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Archive 1Archive 2

Sample

The sample section reads "The speaker transcribed in the narrow transcription is 62 years old, and he is reading in a colloquial style.". While this might be true for the transcription itself, the paragraph is accompanied by a voice sample of a very young speaker, presumably User:Jeytas, added in this revision:

The North Wind and the Sun
Traditional fable
Problems playing this file? See media help.

I think the distinction should be clarified in the text somewhere. I'm also not sure if the voice sample qualifies as an approximate rendering of the transcription.

Tomalak (talk) 06:33, 1 July 2015 (UTC)

Done. Peter238 (talk) 10:23, 1 July 2015 (UTC)

Please remove the sample. This is definitely NOT a good example of german "high" pronounciation, not even of every-day pronounciation. It is very sloppy, has irregular accentuation and breathing rythm and is in general hard to understand. As a native speaker I had a hard time understanding it (and even identifying it as german!) when I listened to it for the first time. A non-native listener would maybe not understand it at all I guess. Thank you! --188.100.211.242 (talk) 21:16, 1 September 2017 (UTC)

Can you record a better one to replace it? Mr KEBAB (talk) 21:19, 1 September 2017 (UTC)
It is instructive to compare our recording to Klaus Kohler's recording that can be downloaded from https://www.internationalphoneticassociation.org/content/ipa-handbook-downloads. (Unzip German.zip then navigate to the Narrative folder. The full transcription is on p. 88 of the Handbook of the International Phonetic Association.) We have no license to use this on Wikipedia, though we could ask the IPA for such a permission, as we did with File:Recording of speaker of British English (Received Pronunciation).ogg. Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 22:04, 1 September 2017 (UTC)
Yes, that's the exact reason I removed a large part of it some months ago. It was a WP:COPYVIO to include the whole transcription without asking the IPA. Mr KEBAB (talk) 22:26, 1 September 2017 (UTC)

pronunciation of "ähre" and "ehre" etc.

This is a first good source (pp. 151 and 175) for describing the ghost phoneme or language phenomenon /ɛː/ better than the article does now. I'm already adding it as a reference (without yet quoting it) to be able to remove the uncalled-for insinuations of original research. These were obviously made by someone pushing their agenda. -- Anyone editing an article on German phonology should (and probably did) know that teachers have been trying to force children for hundreds of years to pronounce /ɛː/ even though this is based on a misinterpretation of spelling conventions that violates the German phonetic system.

There were and are many similar attempts by Siebs and others to try to force people to speak according to spelling conventions even when these violated phonetic principles of German. For example the attempt to try to force German speakers to pronounce "gab" with a /b/. These were never successful except in classrooms and at formal occasions. Everywhere else almost every German speaker has and will always pronounce "gab" with a /p/ and "ähre" = "ehre" and "bären" = "beeren". --Espoo (talk) 13:52, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

I strongly disagree. I'm a native German-speaker from the Rhineland. Our local dialects very precisely distinguish [e:] and [ɛ:] (and also [o:] and [ɔ:], [ø:] and [œ:] by the way). The merger of [e:] and [ɛ:] is most common in northern Germany, maybe in some other places too, but certainly not in the Rhineland. Probably teachers have tried to force children certain pronunciations, no doubt about that. But there are regional differences. And while northern Germans find it difficult to distinguish [e:] and [ɛ:], people where I come from find it difficult to distinguish (word-initial) [f] and [pf], which doesn't make them "ghost phonemes", as you put it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.206.60.123 (talk) 05:04, 10 December 2012 (UTC)
What this article says about [e:] and [ɛ:] not being phonemes is just "crap" (sorry to say). Yes, there are speakers with "an otherwise fairly standard idiolect" who can't distinguish them well, but there are also speakers with an otherwise fairly "un-standard" idiolect who can. The German standard pronunciation distinguishes them and therefore they are phonemes. And to me personally, several aspects of the Bühnensprache come unnatural (e.g. I merge unstressed vowels much more, unstressed u and o are the same to me). But [e:] vs. [ɛ:] is very, very natural to me. In fact, merging them is unnatural to me. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.83.243.177 (talk) 00:19, 11 December 2012 (UTC)
And by the way, the claim by some that they were indistinct is presented in the article with the - important - caveat except when self-censoring speech. Quod erat demonstrandum: you only self-censor your speech if you think that it really should be this way even if we are normally to lazy to pronounce the thing correctly. As minimal pairs are easy to find (Bären vs. Beeren) and the distinction is even clear enough to distinguish two grammatical forms of the same word which can occur in the same context but mean different things (gäbe vs. gebe), the phoneme obviously does exist. Only not all people realize it when speaking.--2001:A61:260D:6E01:A865:1FCA:DA8A:D95E (talk) 18:49, 9 December 2017 (UTC)
Or we could say, of course teachers have forced and, I guess, are still forcing their children to pronounce "Ähre" and "Ehre" correctly. This is part of the job description. But while I do vote against (as it were) the positivism of any "German is what the rules says it is", it just may be that they are thereby enforcing what is actually right; it also is just right that they are an important and influential part of the speakers' community.--2001:A61:260D:6E01:A865:1FCA:DA8A:D95E (talk) 18:56, 9 December 2017 (UTC)

