Standard German phonology

Vowels

Monophthongs

Phonemic status of

1. The existence of a phoneme is an irregularity in a vowel system that otherwise has pairs of long and tense vs. short and lax vowels such as vs.. On the other hand, such irregularities are not ruled out by any principle.
2. The phoneme has developed out of the spelling of the language rather than from any historical sound change. Most examples of Middle High German /ǣ/ correspond to New High German rather than, indicating that the modern is not a regular development.
3. Although some dialects have an opposition of vs., their usage does not follow that of the standard. There is also little agreement across dialects as to whether individual lexical items should be pronounced with or with. E.g. South Hessian dialects have in Käse but in Leben.
4. The use of is a spelling pronunciation rather than an original feature of the language. It is an attempt to "speak as printed" and to differentiate the spellings and .

Diphthongs

Phonemic

• has been variously described as, and.
• has been variously described as,, and.
• has been variously described as,, and.
• is found only in a handful of interjections such as pfui and hui, and as an alternative to disyllabic in words such as ruhig.

Phonetic

• , as in Croissant, colloquially:.
• Many German speakers use and as adaptations of the English diphthongs and in English loanwords, according to, or they replace them with the native German long vowels and. Thus, the word okay may be pronounced or. However, and do not recognize these diphthongs as phonemes, and prescribe pronunciations with the long vowels and instead.

Consonants

• can be uvular, alveolar or even dental, a consonant or a semivowel, see below.
• is bilabial–labiodental, rather than purely labiodental.
• are voiceless in Austrian Standard German and in most other South German varieties.
• can be apical alveolar, laminal alveolar or laminal denti-alveolar. The other possible pronunciation of that has been reported to occur in unstressed intervocalic positions is retroflex. Austrian German often uses laminal denti-alveolar articulation.
• is always clear , as in most Irish English accents. A few Austrian accents may use a velarized instead, but that is considered non-standard.
• In the Standard Austrian variety, may be affricated to before front vowels.
• can be laminal alveolar, laminal post-dental , or even apical alveolar. are always strongly fricated. Austrian German often uses the post-dental articulation for.
• are strongly labialized palato-alveolar sibilants. are fricated more weakly than. There are two variants of these sounds:
• *Laminal, articulated with the foremost part of the blade of the tongue approaching the foremost part of the hard palate, with the tip of the tongue resting behind either upper or lower front teeth.
• *Apico-laminal, articulated with the tip of the tongue approaching the gums and the foremost part of the blade approaching the foremost part of the hard palate. According to, this variant is used more frequently.
• has a number of possible realizations:
• * Voiced apical coronal trill, either alveolar, or dental.
• ** Distribution: Common in the south, but it is also found in some speakers in central and northern Germany, especially the elderly. It is also one of possible realizations of in the Standard Austrian accent, but a more common alveolar realization is an approximant. Even more common are uvular realizations, fricatives and a trill.
• * Voiced uvular trill, which can be realized as voiceless after voiceless consonants. According to it is often a flap intervocalically.
• ** Distribution: Occurs in some conservative varieties—most speakers with a uvular realize it as a fricative or an approximant. It is also one of possible realizations of in the Standard Austrian accent, but it is less common than a fricative.
• * Dorsal continuant, about the quality of which there is not a complete agreement:
• ** describe two fricative variants, namely post-palatal and velar fricative|velar]. The post-palatal variant appears before and after front vowels, while the velar variant is used in all other positions.
• ** describe it as a voiced post-velar fricative.
• ** and describe it as a voiced uvular fricative ;
• *** states that "with educated professional radio and TV announcers, as with professional actors on the stage and in film, the fricative clearly predominates."
• **** In the Standard Austrian accent, the uvular fricative is also the most common realization, although its voicing is variable.
• *** writes that "the place of articulation of the consonant varies from uvular in e.g. rot to velar in e.g. treten, depending on back or front vowel contexts." He also notes that is devoiced after voiceless plosives and fricatives, especially those within the same word, giving the word treten as an example. According to this author, can be reduced to an approximant in an intervocalic position.
• ** describe it as a uvular fricative or approximant. The latter is less likely to occur word-initially.
• ** Distribution: Almost all areas apart from Bavaria and parts of Switzerland.
• * Near-open central unrounded vowel is a post-vocalic allophone of varieties of. The non-syllabic variant of it is not always near-open or central; it is similar to either or, depending on the environment.
• ** Distribution: Widespread, but less common in Switzerland.
• * Retroflex approximant realized like the r in Standard American English.
• ** Distribution: Middle Hessian between the Wetterau region and the Westerwald and the Higher Lusatia.
• The voiceless stops,, are aspirated except when preceded by a sibilant. Many southern dialects do not aspirate, and some northern ones do so only in a stressed position. The voiceless affricates,, and are never aspirated, and neither are any other consonants besides the aforementioned.
• The obstruents are voiceless lenis consonants in southern varieties. Voiceless lenis consonants continue to contrast with voiceless fortis consonants. The section covers the issue in more detail.
• In Austria, intervocalic can be lenited to fricatives.
• Before and after front vowels, the velar consonants are realized as post-palatal. According to, in a parallel process, before and after back vowels are retracted to post-velar or even uvular.
• There is no complete agreement about the nature of ; it has been variously described as:
• *a fricative,
• *a fricative which can be fricated less strongly than,
• *a sound variable between a weak fricative and an approximant, and
• *an approximant, which is the usual realization in the Standard Austrian variety.
• In many varieties of standard German, the glottal stop,, occurs in careful speech before word stems that begin with a vowel and before stressed vowels word-internally, as in Oase . It is much more frequent in northern varieties than in the south. It is not usually considered a phoneme. In colloquial and dialectal speech, is often omitted, especially when the word beginning with a vowel is unstressed.
• The phonemic status of affricates is controversial. The majority view accepts and, but not or the non-native ; some accept none, some accept all but, and some accept all.
• *Although occurs in native words, it only appears in historic clusters of + or in words with expressive quality. is, however, well-established in loanwords, including German toponyms of non-Germanic origin.
• * and occur only in words of foreign origin. In certain varieties, they are replaced by and altogether.
• is occasionally considered to be an allophone of, especially in southern varieties of German.
• and are traditionally regarded as allophones after front vowels and back vowels, respectively. For a more detailed analysis see below at ich-Laut and ach-Laut. According to some analyses, is an allophone of after and according to some also after. However, according to, the uvular allophone is used after only in the Standard Austrian variety.
• Some phonologists do not posit a separate phoneme and use instead, along with instead of. The phoneme sequence is realized as when can start a valid onset of the next syllable whose nucleus is a vowel other than unstressed,, or. It becomes otherwise. For example:
• *Diphthong
• *diphthongieren
• *Englisch
• *Anglo
• *Ganges ~

