | ‽ 09:00, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

vɪçtɪç vs. vɪçtɪk

"Another common merger is the merger of /g/ at the end of a syllable with /ç/. In the case of the ending -ig, this pronunciation is prescribed by the Siebs standard, for instance wichtig [ˈvɪçtɪç]. The merger is found in Northern German. It occurs neither in Southern standard German nor in Southern German dialects."

It does occur in Franconian, which I do consider a Southern German dialect. If noone objects, I will change the article accordingly. Does anyone know whether it also happens in other southern german dialects? --Schuetzm 18:43, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

It does not in Alemannic German, nor does it in Austro-Bavarian. I thought Franconian was Middle German, so that's why I worded it that way, and I'm sorry if I've misrepresented your dialect. -- j. 'mach' wust | ‽ 19:49, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

Hmm, maybe the problem is the confusion of "Southern" vs. "Upper German". If there is a commonly accepted definition of "Southern German" that excludes Franconian, than you are of course right. It is definitely a part of "Upper German" (see the map at [1], area #25). --Schuetzm 14:40, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

I think there is no such term, so the best wording I see is Austro-Bavarian German and Alemannic German, and I hope I'm not mistaken again! ;) -- j. 'mach' wust | ‽ 17:30, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

G without a vowel following (Krieg, Tag) turns into "ch" in many parts of Germany (nearly everywhere except Southern Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg). So the two examples can be pronounced as either "Kriek"/"Tak" or "Kriech"/"Tach". In Standard pronounciation there is sort of an equalizing solution: g without a vowel following is usually pronounced as "k", but as "ch" in -ig.

x vs. χ

As far as I know as a native speaker, the 'ch' sound in 'ach', 'bach, 'lachen', etc is actualy a vl uvular fricative χ, rather than the velar fricative x. What gives? [oliver lenz]

Oliver is right. It's uvular, not velar (it's in the IPA Handbook). This article could really use some improvement with the help of a proper German phonology.

Peter ^Isotalo 08:20, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Lemme revise that somewhat. According to Klaus Kohler in the IPA handbook, it's [x] in buch and hoch, but [χ] in Bach and doch.

Peter ^Isotalo 08:31, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

According to the research I can find (I'll add this to the article with its references), it's uvular after [a(:)], velar after [u:] and [o:], and freely varies between uvular and velar after [ʊ] and [ɔ]. Angr/talk 08:34, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

I don't understand why everybody is so keen about the uvular allophones of the velar fricative. What about the other uvular allophones [q ɢ ɴ]? I'm not happy at all about the revision that has mixed up the allophony of /ç/ and /x/ with the allophony of [χ]. I believe these allophonies are of a very different nature: The /ç - x/ is a well-known and undiscussable feature of any standard pronunciation. It is perceivable to native speakers and some even consider it to be a phonemic distinction. A pronunciation that does not respect it will be noticed not to conform to the standard. The [χ] allophony, however, is a variable feature of certain varieties. No untrained native speaker perceives it, and even the trained phoneticians argue about the extent to which it occurs (that's why I believe it varies if not regionally at least idiomatically). A pronunciation that does not respect the [χ] allophony will not be noticed at all. ― j. 'mach' wust | ✑ 09:24, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Other uvular allophones of what? I didn't know German had two uvular stops as well as a nasal.

Peter ^Isotalo 00:20, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

German does not have any uvular phonemes at all. Velar phonems happen to have uvular allophones. ― j. 'mach' wust | ✑ 19:38, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

But even as allophones, does German have any uvular sounds at all besides [χ] and [ʀ ~ ʁ]? AFAIK, /k/ does not have an allophone *[q], nor does /g/ have an allophone *[ɢ], nor does /ŋ/ have an allophone [ɴ]. Angr/talk 19:46, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

Well, now it'd be up to me to find references... I'm afraid I won't find any. However, I still don't believe that only the velar fricative has an uvular allophone, but the other velar sounds not. I think the main reason that only the fricative allophone is talked about is that its IPA sign, [χ], is familiar to the transcription of German (it's sometimes used as a neutral sign that signifies [x] as well as [ç], but without uvular meaning, and in older transcription systems, it was used for IPA [x]), whereas the signs [q ɢ ɴ] are utterly awkward. I also think that the difference between [x] and [χ] is easier to perceive for phoneticists than the other differences between velar and uvular consonants. But again, I don't have references.

However, references that don't mention any uvular allophones at all are easy to find, for example the Aussprache-Duden, to which I'd give more credit than to the IPA handbook because the description of German pronunciation is its primary aim. So I'd think we'd better up not to mention any uvular allophonies, or at least not to mix them up with the [ç - x] allophony. ― j. 'mach' wust | ✑ 09:43, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

I think I trust trained phoneticians and phonologists more than lexicographers when it comes to this question. I have no doubt that if /k, g, ŋ/ did have allophones [q, ɢ, ɴ], the IPA handbook and Wiese's book and other German phonlogists and phoneticians would have mentioned them. I don't think it's helpful at all to encyclopedia-building to remove verifiable, sourced information. Angr/talk 10:12, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

I just think the current text obscures the basic ç-x allophony. And I think the mention of the [χ] should be labled "according to some", since not all sources agree on it. The Aussprache-Duden is certainly also a work by trained phoneticians and phonologists, and its introduction is one of the most thorough analysis of German pronunciation. ― j. 'mach' wust | ✑ 11:34, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Pronouncing schr-

I find that it is hard (or at least very unwieldy) to pronounce the schr- cluster with a trilled Austro-Bavarian R. Is there any Austro-Bavarian workaround to this (like, sound changes)? Does the R "soften", is the SCH just pronunced as /s/, what?

Just curious.

I'd say that in initial consonant clusters with /r/, the /r/ is realized rather as a tapped [ɾ] than as a trilled [r] (if it is pronounced alveolarly at all), so the pronunciation is not [ʃr], but rather [ʃɾ]. At least that's how it is in Alemannic German, but I guess it's not different in Austro-Bavarian (nor in many other languages that have such clusters, such as Spanish or Italian). ― j. 'mach' wust | ✑ 09:23, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

I don't think either Spanish or Italian has either a [ʃr] cluster or a [ʃɾ] cluster. Angr/talk 12:17, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

Certainly not! I was thinking of the general consonant + r clusters. I'm sorry for my mistakable wording! ― j. 'mach' wust | ✑ 15:40, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

No, in Modern Spanish in fact we don't even have the sound [ʃ] any longer (except in Andalusian, where it has reappeared as deaffricated 'ch', unrelated to Mediaeval Spanish 'x'), and AFAIK in Italian [ʃ] is always followed by a vowel (scia, sce, sci, scio, sciu) . 213.37.6.65 00:06, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Both Spanish and Italian pronounce (in the main dialect) the cluster "tr" as [tr] with a trilled r. So what are you trying to say? (Of course in rapid speech, it may sometimes degenerate into a tap.) −Woodstone 16:18, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

Then I was mistaken. I haven't been much in Italy, but when I was learning Spanish in Argentina, everbody laughed at me as long as I could only pronounce [tr] or [dr] etc. and not yet [tɾ] or [dɾ] etc. They seemingly did not only perceive it as an unusual pronunciation, but simply as plain wrong. Anyway, I don't believe much in main dialects, but rather in pluricentric languages. And again, I think phonology is a science much influenced by its own traditions, so it's good always to stay sceptical. ― j. 'mach' wust | ✑ 19:24, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

No way. The r in the clusters pr-, br-, fr-, tr-, dr-, cr-, gr- in Spanish is always pronounced with a tap, never with a trill, except in the verbs subrayar and subrogar (because in these cases the cluster is not syllable initial br-, but [b.r] with a syllable break in between, since morphologically these words are derivatives from rayar and rogar with the prefix sub-). Pronouncing a trill in the cluster tr in Spanish sounds "funny" to say the least, and is definitely non-standard. 213.37.6.65 00:06, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Speakers of Spanish find it difficult to pronunce the cluster /sr/, e.g. in 'las rosas'. Even in dialects where /s/ is pronounced in all positions, this pre-rhotic /r/ is nearly always dropped. --129.35.231.16 13:43, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

I lived for some time near Bavaria and just tried out a typical Bavarian phrase "das schreibst du mir auf" [dœs ˈʃræːbstmɐ ʔaːf] and it seems that a tiny [ɘ] is inserted between sch and r. Needless to say that the problem does not occur with standard [ʃʀ]. Btw, exaggerated stage pronunciation is often parodied as [ʃɑˈraɪːbən]. (as you can hear from old records, [r] was stage standard in the 1920s) -- megA 10:38, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

No, what is dropped in the cluster [sr] in Spanish is the 's', never the 'r': las rosas [larːosas] or [larosas], never [lasːosas] (las sosas) nor [lasosas] (las osas). Final s is dropped or aspirated in all cases in many dialects, anyway. 213.37.6.65 00:06, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Siebs = Bühnenaussprache?

My impression is that Bühnenaussprache is a more widely recognized term than "Siebs standard". Any objection to my substituting it?--Chris 19:21, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

I'd rather mention Siebs, since this explains that we're speaking of a very specific pronunciation guide. How about "Siebs' stage pronunciation"? ― j. 'mach' wust | ⚖ 21:02, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Diphthongs

Could the 'io' in words like "Reklamation" and "Konfession" be considered a diphthong? To me, the 'ion' ending sounds like it is pronounced in one syllable. Redtitan 01:55, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

I think the usual explanation is that the /i/ in such words is nonsyllabic. It could be considered a post-consonantal allophone of /j/. User:Angr 05:59, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

It is not considered a diphthong because of its peripheral state: It occurs only in specific endings of loan words. ― j. 'mach' wust | ⚖ 19:37, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Quick uninformed personal impression: -ion is -[ˈjoːn] (one syllable) in Germany and -[iˈoːn] (two syllables) in Austria. No idea about Switzerland. (Note that most Germans would feel compelled to dissolve the vowel cluster of the "Austrian" version by inserting [ʔ] – in other words, they couldn't even pronounce it.)