Long vowels before ß

One of the 1996 spelling rules says that ß is to be used after a long vowel, but not after a short one. Ordinarily, a double s, like any other double consonant, would signal a short vowel. I learned German under the old rules, and I have trouble knowing when it's still permissible to use ß. Are there other guides for recognizing long vowels in written German, other than their not being followed by a double consonant—which obviously doesn't apply with ß? For example, how do we non-native speakers know that Spaß is correct, but Paß is incorrect, other than by looking each word up in the dictionary (or asking a native speaker)? It would be helpful if the article addressed this problem. J. D. Crutchfield | Talk 18:13, 29 January 2014 (UTC)

By remembering the pronunciation, of course. Otherwise... yes... look it up in a dictionary, or ask a native speaker. Sorry. The good point is that you do know how to pronounce the thing, afterwards. If you only intend to write the language - and I'm kind-of partial because I do consider the spelling-reform of 1996 an unnecessary and unaesthetic bureaucratic measure - then for all things in the world just write it as you learned it. No one will lecture you on that. No sensible teacher of German-for-foreigners ought to count that as a mistake; and certainly noone who is not a German teacher will count it as a mistake: many won't even recognize.
As a matter of fact, "Spaß" is correct, though many speakers do say what should be written "Spass". "Tschüß" (old style) can have both a long and a short vowel, though the Duden says that we have to write -ss now. At least Bavaria has a phonemic distinction between what would have to be written "Geschoß" (floor, as in first floor) and "Geschoss" (projectile), but Duden tells us both have to be written -ss now. As it appears, the old style may have made some sense after all.--2.236.198.248 (talk) 21:20, 7 February 2014 (UTC)
I don't think Duden says Bavarians have to write Geschoss, if they insist on pronouncing it funny. I think Duden prefers Tschüs. --Boson (talk) 21:32, 7 February 2014 (UTC)
The old spelling was about what follows after the 's' sound, the new spelling is a out what precedes the 's' sound. Those rules were more about the 'long s' and 's' and the consequences for 'ss' and 'ß' were logical from there (and from the design of the letters). When the Nazis banned the German scripts in favour of Latin ones and the 'long s' fell out of use the logic behind those rules became hidden. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%9F#Historical_orthography 2003:D2:9732:7473:5E4:C631:317D:1FF7 (talk) 00:57, 6 January 2018 (UTC)

Standard or Austrian

Standard German or Hochdeutsch as it still is currently called in Germany is - as anyone knows - the non-dialectal type of German spoken in Northern Germany, particularly the Hanover or, as some say, even more the Cottbus region. - Anyone knows that Austrian German, with all the remarkable charm it undisputably possesses, is simply not Standard German. Digressions like this -

"Austrian German often uses the laminal denti-alveolar articulation. /l/ is always clear [l], as in most Irish English accents. A few Austrian accents may use a velarized [ɫ] instead, but that is considered non-standard. In the Standard Austrian variety, /k/ may be affricated to [k͡x] before front vowels.[43] /t͡s, s, z/ can be laminal alveolar [t̻͡s̻, s̻, z̻],[44][45][46] laminal post-dental [t̪͡s̪, s̪, z̪][44][46] (i.e. fronted alveolar, articulated with the blade of the tongue just behind upper front teeth),[44] or even apical alveolar [t̺͡s̺, s̺, z̺].[44][45][46] Austrian German often uses the post-dental articulation. /s, z/ are always strongly fricated.[47]"

just do not belong here any more than Standard Bavarian or Standard Amisch or Standard Hutterite or all the other German dialects for that matter. - They all are simply not Standard German. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.123.113.226 (talk) 12:00, 19 July 2016 (UTC)

The prescriptive POV you are expressing which only recognizes northern Germany German as true German used to be mainstream, but the consensus has changed, see esp. de:Standarddeutsch#Plurizentrik ab dem Ende des 20. Jahrhunderts, but also Standard German#Pluricentricity or the lead of this article. --mach 🙈🙉🙊 16:54, 19 July 2016 (UTC)
Ditto. This is no 1900, there is such a thing as "Standard Austrian accent", there's even a JIPA (a highly respected phonetic journal) article that describes that variety. Mr KEBAB (talk) 19:09, 23 July 2016 (UTC)
I may be wrong, but I can't help feeling that 87.123.113.226's attitude is triggered by the denial of an Austrian ethnicity which might help explain why they are concerned with Jews (considering them of Isreali origin even if born long before the foundation of the State of Israel). Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 20:00, 23 July 2016 (UTC)
Actually, 87.123.113.226's attitude is certainly not triggered by a denial of Austrian ethnicity, which would be the only sensible position around in any case; nor does the link actually link to a discussion about Austrian ethnicity. Noone in his senses holds that Austrians are ethnically different from Germans, or from Swiss-Germans (or indeed from Czechs were it not for the fact that they speak another language). What it does link to, and what may perhaps be responsible for his attitude, is a denial of Austrian national identity, which is a rather different subject.--2001:A61:20E7:E901:2CA8:8671:4253:DC86 (talk) 19:34, 17 November 2017 (UTC)
Please read the article Austrians, at least the hatnote and the intro where Austrians are described as a "Germanic ethnic group ... closely related to neighboring Germans, Liechtensteiners and German-speaking Swiss." Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 20:49, 17 November 2017 (UTC)
That has a "may" before it, and, in any case, can be valid only by stretching the definition of "ethnic group" to breaking point. The general tenor of the wikipedia-Article Austrians is that they are Germanic nation, which they are. They are identity-wise different from the Germans. They are standard-language-wise different from the Germans, if slightly and as part of one actual language. They are however not ethnically different from them, just as little as (for instance) Croats and Serbs, or Union and Confederate (both white) at the time of the American Civil War.--2001:A61:20E7:E901:2CA8:8671:4253:DC86 (talk) 00:45, 18 November 2017 (UTC)