''Ich-Laut'' and ''ach-Laut''

Fortis–lenis pairs

Coda devoicing

Stress

• final stress: Eleˈfant, Krokoˈdil, Kaˈmel
• penultimate stress: ˈTurban, ˈKonsul, ˈBison
• antepenultimate stress: ˈPinguin, ˈRisiko, ˈMonitor

• final stress: Shoˈgun, Samuˈrai
• penultimate stress: Mitsuˈbishi, Ikeˈbana
• antepenultimate stress: Hiˈroshima, ˈOsaka

• Words beginning with be-, ge-, er-, ver-, zer-, ent-, emp- and a few other inseparable prefixes are stressed on the root.
• Words beginning with the separable prefixes ab-, auf-, ein-, vor-, and most prepositional adverbs are stressed on the prefix.
• Some prefixes, notably über-, unter-, um-, and durch-, can function as separable or inseparable prefixes and are stressed or not accordingly.
• A few homographs with such prefixes exist. They are not perfect homophones. Consider the word umschreiben. As ˈum•schreiben, it means 'to rewrite' and is pronounced, with stress on the first syllable. Its associated noun, die ˈUmschreibung is also stressed on the first syllable –. On the other hand, umˈschreiben is pronounced, with stress on the second syllable. This word means 'to paraphrase', and its associated noun, die Umˈschreibung is also stressed on the second syllable –. Another example is the word umˈfahren; with stress on the root it means 'to drive around ', and with stress on the prefix it means 'to run down/over' or 'to knock down'.

Acquisition

General

Vowel space development

Nasals

Phonotactic constraints and reading

Sound changes

Sound changes and mergers

Middle High German

Loanwords

Loanwords from English

• English are usually pronounced as in RP or General American; some speakers replace them with and respectively e.g. Thriller.
• English can be pronounced the same as in English, i.e., or as the corresponding native German e.g. Rock or. German and Austrian speakers tend to be variably rhotic when using English loanwords.
• English is often replaced with German e.g. Whisky.
• word-initial is often retained, but many speakers replace it with e.g. Sound.
• word-initial and are usually retained, but some speakers replace them with and e.g. Steak or, Spray or.
• English is usually retained, but in Northern and Western Germany as well as Luxembourg, it is often replaced with e.g. Chips.
• In Northern Standard German, final-obstruent devoicing is applied to English loan words just as to other words e.g. Airbag, Lord or, Backstage. However, in Southern Standard German, in Swiss Standard German and Austrian Standard German, final-obstruent devoicing does not occur and so speakers are more likely to retain the original pronunciation of word-final lenes.
• English and are often replaced with and respectively e.g. Homepage.
• English and are pronounced the same, as German e.g. Backup.
• English and are pronounced the same, as German e.g. Box.
• English is usually pronounced as German e.g. Cutter.
• English is usually pronounced as German e.g. Shirt or.
• English is pronounced as e.g. Whisky.

Loanwords from French

Sample

Orthographic version