David Marjanović | david.marjanovic_at_gmx.at | 17:42 CET | 2006/11/11

They could. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 89.52.129.239 (talk) 11:37, 1 March 2007 (UTC).

Really? "It" is "-[iˈoːn]". I'm not talking about Bavarians or people who have learnt French, but about those people who insert glottal stops into Luise and Naomi and Beamter and Asteroid. Does "Kon-fes-si-ohn" sound artificial to you? (That's how I pronounce it.) If so, if you tried to pronounce it that way nevertheless, would you put a glottal stop in front of the last syllable? David Marjanović 22:25, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Varieties to be mentioned

The "ch" as Ich-Laut is often pronounced as [ɕ], which is a [ç] tending towards a [ʃ]. This is frequent in and around Berlin, in Hesse and in Cologne area. The speakers who use [ɕ] would also use [ʃ] for "ch" in the beginning of a word. So there are three possibilites to pronounce "China": [ki:na] [çi:na] [ʃi:na]. Aditionally, "pf" is pronounced in all Northern and Central Germany as "f". In colloquial language but also on TV or radio a huge lot of speakers would pronounced "Pferd" as [fɛət]. All this information is proven. You can check it and then please add it, because your article tends a bit to stress on Southern German varieties and specials. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 89.52.129.239 (talk) 11:45, 1 March 2007 (UTC).

I don't think we should mention the [ɕ] because it's AFAIK nowhere considered standard. However, the [f] instead of [pf] phenomenon is so common that we probably should mention it. David Marjanović 10:27, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

The next few edits...

Hi everyone. I should start by mentioning that I'm not a trained linguist; I have learned the IPA and everything else I know about linguistics on my own, by reading (largely Wikipedia, though also some primary literature). I am a native speaker of the, um, to be precise, the younger city-dialect of Linz (Austria, 200 km west of Vienna) and of Austrian Standard German (as spoken on TV, most notably by newscasters). If you let me, I'll make many changes to the article, mostly because in many places it describes regional variation as allophonic or free variation (and then misses some regional variation), but because I don't have comprehensive knowledge of Standard German in Germany and am way underinformed on Standard German in Switzerland, I should probably discuss what I want to do here first.

I'd like to start with the ich-Laut/ach-Laut affair. That section currently states:

The diminutive suffix -chen is always pronounced with an ich-Laut [-çən]. Usually, this ending triggers umlaut (compare for instance Hund 'dog' to Hündchen ‘little dog’), so theoretically, it could only occur after front vowels. However, in some comparatively recent coinings, there is no longer an umlaut, for instance in the word Frauchen [ˈfra͡ʊçən] ‘female dog master’ (a diminutive of Frau ‘woman’), so that a back vowel is followed by [ç], even though normally it would be followed by a [x], as in rauchen [ˈra͡ʊxən] ‘to smoke’.

I wonder if this one word is actually derived from the version with the nickname suffix -/ɪ/ preceded by an /l/ that could be epenthetic or derived from the Bavarian-Austrian diminutive suffix -/l/~-/ɐl/. The nickname suffix does not trigger umlaut. I have no evidence, but the most parsimonious hypothesis I can come up with that this word was borrowed and the nonstandard/babyish suffix replaced, and then people forgot to add the umlaut. Apart from this, the umlaut triggering by -chen is still productive; I've come across words like Progrämmchen "neat little computer program", and they sound natural to me. I haven't come across any word in -chen other than Frauchen that doesn't have umlaut when it could.

There is even a minimal pair for [ç] and [x] due to this effect: [kuːçən] Kuhchen ‘little cow’ vs. [kuːxən] Kuchen ‘cake’.

WTF. This is bewildering. I don't even know where to begin.

• I've never found anyone saying or writing Kuhchen. It sounds wrong. I find it outright difficult to articulate. If anything, it's Kühchen with [yː].
• The example is contrived. Nobody I've encountered would say Kühchen. It's Kalb "calf" or Kälbchen.
• The practice of writing [ən] instead of [m̩], [n̩], [ŋ̩], which AFAIK comes from the "broad phonetic transcription" used by the Duden, may be justified phonologically – at least in the northern varieties that have such a thing as a reduced vowel –, but phonetically it is a hypercorrectivism. Syllabic morpheme-final nasals are standard (with variation within the standard: up north they can even occur behind nasals or fuse to them; down south [ɛn] is used behind nasals). Perhaps due to the absence of the palatal nasal ([ɲ]) in German, however, syllabic nasals do not occur behind [ç]. So even if anyone said *Kuhchen, it would stay distinct from Kuchen: [ˈkuːçɛn] (or -[ən] if you must) vs [ˈkuːxŋ̩].

I'm not aware of another possible minimal pair between [x] and [ç], so I submit there is none.

An allophonic distribution of [ç] after front vowels and [x] after other vowels is a common one, and can be heard also in Scots, in the pronunciation of light. However, it is by no means inevitable: Dutch, many Southern German dialects, as well as Yiddish, which comes from one of them, retain [x] in all positions.

• Yiddish is famous for its uvular fricative (presumably derived from something Alemannic, or from Hebrew, or both).
• "Southern German dialects"? The Alemannic ones have, like Yiddish, [χ] in all positions with no allophony I can perceive. The Bavarian-Austrian ones have the "usual" allophony range from [x] to [ç].
• At least some varieties of Dutch also have [χ] (this is e. g. what happens to Flemish word-initial g). I don't know how widespread this is, however.

In short… there are languages that have [x] but not [ç] (the Slavic ones, Mandarin…), but are you sure there is a West Germanic one?

According to certain analysis, the German ach-Laut is further differentiated into two allophones, [x] and [χ]. Some say that [x] occurs after /uː oː/ (for instance in Buch [buːx] ‘book’) and [χ] after /ʊ ɔ a aː a͡ʊ/ (for instance in Bach [baχ] ‘brook’), others say that [x] occurs after /uː oː ʊ ɔ a͡ʊ/ and [χ] after /a aː/.

This is not a question of analysis; all those analyses are correct as far as I can tell, having heard people who talk like that. It's regional variation. It would just be nice if someone could find out which parts of central and/or northern Germany use [χ] and in which conditions. David Marjanović 11:29, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Forgot something:

(for instance in Furcht [fʊrçt] ‘fear’)

That (or rather, [fʊ̞ːçt]) is a northern thing. Austria at least: [fʊɐ̯xt], [d̥ʊɐ̯x] and so on. After all, there is no consonant in there (anymore). David Marjanović

Vowels

Another difficult one.

Short [i y u e ø o] occur only in unstressed syllables of loanwords, for instance in Psychometrie [psyçomeˈtriː] 'psychometry'.

Are there really people who pronounce that with [y]? I've never heard any psycho- word with [y], always with [ʏ]. The o oscillates freely between [o] and [ɔ] and probably ends up somewhere in between most of the time – this is the least stressed syllable in the word, so the distinction is least stable here. I agree on the [e], however.

The schwa [ə] occurs

There is much variation right here.

• In Austria, it does not occur. When it can, it disappears and leaves a syllabic nasal consonant or /l/ behind (see above), and when it can't disappear, it is [ɛ]. That's right: Hände has twice the exact same vowel. There is no schwa. [ə] is considered a paralinguistic effect, not speaking.
• Up north, reduced vowels are common; however, what results is at least not always [ə]. I haven't listened closely to enough Germans to tell, but those I have listened to produce exotic vowels that must be [ɘ] and [ɵ] (the latter is more common in my "sample"). I don't know if anyone uses an actual [ə].

The long open-mid front unrounded vowel [ɛː] is merged with the close-mid front unrounded vowel [eː] in many varieties of standard German, so that, for example, Ähre [ɛːrə] 'ear' (of wheat, etc.) and Ehre [eːrə] 'honour' are homophones for many speakers.

• We should make clear that when they merge, the result is [eː]. So maybe "is merged into" instead of "is merged with" would be better.
• Where except in Austria does the merger happen?
• The Duden's "broad phonetic transcription" notwithstanding, all speakers I have heard who do not merge have a wide-open [æː] that is not terribly similar to the [ɛː] that occurs in, say, French or in my dialect (where vowel length is apparently not phonemic, but a wide range of phonetic lengths occurs).
• This is marginal and trivial, but the merging varieties retain [æː] (usually not quite that open) as the name of the letter Ä. Maybe this should be mentioned, too.
• One thing about the examples. There are places in Germany where [ɐ] does not occur behind long vowels, making the examples correct. Elsewhere, however, this is unthinkable (making learning French, which has words like libération with [eʀ], even more difficult).

The open vowels [a] and [aː] are free allophones together with [ɑ] and [ɑː], respectively.

This, too, is regionally different. In Austria /a/ and /aː/ have very little or no difference in quality, both being front [a]. Elsewhere, some people have [a] vs [äː], while others have [ä] vs [aː]. (The two dots are supposed to be the IPA "centralized" diacritic. By comparison with Mandarin – central – and English – back –, I don't think the back vowel [ɑ(ː)] occurs in any variety of Standard German, though, again, my sample size is small.)

I think we should also add a footnote about /ɪ/. It is [ɪ] (the English sound) in some parts of Germany, but there it tends to display at least allophony all the way to what must be [ʉ] (in front of at least /m/, /l/, and /r/). On the other hand, in Austria it is very close to [i], so I'd suggest explaining that variant as [ɪ̽] with the "mid-centralized" diacritic. David Marjanović 14:19, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Diphthongs

The German diphthongs are /a͡ɪ a͡ʊ ɔ͡ʏ/, for instance in Ei /a͡ɪ/ 'egg', Sau /za͡ʊ/ 'sow', neu /nɔ͡ʏ/ 'new'. Occasionally, these are transcribed as /a͡e a͡o ɔ͡ø/. Instead of the transcription /ɔ͡ʏ/, the transcription /ɔ͡ɪ/ is used as well.

As far as I know, all this is regional variation (the "occasional" variants may be limited to Siebs, however). Importantly, we should mention that in Austria ei is [ɛ͡ɪ] (and eu is [/ɔ͡ɪ/]).