Question: nasal vowels

Are't some German words borrowed from French, e.g. Restaurant, pronounced with nasal vowels? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ilyats (talk • contribs) 18:57, 16 April 2017 (UTC)

That's correct. Nasal vowels seem to be missing here but you can find this piece of information at Help:IPA for German.
P.S.: In colloquial speech German nasal vowels have alternative pronunciations vowel+nasal consonant, see Help:IPA for German#cite_note-nasalV-8. Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 19:27, 16 April 2017 (UTC)
Is [œ̃] sound preserved in German? AFAIK, it merged with [ɛ̃] in Northern France, including Paris.Ilyats (talk) 01:06, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
Yes it is. Once German speakers have learned to convert oral vowels into nasals they have little problem to differentiate between [œ̃] and [ɛ̃], as French Canadians and many others still do. Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 20:19, 16 April 2017 (UTC)
Either way it is worth noting that the seventh edition of Das Aussprachewörterbuch has actually ditched the distinction, so that they prescribe [ɛ̃] for both. Mr KEBAB (talk) 20:22, 16 April 2017 (UTC)
Shows that you should never trust any prescriptive grammar. A pronunciation like */ˈparfɛ̃ː/ etc. would be highly unusual. I have never heard anything but /ˈparfœ̃ː/. --mach 🙈🙉🙊 07:07, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
Hmm, strange. I thought they did their research. Thanks. Mr KEBAB (talk) 10:25, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
In fact, [ɛ̃ː] is rather usually spoken as if it were [aː] here, with the light a, not the dark a of course; and I do have heard [pa'fa:], in fact the stress (upwards presented as on the first syllable) is always on the second as in the original French. That said, 1. one might as well explain that after the French seem to have dropped the [œ̃]/[ɛ̃] distinction and usually render all these nasals with the letter one in their dictionaries, the German dictionary writers might well follow suit; "who are we to correct the French in the matter of their own language". 2. Where I come from, this specific word is usually spoken as if it were French but without the nasal, i. e. the u is an ü (not an u), but no nasalization (and of course the p is aspirated except in dialect, even though it isn't in French): [pʰar'fy:m] or [pʰar'fʏm] (of course the [r] can be replaced by lengthening the [a]).--2001:A61:2081:2001:8C4A:6F75:674F:2721 (talk) 15:54, 4 August 2017 (UTC)
German pronunciation is not about pronouncing French, though, it is about pronouncing German words that might be loaned from French. A French dictionary dropping the distinction is irrelevant to the German reality. The Duden is (again) trying to prescribe how German should work in their opinion without care how it does work in reality. They are quite arrogant in that regard. 2003:D2:9732:7410:5E4:C631:317D:1FF7 (talk) 01:13, 6 January 2018 (UTC)
It's not really about French dictionaries but speakers of Parisian French no longer making the distinction. That's quite different. Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 13:21, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
Another step Duden does away from reality then. /ˈparfɛ̃ː/ definitely sounds like a speech defect. Korn (talk) 13:45, 24 August 2017 (UTC)

'ch' is simply an allophone of 'h'

intervocalically (unstressed syllable) & in coda. There is no need to list it as a phoneme. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Yoandri Dominguez Garcia (talk • contribs) 05:25, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

If you have a reliable source, go ahead and add it to the article by all means. Showing that it is only a minority interpretation would be up to us other editors, by finding our own reliable sources. --mach 🙈🙉🙊 06:12, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
How do you explain intervocalic [h] in words like Ahorn, Oheim, Mahagoni, Uhu, ahoi etc.? Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 16:24, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
@LiliCharlie: What about A-horn, O-heim, Ma-hagoni, U-hu and a-hoi? These instances of /h/ can still be analyzed as being the syllable onset. Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 13:18, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
@Kbb2: This discussion was started 62 minutes after I reverted Yoandri Dominguez Garcia and suggested Bu·che and A·chat as examples of /x/ being the syllable onset, see here. Their next step was to introduce the intervocalic [x] rule (/h/→[x]/V_V). Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 17:14, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
A no-brainer: you can easily analyze them as /buːh.e, ah.aːt/. 😉 mach 🙈🙉🙊 22:45, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
/ah.aːt/ is a good one. Also Chinese [çiˈneːzə] can easily be analysed as /h.iːn.ˈeːz.e/ and Chanuka [xanuˈkaː] as /h.aːn.uːk.ˈaː/. 😉 Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 00:57, 6 July 2018 (UTC)