Homepage [ˈhɔʊ̯mˌpʰɛɪ̯d͡ʒ]

Well, describing the first diphthong as /ɔʊ̯/ may make sense in English, but less so in German where the sound it begins with is much closer to /o/ than to /ɔ/. Besides, you'll be hard-pressed to find someone who keeps that d͡ʒ] voiced at all, let alone word-finally. David Marjanović 14:19, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Consonants

In the northern varieties, [ʔ] occurs before word stems with initial vowel. It is often not considered a phoneme, but an optional boundary mark of word stems.

I'm not sure. It is inserted into each and every vowel cluster – most of which have a morpheme boundary running through them – and used utterance-initially, but not always word-initially. As an example, I recently watched a German TV documentary on asteroids and comets = Asteroiden und Kometen = [ˌʔastɐʀoˈʔˑiːdn̩ʊndkoˈmeːtn̩]. I'd have dropped the second [ʔ], which makes me hear *Astero – Iden, and likely the first one, too (because the occurrence was in the middle of a sentence), but note there was no [ʔ] in front of und. I think I've read somewhere that some analyze [ʔ] as occurring in front of stressed vowel-initial syllables "in German".

[d͡ʒ] and [ʒ] occur only in words of foreign origin. In certain varieties, they are replaced by [t͡ʃ] and [ʃ] altogether.

Is this really regional variation, or does this depend more on how well people can produce these sounds and bother doing so while speaking German? – Whether the intermediate realization, voiceless lenes, occurs may be a regional phenomenon.

[r], [ʁ] and [ʀ] are free allophones of each other.

As mentioned way above, I object to calling them allophones because, AFAIK, nobody uses two or three of these sounds (at least while speaking Standard German), let alone with rules governing when to use which. That said, I haven't found anyone yet who says [ʁ] instead of [ʀ]. (The fricative does occur in French, but even there few people use it, AFAIK – I live in Paris and haven't found anyone here who uses it.)

Englisch /ɛnɡlɪʃ/ [ɛŋlɪʃ]

The /g/ is not deleted in Austria (at least), probably because it's voiceless there. Interestingly, someone introduced this variation into the next example:

Ganges /ɡanɡəs/ [ɡaŋəs] ~ /ɡanɡɛs/ [ɡaŋɡɛs]

[g̥aŋˑɛs] in Austria, identical to the native word Ganges, genitive of Gang "gait".

[ʋ] is occasionally considered to be an allophone of [v], especially in Southern varieties of German.

It's more restricted than that. I never encountered that sound before the BAWAG /ˈbaːvag/ scandal last year, which some (not all) newscasters pronounced using an odd, vaguely [ɔ]-like consonant. I suppose the open vowels are to blame; apart from that, I've only met with [v] in German, the same as in English or French or Russian, no matter in what environment. – To my surprise, however, I once came across a Linguistlist post claiming large parts of Germany use [β], explaining why someone else thought a German friend of his always seemed to exchange /w/ and /v/ when speaking English. Is there any truth in this?

The voiceless stops /t/, /p/, /k/ are aspirated except when preceded by a sibilant.

And except word-finally, and except in Austria.

We should also mention that /t/ and /d/ are apical in northern Germany (like in English) but laminal elsewhere (like in French, Spanish, Russian, Mandarin…).

The obstruents /b d ɡ z ʒ/ are voiceless [b̥ d̥ ɡ̊ z̥ ʒ̊] in the Southern varieties.

Well, yes, but… original research warning… I deny the existence of /z/ in the first place. Instead, what's IMHO going on is a length contrast. Here goes:

• In Austria at least, fortes behind short vowels (usually orthographically doubled) are a bit longer than fortes behind long vowels. Just a bit – not comparable to the long consonants of Swiss German, Italian, or Finnish; I'll use the IPA half-long diacritic –, but still, the difference is there. In the Bavarian-Austrian dialects (not in the standard language!), this difference alone can be phonemic: vowel length is not phonemic, and /ɔ/ has merged into /o/, yet Ofen [ˈofm̩] "oven" and offen [ˈofˑm̩] "open" stay distinct.
• This is the difference between s and ss (new orthography). That's why the difference does not exist word-initially; the voicing varieties voice every word-initial s, often extending this to English words that are supposed to start with [s].
• Unlike the other consonants, /s/ can occur in both lengths behind both long vowels, producing minimal pairs like reisen "travel" vs reißen "rip". Despite the orthography, this contrast is neutralized word-finally: Eis and Fleiß rhyme, even though eisig and fleißig don't; this does not happen to most fortis-lenis contrasts in Austria.
• I lied. There is another consonant that can occur in both lengths behind long vowels: /x/. This fact is completely ignored by the orthography (maybe just because chch would look too clumsy – schsch doesn't exist either). I haven't found a minimal pair (justifying the orthography), but I've found several pairs that don't rhyme. Unfortunately I have no idea how widespread this phenomenon is outside of Austria, but importantly, the same distinction exists in my dialect with overlapping but not quite identical sets of words, making it unlikely that the distinction in the standard language was invented in Austria. Is anything published on this?

Short /x/:
weich "soft"
weichen "retreat"
tauchen "dive"
Tauchvogel "diving bird"
reichen "reach"
Longer /xˑ/:
Teich "pond"
Eichen "oaks"
Leichen "corpses"
Buch "book"
Buchen "beeches"
suchen "look for/seek/search" (dialect: short /x/)
Schlauch "hose"
Rauch "smoke (noun)"
rauchen "smoke (verb)"
Zeichen "sign (noun)"
zeichnen "draw"
reich "rich"
Reich "empire"

• On the matter of /x/, there are dialects in northern Germany that possess a [ɣ], though no variety of Standard German seems to have that. Does anyone know if this sound corresponds to the length distinction I have found? David Marjanović 14:19, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Fortis & lenis

The aspiration is […] weakest in the syllable coda (such as in Saat [zɑːtʰ])."

Are there really people who aspirate word-finally? More importantly, are there any who aspirate word-final /t/? Is that a Swiss thing? All speakers I can remember merge word-final /t/ into /d/ – it becomes a lenis, unless it's part of a consonant cluster (including /rt/).

The nature of the phonetic difference between the voiceless lenis consonants and the similarly voiceless fortis consonants is controversial. It is generally described as a difference in articulatory force, and occasionally as a difference in articulatory length; for the most part, it is assumed that one of these characteristics implies the other.

In my limited experience that's yet another regional difference. The Swiss "fortes" are simply longer than lenes (much longer, as in Italian or Finnish). The Austrian ones are not longer (at least not consistently, and only marginally longer if at all). It's not the Korean thing either (described as stiff voice, sounds very weird). I gather it must be the loudness of the release, produced by increased pulmonic air pressure. Unfortunately I haven't been able to find any publication about Austrian consonants, though Google is all I have, so if you know of one, please help me out!

In most varieties of German, the opposition between fortis and lenis is neutralized in the syllable coda, due to terminal devoicing (Auslautverhärtung). A few southern varieties of German, such as Swiss German, present an exception to this.

Yes, but not because they don't devoice. Their lenes are already voiceless. The length contrast stays.

As far as I can tell, there's no length contrast in Austria (see above). What happens? Instead of /d/ becoming /t/ word-finally, /t/ (the short version, the one behind long vowels) becomes /d/ except in consonant clusters. This happens in Germany, too, as far as I've paid attention. Word-final /k/ and /p/ are rare, but they don't become lenes: Rad "wheel" and Rat "council/counsel" are homophones, ending in the consonant that is in the middle of Räder "wheels" but not that of Räte "councils"; Hub "lift (noun)" and hup "honk (imperative)" are not homophones; and if I take Tag "day" and substitute the /g/ by /k/, I hear myself speaking Russian (так "so, thus, this way").

However there are southern varieties which differentiate between a fortis /f/ […] and a lenis /f/

That's a Swiss (or Alemannic?) thing, and it can happen because this contrast is a length contrast. It would be difficult or impossible otherwise, and does not occur in Austrian Standard German nor AFAIK any Bavarian-Austrian dialects. David Marjanović 17:52, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

"Kuhchen"

Hi, I'm from Germany and my english isn't so good, so please excuse me :) In the "Ich-Laut and ach-Laut"-Category you wrote "There is even a minimal pair for [ç] and [x] due to this effect: [kuːçən] Kuhchen ‘little cow’ vs. [kuːxən] Kuchen ‘cake’." This is false! A little cow is "Kalb" or "Kälbchen", at most "Kuhlein" (noone would say that), but never "Kuhchen". Sorry again for the bad english, I hope you understand =) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 88.68.126.60 (talk) 18:41, 1 May 2007 (UTC).

*Kuhlein, as opposed to *Kühlein, would still strike me as odd, though not as much as *Kuhchen. David Marjanović 16:03, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Splitting "German Phonology" like "English Phonology"?

Since some people seem to be a bit emotional if it comes to "pronounciation" and "standard" we could split this article like it's English counterpart does: A general intoduction with links to Recieved Pronounciation, American and Australian Standard... Objections? Qubux 17:30, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

There'd be one problem with this: there is not even a Germany-wide single standard pronunciation. We'd only move the problem.

On the other hand, the problem is not that big. People tend to keep standard and dialects apart; some pronunciations are considered standard, others aren't. My dialect is full of features that are missing from all kinds of Standard German. David Marjanović 16:03, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Vowel Chart

It would be great if someone could find a vowel chart of German vowels so that one could compare German vowel postiton with the Cardinals.