needless to say, thems borrowings and mean nothing toward the native inventory . plus thems also spelling ptonunciations Yoandri Dominguez Garcia 04:01, 22 September 2018 (UTC)

also, "syllable onset" aint utterance initial. Yoandri Dominguez Garcia 04:09, 22 September 2018 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Yoandri Dominguez Garcia (talk • contribs)

in the example (north wind...) they show /gehylt/ and /daher/, but -hylt- is stressed and /daher/ is a compound, needless to say. Yoandri Dominguez Garcia 04:17, 22 September 2018 (UTC)

thats not a glottal stop between nasals

In section 5.1 about sound changes and mergers it is said that 'Lampen' had a glottal stop between the two spoken 'm's at the end. I myself have a velopharyngal stop ([1]) and some others i asked just alike. Again others were found doing a glottal fricative. Noone could be found though that used a glottal stop. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ninjamin (talk • contribs) 16:02, 9 July 2018 (UTC)

Is Hanover most similar to a/the standard?

This page used to say that Hanover is the city whose pronunciation is closest to being an example of "standard" pronunciation for Germany. This and other Wikipedia pages have said this, or similar, since at least February 2006[2]. Nobody claimed the statement wasn't true, but it did get a "citation needed", which is reasonable, and then more recently it got deleted.

But was it true? So I looked only for things published before Feb 2006, and found that even before Wikipedia started spreading it, people already saw the German spoken in Hanover as exemplifying the standard:

Since the statement was uncontroversial on Wikipedia for twelve years and was only removed because no one bothered finding a reference, I'm going to re-add it with these pre-2006 references. I'm sure that better sources exist, but I don't have Duden 6 or any translator or TV producer manuals. If someone has a reference in some such work, please add that. Great floors (talk) 19:32, 8 August 2018 (UTC)

Read this: Nicht das beste Hochdeutsch in Hannover ("Not the best standard German in Hanover"), an interview with linguist Michael Elmentaler. Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 20:56, 8 August 2018 (UTC)
Brilliant :-) So many ways to summarise that interview...
  • "Linguist from Kiel says Kiel German is as good as Hanover German"
  • or "Interviewer says Hanover German is regarded as best; Expert doesn't dispute it but points out that, oh yeah, but Hanover teenagers make abbreviations and Hanover market traders lengthen vowels" (I can't think of a language where teens and traders don't do those things)
But, being serious, the interviewer said it two or three times and the expert never disputed that people regard Hanover as the standard, so the interview confirms that this is the prevailing view and only adds that there's one expert who disagrees. And actually he doesn't say that Hanover isn't closest to the standard, he just says that he considers other nearby regions to be as good as Hanover, and that not all people in Hanover talk like newsreaders. That's a fair summary, isn't it? Great floors (talk) 22:10, 8 August 2018 (UTC)
In other words, it is a widespread myth. In my opinion, a noteworthy one. Here is the hard evidence by Elmentaler:
  • Elmentaler, Michael (2012): “In Hannover wird das beste Hochdeutsch gesprochen”. In: Anderwald, L. (ed.): Sprachmythen – Fiktion oder Wirklichkeit? (= Kieler Forschungen zur Sprachwissenschaft, 3), pp. 101–116. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang Verlag.
I think we best cite both the newspaper article and the linguistic article. --mach 🙈🙉🙊 06:04, 9 August 2018 (UTC)
Ok, two links for Elmentaler's statements.
So the situation remains that most people, including Elmentaler, agree that that Hanover is generally considered the best example of standard German. Elmentaler's addition is that, while he confirms that Hanover has this status, he thinks the German of his city should be considered equally good. Great floors (talk) 07:57, 9 August 2018 (UTC)
I've re-added it now with four references.[3] I added Elmentaler's article and quoted the bit where he says Hanover is close to standard but so is Kiel and Hanover isn't unique/exceptional. The article intro isn't the place for a detailed discussion, and adding a sentence just for one linguist's views (or just five or ten linguists) would be undue weight - but it would be great to work on a detailed discussion of this topic in the main body of the article! Great floors (talk) 10:54, 13 August 2018 (UTC)

Relevant discussion at Talk:Mid central vowel#Challenging the recent edits by Kbb2, especially concerning German

--mach 🙈🙉🙊 17:01, 4 November 2018 (UTC)

Diphthong 'eu' as /ɔʏ̯/ ?

In my experience as a native german speaker eu is most often pronounced as [ɔj] or by some speakers as [ɔi] or [ɔʝ]. I've heard [o̞ʊ] used by polititians in speeches, but never [ɔʏ̯] or anything similar. Sorry for the lack of objectivity and concreteness. It would also be nice to add examples to the three Diphthongs as the pronunciation of 'ei' and 'eu' is not evident from the orthography. Sorry for my rudeness (?). LonleyGhost (talk) 14:58, 11 January 2019 (UTC)

@LonleyGhost: It's definitely not [oʊ] in Standard German. What you heard as that diphthong is, in fact, what we transcribe [ɔʏ], perhaps with a more central second element ([ɔɵ]). You probably misheard that as [oʊ]. Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 15:08, 11 January 2019 (UTC)
@LonleyGhost: Listen to this: Die Kleider machen nicht nur Leute, sondern auch Läuse. Doesn't that sound like a native Standard German pronunciation to you? Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 15:26, 11 January 2019 (UTC)

@Kbb2: You're probably right about the [oʊ]. I went over a particular recording where it was repeatadly pronounced that way, but I'm as it seems not quite good enough to pick out this detail.

@LiliCharlie: Yes your absolutely right. Maybe this is a regional variation or similar??? But [ɔj] still seems kinda "less dialectal" to me (I'm an immigrant but lifelong german native speaker in southern Hessen fyi.). Love --LonleyGhost (talk) 20:07, 11 January 2019 (UTC)

@LonleyGhost: My mom grew up in Hesse [ˈhɛs(ə)] too, and her /ɔʏ/ ended without a trace of lip rounding as well. I don't consider this pronunciation broadly dialectal, it's rather a regionalism that you can hear in many parts of the German-speaking world. However, professional speakers—actors, news anchors, announcers, etc.—are usually trained to produce /ɔʏ/ with lip rounding throughout. Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 20:45, 11 January 2019 (UTC)

Phonemic status of /ɛː/

Can we get rid of that section? It doesn't really read neutral, and the author clearly seemed to have a strong agenda. The motivations escape me. Half the stuff that is cited is not contained in the source, and half the points don't even have any bearing towards the status of /ɛː/ as a phoneme. The German article doesn't mention any of these points.

The first sentence is completely fine, but then it gets weird quickly. Let me go through the points one by one (I'm summarizing):

- "It is under debate if /ɛː/ occurs outside of consciously 'self-censored' speech."

The source given makes no such claim. As a native Standard German speaker who has the /ɛː/-/eː/ contrast, this statement is borderline irritating.

- "It is an irregularity in the vowel system."

... okay? Lots of vowel systems have irregularities.

- "Some dialects have the /ɛː/-/eː/ distinction, but they don't agree which words have which."

No sources and no example are given. Although it is definitely true that some speakers live somewhere in between both worlds and will uphold the distinction in some words but not in others. My wife does that, for example. But that's pretty much always the case in ongoing sound changes, and I don't think that's what's meant here.

- "It is a 'spelling pronunciation' and not an original feature of the language."

Again, not relevant to the phonemic status. The history of its development doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

- "Speakers in general have trouble speaking phrases with 'correct' pronunciation"

Now that's just made up. The source given doesn't make any such claim. Of course, it can be true for some speakers whose variety of Standard German or their native dialect don't have the contrast and who are making an effort to sound "correct". Of which there are plenty, as mentioned at the bottom of the section right above. Nobody disputes that there are a lot of German speakers which don't have the distinction, but that doesn't mean it's not a phoneme for the rest of them. And it doesn't mean that "It is debated whether [ɛː] [...] even exists". That's just plain ridiculous.

Flubl (talk) 22:20, 21 January 2019 (UTC)

It seems to me your reservations are fully justified. Just go ahead. --mach 🙈🙉🙊 17:56, 22 January 2019 (UTC)
Would Florian Blaschke care to discuss why this got reverted? I've read the sole source, to my understanding it does not say what's claimed in the article. The source does not question the modern existence of /ɛː/ but explains its appearance in New High German while supposedly not existing Middle High German. The source describes the differentiation of /ɛː/ and /eː/ as a rare yet symptomatic example of written language influencing spoken language. --2001:4DD5:23D2:0:4C56:9A4D:9F71:BC29 (talk) 22:23, 19 March 2020 (UTC)
Because cited information cannot simply be deleted altogether. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 05:37, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

[ɦ] as an allophone of /h/?

I don't have sources or similar. I've heard people use [ɦ] as an allophone of /h/. I guess it's not absolutely common in regular speech, but it seems something worth mentioning in the footnotes, if there is actual substance behind that. In my experience it's usend when dragging the sound out or over-emphasizing it, espesially as the first phoneme in a word. --LonleyGhost (talk) 15:54, 20 June 2019 (UTC)

@LonleyGhost: /h/ doesn't participate in any fortis-lenis contrast, so [ɦ] is absolutely a possible allophone. Whether it's used commonly or sporadically is another question, but my bet is on the latter (German isn't Dutch). I don't hear it with any great frequency. Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 20:24, 20 June 2019 (UTC)
@LonleyGhost and Kbb2: I'd be interested in a concrete example – the only example I can think of, and which I've seen mentioned, is Uhu /ˈuːhuː/ being realised as [ˈuːɦu]. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 01:53, 29 April 2020 (UTC)
I've looked into it again and I can't find anything that would suggest such a thing. Honestly I wrote this before I read the talk page guidelines, so I wasn't really that aware of WP:TALK#FACTS .--LonleyGhost (talk) 10:52, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

Listing of x and not χ??