Then we'd need about five such charts, at least, to represent the regional variation within Standard German. – Maybe that's just what we should do, though. David Marjanović 15:58, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Maybe like Berlin, Vienna, Liechtenstein, Bern, and maybe Munich.Cameron Nedland 04:56, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

geröntgt pronunciation

what the heck is the proper pronunciation of geröntgt(past participle of röntgen, to x-ray)? It seems impossible to say without losing a sound or adding one. Seems like since it was based on a name, it was sort of shoehorned into the German morphology system.--Shadowdrak 08:11, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

[gəˈʁœntkt] is the standard pronunciation. You think that's bad, try some of the tongue-twisters at Consonant cluster. —Angr 18:17, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

I confirm that there are really three unaspirated plosives in a row in all standard pronunciations. David Marjanović 16:01, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Phonology vs. Phonetics

The organization of the consonant section seems pretty confusing to me, as it stands. This is supposed to be an article on German phonology, not phonetics, but the consonant chart here doesn't simply list phonemes: it lists tons of allophones and putative allophones. Especially with cases like [ʋ] this seems backwards to me. Right now it's listed on the chart with the note "[ʋ] is occasionally considered to be an allophone of [v], especially in Southern varieties of German." To me, this seems to be saying that [ʋ] is a particularly common phone in German that some people argue is an allophone of /v/. If what I know of German is right, though, [ʋ] is just an occasional allophone of /v/. (Similar comments apply to listing [χ].)

Wouldn't it be easier to list only the phonemes /v/ and /x/ and include notes saying that they have [ʋ] and [χ] as allophones? Masily box 15:05, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes (…as allophones in some regional versions of Standard German, that is). David Marjanović 16:05, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Ich-Laut

Would it be good to mention that some speakers (mostly in the Reinland) often say /ç/ as /ɕ/ or even merge it with /ʃ/?Cameron Nedland 20:12, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Phoneme /r/

I think that I've heard some uvular r's in German. Are they standard and, if so, how are they used? -- Djinn112 22:18, Feb 13, 2004 (UTC)

German 'r' is an uvular r when initial, and pronounced as a vowel, [ɐ], otherwise. Reading the article makes me suspect it's based on the Bühnenaussprache, a 19th-century pronunciation standard that is no longer being followed (I hope). Today's Standard German is quite different and I'm not even going to try describing it in SAMPA. What's wrong with IPA, anyway? Prumpf 22:56, 20 Jul 2004 (UTC)

This is wrong. The most common form in (Northern) Germany is a uvular fricative or approximant. A uvular trill is also occasionally used, even more frequently on TV. These are also described in Duden's "Aussprachewörterbuch" (4. ed., 2000, p. 53f.) as the most frequent forms (well, not the approximant). I would not accept an alveolar trill as standard pronunciation, but Bavarians will certainly object.

Not only Bavarians - Austrians too... As you said, the uvular r is the most common form in Northern Germany. In fact, in Austria the alveolar trill is considered to be standard. IMO the "free allophones" solution is the best you can offer. Kubusj 19:41, 12 Feb 2006 (UTC)

I am an Austrian and never use the alveolar trill. Until recently I didn't even know how to articulate it. I'd say it's acceptable in standard Austrian German – some TV and radio journalists use it –, but it's a distinctive feature of a few dialects, not including mine.

David Marjanović | david.marjanovic_at_gmx.at | 17:23 CET | 2006/11/11

Out of interest: Where do you come from exactly? I've heared uvular r from speakers from Graz, Linz, and especially from Viennese people (besides from people from Tyrol and Vorarlberg). But my family uses an alveolar trill exclusively. Qubux 00:36, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Linz. Moved to Vienna at age 11; there are people left in Vienna who use [r], but not many. I can't remember having encountered any in Linz. Where are you from then? David Marjanović 00:06, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

On the other hand, I have encountered alveolar [r] users in Vienna. Furthermore, [r] is considered mandatory in expressions like Rapid is meine Religion, together with the pharyngealized Meidlinger L. :o) David Marjanović 17:02, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Apparently Duden now considers [ɐ] in syllable rhymes standard (according to my phonetics lecturer - I haven't read it myself, though this symbol is used as such in my Oxford-Duden bilingual dictionary). Hairy Dude 02:34, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

There is a wide range of regional allophony in the pronunciation of standard German /r/. In most varieties of standard German spoken in Germany, the allophonic [ɐ] may be common, but this article is not Germany phonology, but German phonology. So I think the current article text does not need any change: [r], [ʁ] and [ʀ] are free allophones of each other. [r] is used only in Southern varieties. In the syllable coda, the allophone [ɐ] is used in many varieties, except in the South-West. ― j. 'mach' wust | ✑ 11:53, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

I do not think they should be called "allophones". This would imply that /r/ is pronounced one way in some contexts and another in other contexts. But I don't know of anyone who uses more than one rhotic consonant (at the very least while speaking the same lect). Most people who use one rhotic can't even pronounce the others. They are regional variants, I'd say, not allophones.

David Marjanović | david.marjanovic_at_gmx.at | 17:26 CET | 2006/11/11

I should say it is even more complicated. I know of few regions where the oldest generation of rural speakers consistently use uvular r, whereas there are, to my knowledge, no towns of any significant size in Germany where a majority of young speakers have alveolar r. Alveolar r is receding rapidly and has been so for some generations. Outside Bavaria, speakers under 50 seldom have it, but it is still a majority feature in many parts of rural Bavaria and it can be heard from many middle-aged speakers in the rural parts of South and Central Hessen, the Palatinate and along the North Sea Coast. --129.35.231.2 14:04, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Baltic Sea Coast too. The only non-Bavarian I've ever met with an alveolar r was from East Prussia. User:Angr 17:37, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

I think the alveolar r's from Hessen/Palatinate are Franconian in origin, whereas the rolled alveolar r on the North (and Baltic, for that matter) Sea coasts stem from Low German, and are encountered on Low German native speakers speaking Standard German. On the other hand, I'd say [ˈvʏɐ̯də] for "Würde" is definitely dialectal, from Westphalia to Hamburg. (In Mecklenburg, the r even becomes [ɜ]. I haven't the latest Ausspracheduden at hands, but according to my Sprecherziehung lessons, it is pronounced [ˈvʏʁdə] (old stage pronounciation even [ˈvʏʀdə]). [ʀ] sounds exaggerated and is rather used to portrait mannerist stage speech, whereas [ʁ] is considered standard, except at a word's end after a vocal, where it becomes [ɐ], so Werder [ˈvɛʀdəɐ̯].-- megA 16:23, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

I live in Berlin and have met Germans from all over Germany, and the only people I've ever head actually pronounce a consonantal r in coda position are TV news readers and stage actors. [ˈvʏɐ̯də] isn't dialectal, it's completely normal -- standard in the descriptive sense even though it's not the prescriptive standard. —Angr 19:00, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Well, is this article about colloquial consonant reduction or correct pronounciation? Wouldn't you concede news readers to use official Standard pronunciation? It may be common in some parts of Germany (mostly the North), but it's definitely not Standard German to pronounce it [ˈvʏɐ̯də]. Same thing as if you say, in English, "innernational" vs. "international". (too lazy right now to use IPA, but you get the idea) The first one may be common, but the second one is correct. -- megA 21:55, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

This article, like all serious work in linguistics, is descriptive, not prescriptive. If only very speech-conscious people pronounce the "r" in Würde, then it's artificial. We're interested in how people actually speak when they're not thinking about their pronunciation. —Angr 06:21, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Well, most Germans don't pronounce the "r" in Würde, i would absolutely say, that the "vʏɐ̯də"-pronunciation is the only standard pronunciation in nowaday's German. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.253.115.22 (talk) 18:34, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

I fixed your problem, David. Some n00b linguist used "free allophone" in place of "free variation" RedRoot 21:53, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

There is a map showing the usage of the gutural R. I don't know if it's totally correct. I know people from Saarland that uses the alveolar trill and from Northern Germany and from South Vogtland (Bavarian dialect). The alveolar trill is manly used (preferred) in Siebenbürgen, most parts of Bavaria, Swiss, in many parts of South Tyrol, Austria, and parts of Saarland and Northern Germany. For classical singing it's always preferred (see here, there, there). --Buachamer (talk) 11:03, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

Some examples from Siebenbürgen could be heard in Michelsberg, Jürgen especially after 2:33, dialect of Michelsberg, Saxon dialect of Großpold. --Buachamer (talk) 11:16, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

The archive

There's nothing wrong with archiving. But the archive of this page contains a lot of questions by me that nobody has answered. So please give it a look. If there continues to be no discussion, I will start editing the article next weekend, step by step, starting with eliminating the abomination *Kuhchen – and this even though I am an armchair linguist with very little knowledge of the primary literature, which means I won't be able to cite anything, and even though my knowledge of the diversity of German (standard and otherwise) outside of Austria is rather poor. (For that matter, I don't even have an armchair. :o) ) David Marjanović 17:07, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Question

Does German have any pairs between /t^s/ (the affricate) and /ts/ (two separate consonants)?Cameron Nedland 01:11, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

The only places I can think of to find /ts/ as two separate consonants are (1) the genitive singular of masculine/neuter nouns ending in t, e.g. des Internats ("of the boarding school") and (2) the plural of recent loanwords ending in t, e.g. die Intranets ("the intranets"). The closest thing to a minimal pair I can think of off the top of my head would be "des Internets" ("of the Internet") vs. "das Netz" ("the net"), but I don't think the relevant part of those words is pronounced differently. —Angr 06:12, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

There are many compound words that have [ts], where t ends one part and the initial [z] of the second part assimilates to [s]. It might be possible to find a minimal pair with different syllable split, however it would be likely that the one with [t^s] would have a glottal stop as well. −Woodstone 10:37, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Okay, thanks guys.Cameron Nedland 16:06, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

What about "Hans"? There seem to be a slight [t] before the [s] at the end... --megA 16:17, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

That's not a standard pronunciation, at least not in the north nor in the prescriptive standard pronunciation. In compounds in which the first part ends in /t/ and the second begins with /z/, the /z/ does not assimilate to [s] (which is a fortis consonant), it just loses its voicing and is realized as a voiceless (or a weakly voiced) lenis consonant. It can still be distinguished from [s] by the fact that it requires a weaker articulatory force and is shorter in duration. Mr KEBAB (talk) 18:26, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

In chapter G. I. ("Umgangslautung") on page 66 of my 2005 edition of Duden. Das Aussprachewörterbuch Max Mangold mentions the following rule:

Ersatz von [pf ts tʃ] durch [p͜f t͜s t͜ʃ]

In der Wortfuge können [pf ts tʃ] durch [p͜f t͜s t͜ʃ] ersetzt werden. Die lautliche Silbengrenze erscheint dann vor oder nach [p͜f t͜s t͜ʃ]:

Ạbfall [ˈapfal] > [ˈap͜fal], Hu̱tschachtel [ˈhuːtʃaxtl̩] > [ˈhuːt͜ʃaxtl̩], We̱rtskala [ˈveːɐ̯tskaːla] > [ˈveːɐ̯t͜skaːla]. Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 19:07, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

"er" at the end of words?