Hi, I just thought I'd raise this issue because my attempt to give mention to χ as a note in Help:IPA/Standard German just got reverted by User:Erutuon on the basis that the voiceless uvular fricative is not listed while the voiceless velar fricative [x] is listed. So because of this, I'm just wondering whether if there is a way this symbol can be listed either here or in the IPA page or if there is a policy on IPA writing on this because to me, its totally absurd to exclude mention of the voiceless uvular fricative even in the IPA:Standard German page because even though I'm not a German speaker, I have heard that sound being used by some German speakers speaking Standard German, while IPA articles like Help:IPA/Arabic and Help:IPA/Dutch do give mention to the [χ] symbol as a note even though they are mostly mentioned/listed as [x]. I would be grateful if anyone can put me in the right direction on this, many thanks. Broman178 (talk) 08:06, 6 November 2019 (UTC)

Dental tap/flap

@Kwamikagami: Unlike the 6th edition, in the 7th edition of Das Aussprachewörterbuch there's indeed no mention of a dental flap, but they do menton an alveolar flap (p. 51). Krech et al. isn't the only reliable source on German pronunciation. Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 08:28, 17 December 2019 (UTC)

That's fine. Would you mind fixing it up, since you're familiar w the sources? I'm going over a number of articles where we may be confusing short trills with flaps. — kwami (talk) 09:11, 17 December 2019 (UTC)

It is interesting to note that Kohler (1995:165) speaks of an apikaler Vibrant [r] bzw. die Reduktion zum Schlag [ɾ], that is, he feels no need to specify the passive articulator. Generally, German apical consonants tend to be dental in southern Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, and alveolar in northern Germany. I don't remember where, but I'm sure the "standard" pronunciation of those consonants has also been described as "dent(i)-alveolar", i.e. with the tongue tip touching the point where the upper teeth and the alveolar ridge meet. Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 10:56, 17 December 2019 (UTC)

/x/ after vocalized /r/

Moved from User talk:Kbb2 § German /x/ after vocalized /r/
 – Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 11:00, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

Hi, I recently did a bluesky-edit[4] to Standard German phonology, but would still feel better if I had a source for it. On a first lazy search, I couldn't find any; there's a lot of recent good research about the distribution of vocalized /r/ after short vowels among various speaker groups, but none of these is concerned with the realization of /x/ in this context. Sure enough, only Bavarians have a (post-)velar here (among those who have a ich-ach-variation, Alemannic is self-explanatory). Do you happen to know a source for that? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Austronesier (talk • contribs) 15:13, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

@Austronesier: I'll try to look for one, I think I might have something. Meanwhile, should we add a note that [ʊɐ̯] is reanalyzed as a vocalic phoneme /ʊɐ̯/ that behaves like a phonological back vowel? The whole thing is unsourced, but this also seems to be self-evident to me. Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 16:03, 23 April 2020 (UTC)
I guess you mean front vowel, since it triggers [ç]. Actually the IPA Handbook comes close to what I'm looking for, since there, the [Vɐ̯] diphthongs are considered realizations of /Vʁ/ (and Kohler does not restrict vocalized R to /V:ʁ/), and [ç] is the variant of /x/ after front vowels and consonants. Read "consonants" = "consonant phonemes" here (that's the only "OR" needed), and /fʊʁxt/ becomes [fʊɐ̯çt] by Kohler's rules. Unfortunately, it remains implicit. But yeah, my L1 intuition actually better goes with your treatment of /Vɐ̯/ as a phonemic diphthong, which behaves structurally like a front vowel in combination with /x/. –Austronesier (talk) 18:36, 23 April 2020 (UTC)
@Austronesier: I meant a back (or a non-front, if that's how you prefer to call it) vowel. What I meant is that what is analyzed as /ʊr/ in Standard German seems to be reanalyzed in (some?) Bavarian SG as a vocalic phoneme /ʊɐ̯/ as it triggers the back /x/, rather than the front /ç/ (I prefer to treat them as phonemes for the sake of simplicity). According to Wiese [ɐ̯] is featurally indistinguishable from [a], which isn't phonemically front. I'm fine with treating it and its long version as back, as /aː/ is umlauted to /ɛː/, just like /oː/ and /uː/ are umlauted to /øː, yː/. I think that this classification of German vowels is just as logical as Wiese's:
CLOSE /iː yː uː/
MID /ɪ eː ʏ øː ʊ oː/
OPEN /ɛ ɛː œ a aː ɔ (ɔː)/
Where we deal away with the close-mid–open-mid distinction and reclassify the phonetically open-mid vowels as phonemically open (and the lax close vowels as phonemically mid, as they have the same height as /eː øː oː/) because /ɛː/ is the umlauted version of /aː/ and /œ ɔ/ sound very similar to [ɶ ɒ] anyway. The additional vowel /ɔː/ might occur as the product of vocalization of /ɔr/ (or perhaps also /oːr/) instead of [ɔɐ̯], and it should be assigned a phonemic status for speakers who monophthongize those sequences (|aːr| is absolutely /aː/ in the vocalizing areas - [aːɐ̯] is practically non-existent and even Duden admits that). I analyze /a aː/ as back and /ɔ ɔː/ as their rounded counterparts (so that there are no phonemic central vowels, perhaps save for the schwa - but that's featureless in Wiese's analysis, AFAIK). I'd be fine with this transcription by the way:
CLOSE /iː yː uː/
MID /e eː ø øː o oː/
OPEN /æ æː ɶ ɑ ɑː ɒ (ɒː)/
Looks like Ripuarian/Limburgish to me :P Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 11:37, 25 April 2020 (UTC)
Limburgish is not that different indeed ;). Good that you mention the common variant [ɔ:] for [ɔɐ̯]. You will even have it in Gorch Fock [gɔ:ç fɔk], with a palatal [ç] after an undoubtedly back vowel. –Austronesier (talk) 12:02, 25 April 2020 (UTC)
@Austronesier: Here's a problem: [aːɐ̯] is almost nonexistent, |aːr| is /aː/ (not [aː], if the consonant is systematically elided then that elision is phonemic) for speakers who vocalize /r/ and even Duden admits it. If /x/ can occur in this position (and that's including the fricativized plosives), then /ç/ is undoubtedly phonemic. If it can't, it's still phonemic for (most) speakers who vocalize after short vowels. This is why /ɔː/ can be considered a phoneme in some varieties. Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 14:35, 25 April 2020 (UTC)
I have the Bad-Bart-merger when I speak Hochdeutsch, so Arche [aːçə] and Lache [laːxə] form a near-minimal pair. The article also mentions this in "Sound changes and mergers", with Archen and Aachen as perfect minimal pair. It's unsourced but solid, so it would be good if we could add a source for that as well. –Austronesier (talk) 20:24, 25 April 2020 (UTC)
The biblical term Arche refers to one specific object and is never used in the plural, as far as I'm aware, though in the extremely rare figurative sense 'place of shelter, survival, or security' the plural Archen might be attested. Or not. — For other uses see de:Arche; article de:Archen doesn't exist. Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 23:53, 25 April 2020 (UTC)
Arche is a weak feminine noun, and until the late 18th century, such nouns had final -n in the non-nominative cases ("festgemauert in der Erden"). So at least when reading aloud old sermons dating up to 1800CE (Luther: "Denn da Noah aufhöret zu predigen / und in die Archen gieng"; the Lutherbibel has "Kasten"), I would produce [a:çn̩]. Ok this is archaic usage, but Duden actually lists the plural, maybe because Arche is used for interdenominational social projects (similar to die Tafel) in many cities, and as such is well-attested in the plural form.–Austronesier (talk) 09:52, 26 April 2020 (UTC)
@Austronesier: Archen is /ˈarçən/, with a short vowel. I'm talking about |aːr|, which is supposedly /aːr/ but is actually /aː/. Both the transcription [aːɐ̯] and the phonemic analysis /aːr/ are very dubious. In vocalizing areas, there's no difference between /aːr/ and /aː/ and so the merger is phonemic. This is consistent with the analysis of |ər| as /ɐ/. It's the merger of /ar/ and /aː/ that is variable (though common in SG), and might not occur in local SG.
Wiese says that there are no length (not tenseness, length) differences before /r/, particularly when it comes to the open central vowels. When the consonant is vocalized, they aren't differentiated. He also says that the diphthongs starting with a tense vowel tend to be laxed in many cases. The authors of the 7th edition of Das Aussprachewörterbuch state that there's very rarely a difference between what they transcribe [aːɐ̯] and [aː] and |aːr| is most typically realized with a fully elided consonant. We should find a source that says that this elision is phonemic, because it sure as hell is. Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 08:08, 26 April 2020 (UTC)