I have a book that states "er" at the end of words is pronounced as the unrounded version of the vowel used in eg. "Gott" ( /ɔ/ ) in Standard German. The book uses the the phonetic symbol "ʌ" to represent this sound, which I think is incorrect, as that corresponds approximately to the "short" English "u" sound as in "gut" according to the IPA .

Any thoughts?

76.31.184.107 (talk) 23:17, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Indeed, [ʌ] is the unrounded version of [ɔ] (check the IPA chart) but the German vowel is more central than [ʌ]: it is [ɐ]. I know of no language that contrasts the two and in a number of English dialects (including BBC English), the vowel in "gut" is actually [ɐ] (though it is still commonly transcribed as <ʌ> mostly for historical reasons. So the authors are possibly confused as they hear [ɐ], see this sound transcribed as <ʌ> and figure a better way to describe it is to call it an unrounded [ɔ]. Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 00:08, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

<-er> at the end of a word is definitely not realized as /ɔ/ in Standard German. I rather associate this with some Eastern German, Swabian or Rhenish dialects. I'm not an expert, though (I am German but don't study German phonology) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.138.39.62 (talk) 14:30, 30 July 2012 (UTC)

The key word here is unrounded. It is not an "o" that was being discussed here, but an unrounded version of it. You've got a few unrounded-rounded pairs in your language, for example "bett" - unrounded, "hölle" - rounded. Unrounded "o" doesn't exist in any dialect of German, as far as I know. Got it? --89.79.88.109 (talk) 22:51, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

I can't speak for every German, but in my dialect it's absolutely correct, the unrounded version of [ɔ], so [ʌ], is an allophone of [ɐ]. I think, this is another example for the absence of a German pronunciation. You can't make rules for every speaker. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.253.115.22 (talk) 18:31, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

Who had that idea of Kuhchen?

That word features quite prominently in the section on ich- and ach-Laut, yet it strikes me as odd. The diminutive of Kuh is not "Kuhchen", it must be "Kühchen". I put an accuracy tag. I would like to ask for this statement to be sourced, otherwise I will remove it. Jasy jatere (talk) 09:16, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

If I remember well, the vowel change in diminutives is only the default rule for masculine nouns. Kuh is feminine, so does not need to follow it. For example Frauchen (not ^*Fräuchen). As reference you may use. [2]. −Woodstone (talk) 10:17, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

I did some googling, and apparently the minimal pair is cited in the latest version of the Duden (which gives it authority, but it still sounds bogus to me). Your idea abt feminines is mistaken, by the way, cf. Dämchen, Fräulein, Mütterchen, etc.

I found this chapter very intersting and well argued.

As is also apparent from the cited chapter, the morpheme boundary in Kuh-chen cannot be denied phonological relevance, which casts doubt on whether this is actually a minimal pair. Jasy jatere (talk) 10:26, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

To me as a German, both sound equally odd, I would probably tend to Kuhchen to disambiguate from Küchen (kitchens). But actually, one would of course say Kälbchen (little calf). So Kuhchen would only apply to cows that suffer from dwarfism … --Quilbert (talk) 22:44, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

I wouldn't remotely even consider Kuhchen - Küh-chen, with a very definitive boundary. However, that might simply have to do with growing up in South Germany, where the -chen diminuitive form is rarely used at all, and hence sounds "wrong" in most cases. I'd actually more likely fall back to dialect in that particular case. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.56.190.121 (talk) 23:33, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

As it were, calves often get the diminutive (Kàiberl, Kaiweh in Bavarian), while a cow is an impressive animal. She's simply called a cow. --93.135.43.0 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 17:00, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

I have to agree, being from Bavaria as well. I would argue even that the [u:] undergoes umlaut (like happened in OHG to produce the front rounded vowels) because of the fact that the -chen begins with a palatal. Maybe it is only idiolectical but in my mind to keep the palatal fricative of -chen the [u:] has to become [y:], otherwise the fricative would have to become [x]. You could argue that the [y:] is an allophone of /u:/ and merges with /y:/. But as I said this all is probably influenced by being Bavarian and never really using -chen as a diminutive.99.21.194.218

(talk) 05:39, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

To me, both sound unfamiliar...is it even possible to make the diminutive of "Kuh"? Isn't it just a "Kalb"?

To disambiguate from "Küchen"? Well, but Küchen is spoken, as is Küche, with a short ü to begin with, and Kühchen would have a long one. (Yes, I guess there are some people who strangely speak Küche with a long ü. I wonder if they also pronounce kochen as koochen.)--2001:A61:2081:2001:8C4A:6F75:674F:2721 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 15:31, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

Velar ach-Laut?

I am German and speak pretty much standard German. The section about ach-Lauts does not cite sources. Do you know any? To me, the voiceless velar fricative [x] sounds unnatural when used in German. I believe it is only used when speaking inarticulately, and that the voiceless uvular fricative [χ] is the correct sound (in all cases, not only after certain vowels), or even more correctly: the voiceless uvular trill [ʀ̥]. --Quilbert (talk) 22:57, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

According to Klaus J. Kohler, cited in German Phonology by Richard Wiese, it's [χ] after [a] and [a:], [x] after [o:] and [u:], and either one after [U], [O], and [au] (though [χ] predominates there). —Angr 04:20, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

I can only agree with Quilbert in that [x] sounds extremely out of place to me (I'm a native speaker from northern Germany and believe I speak Standard German). I've never heard Germans use [x]. Not even in TV shows set in the most remote areas of Bavaria or other areas with characteristic dialects did I ever hear [x] used. If Klaus J. Kohler's statement were accurate, "Buch" would have to be pronounced [buːx]; this pronunciation sounds very odd to me. All native speakers I have ever met, seen on TV or heard on the radio used [buːχ]. It might occur marginally in some areas, but it is definitely nonstandard and sounds strange to me, as I am sure it would to any speaker of standard German. Shigaisen (talk) 19:24, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

I strongly disagree with that. I'm a native speaker of German too (from Bamberg), and the only ones I've heard using consistently [χ] for /x/ are some Swiss German speakers. Most people I hear (Standard German speakers, on radio and TV) use [x], although sometimes [χ] occurs too. It's really strange that there can be such great differences in perception. Could it be that we're really all hearing the same sound, but call it differently? Compare the sound samples at Voiceless velar fricative and Voiceless uvular fricative. Which one matches the pronunciation of Buch, Sache, kochen, auch more closely for you? --Schuetzm (talk) 10:59, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

I think I agree with Schuetzm, but I am rather confused. Going by the sound samples, [x] sounds more soft to me than [χ] and I'm sure the former sound is the one I hear and say in Sache, Buch, kochen and auch, even in ach and Bach. After repeating ach or Bach for a while I tend to feel my uvula, however in connected speech I don't feel it when pronouncing ch. According to de:Liste_der_IPA-Zeichen, [χ] is the sound in Bach, which I cannot confirm. First, I thought [χ] is the Swiss German sound as in Kraut or Knopf. But according to de:Schweizerdeutsch, [kx] is the typical pronunciation of k. Trying to make a perfectly clear voiceless uvular sound, I turned to believe this is not the Swiss German sound in Knopf. Probably, the different sounds are just a matter of tenseness, not of place? I cannot find the exact cite by Angr, yet I could imagine it is a bit outdated (1995)... --Zahnradzacken (talk) 19:58, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

The works are cited under German phonology#References: Kohler (1977) and Kohler (1990), as cited in Wiese (1996, p. 210). (Which certainly isn't outdated: it's not as if German pronunciation has changed significantly in the past 9 or even 33 years.) I haven't read Kohler's works, but what Wiese says about them is what I wrote above: it's [χ] after [a] and [aː], [x] after [oː] and [uː], and free variation between [x] and [χ], with [χ] predominating, after [ʊ], [ɔ], and [aʊ]. +Angr 17:43, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, I found it. By outdated I meant the research, not reality. And, of course, I only considered the possibility of that. I really am amazed by the different opinions. I'm still quite convinced that I only use the sound I hear in the sound sample for Voiceless velar fricative. The position of my tongue seems to depend on the preceding vowel, however it's always in touch with the velum. Maybe I misinterpret the descriptions, maybe I don't focus on the right features when observing my own articulation. Still, I believe [x] after [ɔ] is not unusual.--Zahnradzacken (talk) 22:04, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

I can't speak for all Germans, but to me, the uvular fricative sounds after [a],[o],[u] and [au] familiar and natural, while the velar fricative just doesn't exist in my language. But that might be my dialect (it has no name. No linguist did ever recognize that here in the Wester Ruhr Region a new, very unfamiliar dialect has developed...) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.253.115.22 (talk) 18:27, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

To me, the uvular fricative sample sounds like what I hear and use in all contexts; while the velar fricative might not sound quite as odd to me in the middle of words, pronouncing any words with a final ach-Laut with a velar fricative sounds very strange to me; it sounds as if it lacks articulatory force to me, and I have to make a certain effort to pronounce words with a velar fricative (that is, it isn't difficult, but it feels unnatural and I have to do it on purpose). It is indeed strange that we all seem to perceive the sound differently; to me, this suggests that we are probably all right in a certain way. Perhaps it is actually an intermediate sound (such as [χ̟]) or even a combination of both sounds?? Shigaisen (talk) 20:29, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

ɑː vs. a:

In "Vowels" there's only a: but not ɑː.

In the Fort-Lenis section words like Taler and Vater are written with an ɑː.

Either the ɑː is missing in the vowels table or there is no ɑː at all or there is no a:. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.74.11.71 (talk) 18:59, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

This is probably an artifact of Wikipedia's multi-author system. There's just one vowel phoneme here, which some people write /aː/ and others /ɑː/. —Angr 19:30, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

No I believe this is a dialect, or even idiolect issue -- I'm sure I've read "free variation" of ɑː and a: somewhere. Not sure if there are ever ɑː/ɑ or only ɑː/a pairs? "Phonemically" vs "Phonologically" I would regard ɑː as the more historical-fundamental underlying form.

Also note the hazard that some computer fonts mistakenly use "a" in place of "ɑ". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.36.156.12 (talk) 11:55, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

I do not know what the phonological way of putting it is. I only do know that the French a as twice in il mangea une baguette, and which our schoolbooks presented as [a], is definitely not the German sound (Austria, or at least the stereotypical Viennese dialect, excepted); indeed it is the Bavarian way of pronouncing both au, ä and some short e's and some words of their own (as stàd silent); it is quite vividly distinct from the normal German a sound, presumably [ɑ], as in "Staat" (state).--93.133.250.117 (talk) 23:06, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

I Question the Entire Trans-Regional Character of This Article

What we are getting here is a description not of "standard" Standard German phonology, but rather of the range of speech types in German-speaking territories, where there is of course an unbroken continuum from the actual traditional local languages to something approximating Standard German.

This is at a minimum confusing to the English speaker interested in a simple answer to the question, "how do you say that in German", even if you want to defend a concept of Standard German having, theoretically, no standard pronunciation. The devoiced voiced consonants of what everyone in Germany considers a strange local accent, just do not need to be discussed in an initial, introductory treatment of the subject. Certainly not in a "neutral" way that has to extirpate voiced/unvoiced pairs to accommodate the phenomenon, rather than presenting it as an aberration.

But it also fails in its intent of "cultural equality" and comprehensiveness, as an arbitrary decision is being made on what constitutes the accent of a Swiss person "speaking properly" and a Swiss person sliding somewhat more into Swiss German after a drink -- and including only what is deemed "good" regional pronunciation of Standard German.

Therefore, this article should primarily describe the "most standard" Standard German pronunciation -- unarguably that of Hanover -- and then describe the nature of the German pronunciation continuum. Details of that continuum's impact on Standard German around the German-speaking world can then be dealt with on a region-by-region basis (greatly clarifying the "some speakers say" muddle of the current presentation).

These regional phonologies can be presented in this article -- or as mandated by length constraints in separate articles for each region (an excellent opportunity to get into more detail like socio-historical implications of "spitzen Steine" and so forth). Or perhaps these descriptions could even be included in the already-existing articles on regional German languages/dialects, as the "standardized" pole of the local speech form continuum.

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.36.156.12 (talk) 11:43, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

The English speaker interested in a simple answer to the question, "How do you say that in German?" is in the wrong place. This is an encyclopedia, not a beginners' textbook of German, and so this article seeks to be comprehensive, and descriptive, in its coverage, rather than prescriptively portraying a single artificially selected "standard". That's not to say, however, that this article couldn't be made more comprehensive or better organized; I'm sure it could. But it would violate WP:NPOV to call the Hannover dialect "standard" and describe everything else in terms of how it differs from that. —Angr 11:54, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Doesn't it violate NPOV to claim some elitist literary version of German is more "standard" than working class Berlin speech? And as traditionally there is indeed considered to be a "standard" Standard German pronunciation -- and obviously so as the more formal the situation, the more regional speakers approach this thing, which therefore must exist -- are you not violating the Wikipedia law against "innovation" and personal opinions? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.36.156.12 (talk) 12:00, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Let's give up. The one german pronunciation simply can not exist, because there are much too many varities.... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.253.119.238 (talk) 15:50, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

ach laut and yiddish

it says in yiddish its always KH but Yiddish for not is Nisht not Nikht —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.72.241.193 (talk) 12:20, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

I'd say Yiddish simply has a different phoneme in that word. The point is that Yiddish doesn't have the predictable alternation between [x] and [ç] that Standard German does. —Angr 16:07, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

"ICH" sound

I have heard that "99 Luftballons" song by Nena, and it sounds as if she pronounces the "ich" (ich, dich, mich) rather like the "sh" sound in English "sheep". Is this a dialectical thing? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.112.242.125 (talk) 22:21, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

The ich sound, [ç] in IPA, sounds a lot like English sh. As I understand it, that's the official Standard German pronunciation. Other dialects might say [k] or [χ]. — Eru·tuon 21:56, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

Some dialects may pronounce it as [ɕ], which is even more like English sh but I don't know how widespread this is. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 22:59, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

In this video it sounds like a perfect [ç] to me. However, as Patricia Kuhl nicely argues in this video, adults cannot discriminate similar sounds of a foreign language very well. Maybe this is why it sounds like a "sh" to you. Yet pronouncing [ç] as a [ʃ] is quite common in dialects, I believe. To me, [ɕ] sounds like an attempt to approximate [ç] by some dialect speakers or people growing up in a non-native speakers' environment. --Zahnradzacken (talk) 14:44, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

It seems to me that anyone pronouncing the ich sound as [ʃ] would perceive it as the same phoneme as 'sch. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 15:41, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

[ç] undergoes fronting in many accents, thus becoming more similar to [ʃ]. However, in Standard German the two sounds are definitely distinct. Nena comes from Westphalia, a [ç]-pronouncing region and her [ç]s are perfect.Unoffensive text or character (talk) 10:30, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

There's also the rub that /ʃ/ has a strong tendency towards concomitant (and usually phonologically redundant) lip rounding (in German, that is; but according to Voiceless palato-alveolar sibilant#Features, this is also the case in English and French), which is why [ʃ] without lip-rounding may be misidentified (for example, as [ç] or [ɕ]) by speakers who pronounce /ç/ as [ç]. It is quite possible that in regional accents (in the west of Germany, along the Rhine, this seems to be most pronounced) /ç/ is actually realised as unrounded [ʃ] and lip rounding the true distinctive feature. This seems to be the case in the Cologne dialect. Somebody with this pronunciation would realise /ɡəˈʃɪçtə/ as [gəˈʃʷɪʃtə], which can seem like a merger to those from other regions, but is not really. If this person is taught the rule "pronounce <ch> as [ç]", they can easily get confused about which of their two shibilants to convert to [ç], with hypercorrect results like [ɡəˈçɪçtə] or even [ɡəˈçɪʃtə]. However, this hypercorrection would seem to be more frequent among those who merge both sounds completely. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 00:57, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Of course, the result /ɡəˈçɪʃtə/ is only expected in those who keep the distinction, while the result /ɡəˈçɪçtə/ is only expected in those who have the merger. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 17:47, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

[r] and elder people...?

"[r] is used mainly in Southern varieties and among elder people elsewhere."
So when I get older I lose the ability to pronounce [ʀ]? I'd say the "Northern [r]" is more a feature of Low German phonology, (which is indeed mostly spoken by the elder generation) finding it's way into (northern) Standard German – maybe this could be written more precisely... -- megA (talk) 10:49, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

I have tried to re-write the (unsourced) passage. Maybe a native speaker of English could check whether it makes sense. Unoffensive text or character (talk) 07:38, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

Just two things: Is it safe to say that the [r] comes from Low German in these cases? (I can't think of any instance of [r] outside of Bavaria and (former) Low German areas.) Furthermore, I've added Franconian to Bavarian dialects, as they have a very strong [r] tendency. (even if the speaker speaks Standard german.) (No, Franconian is NOT Bavarian!) -- megA (talk) 13:53, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

I was born and raised only some 10 miles outside Frankfurt and most native people born before, say, 1950, have [r]. The same is true for most of Hesse and for at least the southern half of Rhineland-Palatinate. Furthermore, I have heard [r] used by speakers born before World War Two in parts of Thuringia and in Lusatia. However, as I do not have any sources outside personal experience, I will not argue. Unoffensive text or character (talk) 16:58, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

By the way: There are even areas where elderly people clearly pronounce a consonantal /r/ in the syllable coda: I have heard it in southernmost Bavaria, in one or two places near Zwiesel and Passau, in the nearly extinct Upper Harz dialect (Oberharzer Mundart), in Lusatia, in the now diaspora dialects of Silesia and East Prussia and in the area I come from: Central Hesse, where this feature has been quite prominent until very recently. However, this is generally regard as a dialect feature. Unoffensive text or character (talk) 17:05, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

It certainly is no dialect feature as it is actually speaking the thing as it both came into existence etymologically and is written at this moment. On the contrary those dialects that have lost it, including Stage Pronunciation if it does which I doubt, must be accused of colloquiality (if that be accusation). --93.133.250.117 (talk) 23:10, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

IPA-question

Isn't [tʁɔpʰʷn] the same as /tʁɔpɸn/?Dakhart (talk) 18:43, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

Good question. I can't discern any practical difference between them, except that the first transcription may imply a slight velarisation not present in the second. The reason is that [w] (and therefore, labialisation) has a velar component, while [ɸ] is a purely bilabial sound. I can't remember meeting people who pronounced Tropfen like this, so I can't really tell if either might be a more appropriate description. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 22:58, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

Vowel system

Currently, the vowel chart in the article doesn't really reflect any kind of phonological contrasts, but looks like a way to avoid committing oneself to any particular analysis. I don't think the analysis taking the vowel qualities as basic works for a standard German accent, however, as it cannot account for the difference in /a/ vs. /aː/ (not to mention /ɛ/ vs. /ɛː/). There's no way to get rid of the vowel quantities entirely. Also, it seems easier to account for the distribution (i. e., the rule that long/tense vowels occur only in open syllables and never in closed syllables) by basing the system on quantity. (Of course, an additional advantage is that the symbols for the tense vowels are easier to type and the transcriptions easier to convert to pure ASCII.) Therefore, we get the following system:

	front				central		back
	unrounded		rounded
	short	long	short	long	short	long	short	long
close	i	iː	y	yː			u	uː
mid	e	eː	ø	øː	(ə)		o	oː
mid-open		(ɛː)
open					a	aː

The phonological transcriptions of Finale and Finalistin, in this system, would be /fiːˈnaːlə/ or even (under the assumption that [ə] is really an allophone of /e/) /fiːˈnaːle/ (> [fiˈnaːlə]) and /fiːnaːˈlistin/ (> [finaˈlɪstɪn]) respectively.

For those northern accents with strong Low German influence, we get a quite different system, entirely without quantity:

	front		central	back
	unrounded	rounded
close	i	y		u
near-close	ɪ	ʏ		ʊ
close-mid	e	ø		o
mid			ə
open-mid	ɛ	œ		ɔ
near-open			(ɐ)
open	a			ɒ

The rounding of /ɒ/ is purely allophonic; you could as well use /ɑ/. Moreover, [ɐ] is not really a phoneme (as it is the result of /ə/ before /r/ after consonants, and of /r/ after vowels, in syllabic codas) and therefore dispensible, and /ə/ might be dispensible, too.

In this system, Finale and Finalistin would be transcribed as /fiˈnɒlə/ or even /fiˈnɒlɛ/ (> [fiˈnɒːlə]) and /finɒˈlɪstɪn/ (> [finɒˈlɪstɪn]) respectively. Length is automatically added in stressed open syllables.

However, under the assumption that there are still geminates, this system could be simplified even more:

	front		central	back
	unrounded	rounded
close	i	y		u
mid	e	ø	(ə)	o
open			a

In this case, we get the transcriptions /fiˈnalə/ or /fiˈnale/, and /finaˈlistin/ respectively. In this case, the tense or lax quality of the vowels could always be predicted from the syllable structure: In open syllables, you get tense vowels, in closed syllables, lax vowels. For example, /mittə/ [mɪttə] (with the syllable break in between the /t/), and /mitə/ [miːtə]. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 00:14, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

While what you say might be true, I'm a bit startled. Isn't the whole point of IPA not having to predict the vowel quality at all? And I'm rather bewildered by "/fiˈnɒlɛ/"? While layman, I've listened to quite a few people from Northern Germany (being one) and have never heard a "kurzes ä" that was not followed by a consonant - apart from "Nä!"Dakhart (talk) 11:30, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

A "short e" like [ɛ] is how many people here in Austria realize their shwas.

I would, however, object to the assumption of long/doubled consonants (like in /mittə/ [mɪttə]). I don't think they exist (like in Finnish or Swedish) in such cases. Only in compounds you may have long consonants on word boundaries for some speakers (in words like Schifffahrt, Mitteilung, Hassserie etc.). 84.114.210.126 (talk) 20:18, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

True, but to me an example for the fact that even phonetic spelling and the kind can by no means get the whole of a language onto paper. (I'd personally even prefer actual orthography, because that was actually made to do this, but that's another story.) Anyway, the word "er pollt" (which I invented ad hoc, but quite possibly as a new Denglish loanword with the meaning "to make a poll") does have a longer l (and an equally short o) compared with the surname of Gerhard Polt. Sorry for the invention, but it should be quite possible to make the same example from existing language. --93.135.35.233 (talk) 13:20, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

How did you get to the conclusion that he polls in Denglish would become er pollt with a short vowel? to poll in English has a long vowel, hypothetically the infinitive would be something along the lines of pollen (pronounced like German Poland in my thinking). The length of the [l] is irrelivent because vowel lenght would be the deciding factor in the minimal pair Polt and pollt99.21.194.218 (talk) 07:41, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, but on that part the phoneticists certainly would agree with me. "he polls" can no way become "er pohlt" in German.--2.236.198.248 (talk) 21:10, 7 February 2014 (UTC)(former IP 93.135.xx)

I believe, that long consonants exist at least in meta-language, for example when someone misspells "Proletariat" as "Prolletariat" and someone reading it pronounces the spelling mistake by stretching the [l]. However, how about resorting to definitions from the literature? Coming up with an own vowel chart is mere speculation, just like some of the more recent article changes. (Anyone care to comment on this one?) --Zahnradzacken (talk) 23:15, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

[w]

The W article casually mentions the existence of an allophone [w] of /v/ in the contexts qu-, schw-. I see mention of no such thing here. Is this on the right track or not? Standard German, dialect, ?? --Trɔpʏliʊm • blah 17:11, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

You mean this: [ʋ] is occasionally considered to be an allophone of [v], especially in Southern varieties of German?

I once heard Erwin Pelzig use it, he is a political satirist from Würzburg. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.138.39.62 (talk) 14:42, 30 July 2012 (UTC)

Improper use of IPA

Why is the tie bar used in the article for the diphthongs? The International Phonetic Association devised the use of the tie bar for affricates or double-articulation consonants. The article needs to be edited. The standard symbol for the second element of the diphthong is    ̯    --Mahmudmasri (talk) 22:35, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

[ʝ] ?

I was just reading the book "Deutsches Aussprachewörterbuch" and surprisingly found [ʝ] in the German consonants table (p. 31):
Phoneme: ʝ Grapheme: j Beispiel: Jacke
Do germans really pronounce it as ʝ ?
--Knowing guy (talk) 14:40, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

The j in Jacke is pronounced exactly the same way as the y in engl. yet. I am not aware of any varieties of Standard German that use other sounds.Unoffensive text or character (talk) 15:58, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

I must correct myself. Cf. the German Wikipedia for a discussion of ʝ as an allophone of j. Though it sounds extremely non-standard to my ears, I seem to be mistaken. Unoffensive text or character (talk) 13:19, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

-- Yes, they do. Actually, in the western Areas, it's the only pronunciation, and many other Germans do pronounce it like that also. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.253.115.22 (talk) 18:23, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

Yes, you're right. Cf. the German Wikipedia, in the western dialects, it's the only pronunciation. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.253.119.238 (talk) 15:46, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

Furcht

Just noticed this sentence Note for the latter case that if /r/ is vocalized (which appears often), it is most similar to an /a/ (namely, [ɐ]) and the pronunciation of the phoneme changes accordingly (thus, we have [fʊɐ̯xt]) Some speakers do have /x/ in Furcht, as some have in Kirche or even in Burg, but this is to the best of my knowledge not a standard feature. I would therefore like to delete the sentence. Unoffensive text or character (talk) 13:16, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

What else would you have it be? The allophonic variation of /ç/ necessitates [x] in Furcht if /r/ is vocalized to [ɐ]. And unless the speaker is using [r] instead of [ʁ] or [ʀ] and not vocalizing the /r/(which in normal speech would be odd anyway), their uvular articulation still warrants a velar or even uvular allophone of /ç/, namely [x] or [χ]. So the only real way to have [ç] is to have the sequence [rç] which is very odd. Hangman4358 (talk) 06:33, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

What else would you have it be?

[fʊɐ̯çt]

Unoffensive text or character (talk) 15:04, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

But why? The vocalized /r/ ([ɐ]) is a tricky phenomenon. It behaves like a back vowel, just as /a/ does. For many people it even merges with /a/ in sequences of /ar/ to become [a:] while for others such sequences become [aɐ̯]. Also a palatal would run counter to the allophonic variation of /ç/. [ʊ] is a back vowel (I would even challenge a transcription with [ʊ] and would much rather go with [u] for a whole host of reasons, but that is a different point) and so are [a] and [ɐ]. In this case it would not matter if the nucleus or the off-glide of the resulting diphthong is to be considered the deciding factor in creating the environment choice of allophone, both are back vowels necessitating a velar. There really is nothing wrong with [x], if anything the palatal transcription would go against earlier parts of the article explaining front/back alternation of [ç] and [x]. I guess a compromise might be to transcribe it as Fu[ɐ]cht. This way only focusing on the one variation that is being talked about but that would be more cumbersome and probably more distracting than anything.

A great book on the history of German phonology which covers both the vocalization and the palatal/velar fricative is Historical German phonology and morphology by Charles Russ. (He also has a great collection of papers/essays on the different German Dialects btw, but that is not really relevant here.)Hangman4358 (talk) 20:23, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

Hi Hangman, I see from your personal page that you are a native Bavarian. Bavarians often have [x] in words like Furcht, Kirche, etc., but a good example for the prevalent pronunciation in Standard German can be found here. I would say that the r is vocalised and the following sound is clearly [ç]. Unoffensive text or character (talk) 11:22, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

These sources are backing my claim: Susan Kaufmann: Fortbildung für Kursleitende Deutsch als Fremdsprache, vol.2, p.231

Deutsche Welle In my opinion this is sufficient to delete the sentence that claims otherwise. Unoffensive text or character (talk) 08:14, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

Example, please

The fortis stops /p, t, k/ are aspirated in most varieties (exceptions include Austro-Bavarian varieties).. For the first two, I can agree with you. In Austria---even when not speaking dialect---the Pastor (pastor) would be addressed Herr Pastor /hɛɐ 'pasdoɐ/. NO aspiration, and the /t/ is soft enough to almost give a /d/ sound. But even Austrians would always pronounce their Bundesland Kärnten as /'kʰɛɐndʔn/ but NEVER /'kɛɐndʔn/. What YOU are about, with the /k/, might be Saxonia and their (occasional) pronunciation of Karte (card) /'kɒɐdə/. But neither in Bavaria nor Austria have I ever heard an unaspirated /k/. Wish I knew how you got that idea. -andy 77.191.222.178 (talk) 06:44, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

Then why don't you look for sources which back that up? Also, don't mistake phonemic transcription (between slashes) with the phonetic one (between brackets). The purpose of the latter is to convey the actual pronunciation in details. Therefore, your transcriptions should look like this: [hɛɐ 'pasdoɐ], ['kʰɛɐndʔn], ['kɛɐndʔn] (what's up with the glottal stops? Is the /t/ really post-glottalized?), ['kɒɐdə]. Peter238 (v̥ɪˑzɪʔ mɑˑɪ̯ tˢʰoˑk̚ pʰɛˑɪ̯d̥ʒ̊) 00:12, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

Fist, in Bavarian (including of course Autria), p and t are not aspirated and neither is k before a consonant, which is why dialect writers often put b, d, g instead: "Basst scho", "so a schena Dåg", "es is a Greiz". However, k before a vowel is very much aspirated. As for the glottal-stop in Kärnten and the like, the word is 'kɛɐntən if the shwa is spoken, but if it isn't, and if the consonant is syllabized instead (which is the most usual case), it becomes [kɛɐnʔn̩] with a glottal stop instead of the t in it, because without a proper vowel there is simply no possibility to pronounce an actual t. (Speakers are aware that this "would be" a t, in fact they are thinking all the time that they are speaking a t, and they write it that way; but they do not actually pronounce one.) 77.191. seems to have written a d before it (which could not possibly be pronounced) nevertheless.--2001:A61:2081:2001:8C4A:6F75:674F:2721 (talk) 15:46, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

Many variations of German, yes, of Standard German, really?

I'm finding it very difficult to learn about Standard German. The wikipedia articles don't make sense. Each seems to contradict itself. I can accept that there are many different correct pronunciations of the German language. That's fine. But I can't understand the claim that there are multiple correct pronunciations of Standard German.

That claim makes a few presumptions:

• That there is a thing called "Standard German"
• That there is an authority that can decide if variations are acceptable in the standard
• That the authority has made the decision that yes, variations are also acceptable

The authority could be an international organisation, or a private organisation which is widely recognised as having the necessary authority (such as possibly a dictionary).

If every region can and does use their own variant, then there is no "standard" at all.

I don't know how to answer these questions and I'm just going in circles reading the wikipedia articles.

(Here's a possible starting point: a Swiss friend once said that German was a separate language because she spoke Swiss German at home and only encountered German at school. What pronunciation of Standard German do they teach in Swiss schools? The Berlin pronunciation? The Central Germany pronunciation? Do they pronounce -ig as -ich, -ik, or -isch?)

Is this problem clear to others? --Gronky (talk) 14:23, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

"Standard German" is a dialect based on the language of educated speakers and writers of Upper Germany (i.e. the Central and Southern Uplands), the so-called Hochdeutsch. It is used on stage and screen, in formal public speaking, in the national news media, etc. Speakers of different German dialects will also frequently converse in Standard German. The rules of Standard German taught in schools are prescribed by the German federal and State governments (i.e., not by an academy, as in France).

Varieties of Standard German exist because of regional or local variation, mainly in pronunciation—what English-speakers, particularly in North America, may experience as regional or local accents, as distinguished from dialects. I don't know, but I suspect that Standard German may also allow for regional variation in vocabulary, syntax, grammar, etc., based on prominent regional dialects. J. D. Crutchfield | Talk 17:44, 29 January 2014 (UTC)

Upon further reading of this page, I see that Gronky is more sophisticated than his or her questions here initially suggested to me, and already knows the answers I suggested, and more besides; but I'll leave my original answers here for whoever might find them helpful (assuming they're correct!). J. D. Crutchfield | Talk 18:28, 29 January 2014 (UTC)

Changes to intro regarding "Standard German"

Hi,

After longish discussions on a related page: Talk:Standard_German#I_deleted_the_.22pluricentric.22_sentence

I've changed this article's intro from this to this.

The reasons were that the old intro:

• Gave no information on what Standard German resembles
• Cited no sources, no references, no authorities
• Described German in general ("it's a pluricentric language"), but the first paragraph said this article is specifically about Standard German

(This article might be better titled "Phonology of Standard German", since German as a whole doesn't have one phonology. And then people could make articles for the phonology of Bavarian German, Berlin German etc. But that's only if people think this is important.)

Anyway, it's a big change. Comments very welcome. It would also be great to have more references. Gronky (talk) 10:16, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

Bühnendeutsch

Duden 6: "Die Bühnenaussprache ist eine ideale Norm, die der Sprechwirklichkeit weniger nah kommt als die . . . Standardlautung. Wie diese ist sie überregional, zeichnet sich aber durch größere Einheitlichkeit, Schriftnähe und Deutlichkeit aus. "

Various vowels and consonants are pronounced slightly differently (e.g. the endings -er, -en, -em). --Boson (talk) 23:11, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

Just to confirm that I've understood the German:

• Standard German resembles the reality of speech better than stage German resembles the reality of speech.
• Which one is super-regional (international), Bühnenaussprache or Standardlautung?

I've changed the intro.

Can you suggest an English translation for that quote? Then we could use it in a reference. Gronky (talk) 05:56, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

A reasonably close but unambiguous translation would be:

• "Stage pronunciation is an idealized standard that is further from the reality of spoken German than standard pronunciation is. Like standard pronunciation, stage pronunciation is supraregional, but it differs from standard pronunciation in being more uniform, closer to the written language, and more cleary articulated."

So both are supraregional. Since you use the word "international": I think most Germans reading "überregional" would think of Lower Saxony and Bavaria rather than Switzerland and Austria, though the publishing house might be thinking about those two markets as well.

The preface to Duden 6 also says:

• "Dabei orientiert sie [die Standardlautung] sich nicht mehr an der heute etwas künstlich wirkenden traditionellen Bühnenaussprache, die sich für das ausdrucksvolle Sprechen über weite Distanzen und ohne technische Hilfsmittel eignet." [Standard pronunciation is no longer based on the (nowadays rather artificial-sounding) traditional stage German, which is suitable for expressive speech over great distances without technical aids.] --Boson (talk) 13:06, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for these quotes and translations. I'm a little busy right now but I'll add them to the article in the next few days. (If no one else does.) Gronky (talk) 11:05, 11 December 2013 (UTC)

I'm still quite busy but I hope to dig into this again next week.

One question: In one of my learning CD's, the teacher pronounces Zeitung as "Zeitungk". Is that Bühnenaussprache, and thus a difference between the latter and Standard German? Gronky (talk) 03:05, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

I met two Germans today. The one from near Hanover said "no one says Zeitungk". The one from Hamburg said "we say Zeitungk, and Eingangk, but sometimes you don't hear the k in fast, informal speech." But I still think it would be worth mentioning if there's a k in the Bühnenaussprache version. Gronky (talk) 17:12, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

I don't think it's Bühnenaussprache. More a local variation in various places. It may also depend on the following sound (or lack thereof)--Boson (talk) 11:42, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

(I've been short of time and I'll be busy now 'til the end of January but I will come back and continue to develop this topic. Thanks for the continued help.) Gronky (talk) 21:02, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

Request clarity on vowels

Given that most readers aren't fluent in IPA characters, I think it would be helpful to include audio examples of how German vowels are pronounced, similar to those given in the table of audio recordings in the Vowels section of Swedish phonology. Can anyone create that? DBlomgren (talk) 20:06, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

Middle High German

Please either provide IPA for all of the relevant words in this section or remove the section. — Peter238 (v̥ɪˑzɪʔ mɑˑɪ̯ tˢʰoˑk̚ pʰɛˑɪ̯d̥ʒ̊) 23:49, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

Done, thanks! Peter238 (talk) 20:48, 16 June 2015 (UTC)

Pronunciation vs spelling

Variations amd dialects aside, technically, German pronunciation is a lot less of a hurdle to learners than, say, English, since there is very little funny business regarding the spelling. So once you have 'sounds' of the individual letters down, you can be reasonably sure of how to pronounce any written word, even if you don't know it yet. And whenever you hear a new word, it should be possible to spell it correctly just from the sound. Both with rather few exceptions. I wonder if it wouldn't be a good idea to have at least a paragraph to that effect, or even an article of its own.--Cancun771 (talk) 16:05, 5 March 2016 (UTC)

We already have such an article. Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 16:37, 5 March 2016 (UTC)

Approximant [ɹ]

I wonder if it is true that "in the Standard Austrian accent, ... a more common alveolar realization [than a voiced apical coronal trill/tap] is an approximant [ɹ]." I have only ever heard approximant coronal ralizations in English loans and in rather rural accents of central west Germany (Westerwald and neighbouring Siegerland). Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 14:38, 26 February 2017 (UTC)

@LiliCharlie: Austrian [ɹ] is probably an 'undershoot [r]' just as [ʁ] can be considered an 'undershoot [ʀ]'. I bet it's very front and doesn't have much to do with [ɹ] in English loanwords (at least as pronounced by northerners), which is more back (and possibly labialized?). Either way, the sentence is sourced. If you're in doubt, it's a good idea to figure out the kind of speakers whose speech they were analyzing. Unfortunately, I don't have access to that source anymore. Mr KEBAB (talk) 14:52, 26 February 2017 (UTC)

Here's the relevant citation from JIPA (thanks to Skunkassociation): A speaker-specific representation has to be assumed regarding the trill. The chart lists both the uvular trill and the alveolar trill. Most speakers make use of a uvular production (either trill or fricative). However, for those speakers who exclusively apply an alveolar production (either trill or approximant), /r/ has to be assumed. Mr KEBAB (talk) 16:01, 26 February 2017 (UTC)

So where does the "more common [than a voiced apical coronal trill/tap]" statement come from? Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 16:24, 26 February 2017 (UTC)

@LiliCharlie: Here is another quote from the JIPA (and it's still in the article). Mr KEBAB (talk) 16:28, 26 February 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for your link where the following sentence is quoted from Moosmüller et al. (2015): "Alveolar trills are still in use, mostly pronounced as an approximant." I gather that the authors are talking about alveolar approximant trills (as opposed to alveolar fricative trills). A simple approximant [ɹ] is quite a different beast. Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 13:29, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

@LiliCharlie: The full sentence says [i]n approximately the past 40 years, the pronunciation norm has changed from an alveolar to a uvular trill. The latter is mostly pronounced as a fricative, either voiced or voiceless. Alveolar trills are still in use, mostly pronounced as an approximant. As far as I remember, the source, quite strangely, treats the uvular trill and the alveolar trill as separate but completely non-contrastive phonemes, and native speakers can use either the former or the latter, but never both. This explains the wording of that sentence.

I've certainly heard Austrians use genuine alveolar approximants (not postalveolar, not labialized, just plain alveolar approximants) that sound like an undershoot [r], as I said. There's probably nothing to correct here. Mr KEBAB (talk) 13:55, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

@LiliCharlie: Now that I think about it, your explanation sounds just as plausible. Perhaps we should mail the authors? Mr KEBAB (talk) 15:06, 27 February 2017 (UTC)