I agree that /aːr/ and [aːɐ̯] for |aːr| are (almost/completely?) spurious in natural speech, even if |r| resurfaces somewhere else in the paradigm in non-vocalizing position (Haar → Haare, ihr fahrt → ich fahre). I.e. fahrt [fa:t] is homophonous with fad. The difference between |aːr| and |ar| is still phonemic for many speakers in vocalizing position: fahrt [fa:t] ~ starrt [ʃtaʁt]. For many others it is a perfect rhyme pair [fa:t] ~ [ʃta:t], and the contrast only resurfaces elsewhere (fahre [fa:ʁə] ~ starre [ʃtaʁə]). –Austronesier (talk) 10:22, 26 April 2020 (UTC)
@Austronesier: That's exactly like the word-internal linking /r/ and the intervocalic contrast /ær/ vs. /ɑːr/ in RP (in Northern Germany, even the quality of the vowels can be the same). Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 10:38, 26 April 2020 (UTC)
Here's a few citations:
Kohler (²1995:160) says: "Der Artikulationsort von /x/ variiert zwischen palatal und velar. Der palatale Frikativ steht nach den vorderen Vokalen – einschließlich der Diphthonge, die auf vorderen Vokal ausgehen – sowie nach den Konsonanten /l, r, n/, ferner wort- und morpheminitial; ... [ç] in ... Storch ..." And on page 166: "Wortfinal wird /r/ zu einem Vokoid, der in seiner Qualität sehr stark schwankt ... Vor Konsonant tritt zumindest nach langem Vokal derselbe Vokoid wie final ein: ..." (Note that Kohler makes a clear distinction between phonemic Vokal and Konsonant, and articulatorily defined Vokoid and Kontoid, see p. 61f.)
In chapter Die Standardaussprache in Deutschland Krech et al. (2009:83) say: "[ç] wird gesprochen für: ⟨ch⟩ nach den Vorderzungenvokalen ⟨e, i, ä, ö, ü, y⟩, nach den Diphthongen [aɛ̯] und [ɔœ̯] sowie nach Konsonanten, z.B. ... Furcht [fʊʶçt], ... Lerche [lˈɛʶçə] ..." In chapter Die Standardaussprache in Österreich they say (p. 242): "Velares [x] wird allgemein auch nach geriebenem velaren [ʁ] oder aus ⟨r⟩ vokalisiertem [ɐ] gesprochen, z.B. [kʰˈiʁxe̞], [kʰˈiᵄxe̞] Kirche, [lˈɛʁxe̞], [lˈɛᵄxe̞] Lerche und Lärche, [v̥ˈuʁxe̞], [v̥ˈuᵄxe̞] Furche, [hˈɔʁxŋ̍], [hˈɔᵄxŋ̍] horchen." And in chapter Die Standardaussprache in der deutschsprachigen Schweiz they say (p. 266): "Die so genannten ich- und ach-Laute weisen die gleiche Verteilung auf wie in Deutschland." (In their notation [ʶ] represents approximant [ʁ̞], [ᵄ] represents non-syllabic [ɐ̯] [both defined on p. 85], and the stress marker [ˈ] immediately precedes the neucleus ["Silbenkern"].)
Let me add a few personal observations: I have also heard Standard German speakers from Bavaria and Westphalia produce [x] after contoidal and vocoidal /r/, and many speakers from Switzerland produce (often trilled) [χ] or [x] for /x/ in all positions. Their speech seems to be considered a deviation from their respective national standards. Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 02:51, 24 April 2020 (UTC)
@LiliCharlie: Thanks for these citations, which adds to my frustration. Unless I have missed something, none of them corroborates the arguably most common pronunciation nowadays, viz. [ç] after [ɐ̯]. When Kohler (1995) writes "Vor Konsonant tritt zumindest nach langem Vokal derselbe Vokoid wie final ein", this exactly misses all cases of morpheme-internal /rx/, since all these come with a short vowel as far as I can think of (durch, Kirche, Lerche, horchen, Arche; Märchen has a long vowel, but a morpheme-break between /r/ and /x)). But [aɐ̯çə] or even [a:çə] Arche are just as common as [aʁçə].
Austrians and Bavarians (NB excluding the northern part, where speakers use [-ɐ̯ç] as in their East Franconian basilect) have [-ɐ̯x], that's their shibboleth, but Westphalia? People in a long stretch from Duisburg to Kassel produce [-χç]~[χɕ] (e.g. [dʊχç]~[dʊχɕ] durch), with stereotypical devoiced uvular /r/ before consonant ([ʃpɔχt] for Sport was a running gag in the German version of SNL). –Austronesier (talk) 07:47, 24 April 2020 (UTC)
I remember I first noticed certain Westphalians use [x] after /r/ in the early 1970s when I watched Jürgen von Manger's TV shows where he played the rôle of Ruhrdeutsch-speaking petty bourgeois Adolf Tegtmeier. Article de:Ruhrdeutsch says: "Im westfälisch geprägten, östlichen Randgebiet des Ruhrgebiets wird „ch“ nach vorderem Vokal + vokalisiertes „r“ (Kiache) häufig wie im Westfälischen (sic!) als velarer Reibelaut wie in ach ausgesprochen, während es im Hochdeutschen als stimmloser palataler Frikativ erscheint." (Note that all vowels preceding /r/ in coda are long/tense in this group of accents.) Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 18:37, 24 April 2020 (UTC)
@LiliCharlie: Tegtmeier, great idea, that has brought back memories. I've watched three sketches on Youtube, and yes, he said [t͡sʋɛɐ̯χ] "Zwerch" (= Zwerg) on one occasion. Never noticed that before. Thanks a lot for pointing that out! –Austronesier (talk) 10:54, 25 April 2020 (UTC)
Let me add that a posterodorsal fricative after /r/ in North Rhine-Westphalia is by no means restricted to Ruhrdeutsch. I have heard former German Vice-Chancellor and Chairman of the SPD Franz Müntefering from the Sauerland use it, and I once shared a flat with a guy from Münster who also did, though not in a consistent way. Those places are not exactly neighbouring. Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 12:38, 25 April 2020 (UTC)
Interesting – as a speaker of a very urban Bavarian dialect strongly influenced by Standard German, as well as Standard German with a fairly pronounced Bavarian accent, I say [d̥ʊɐ̯χ] for durch, and the variant with a palatal fricative sounds almost like [d̥ʊɪ̯ç] to me. I remember discussing the issue with linguist friends before, unfortunately only vaguely; I found the issue pretty puzzling. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 19:26, 26 April 2020 (UTC)
So Krech et al. is a reliable source for this phenomenon. That is good. We should be careful not to put any interpretations into the article that go beyond the sources, no matter how self-evident they may seem to us. If they really were all that evident, then it should be easy to find sources that back them up, evidently. --mach 🙈🙉🙊 20:44, 26 April 2020 (UTC)
@J. 'mach' wust: For the record, Krech et al. do not mention [ç] after vocalized [ɐ̯]. –Austronesier (talk) 09:58, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

Diphthongs

Where can I find further information on the difference between phonemic and phonetic diphthongs? The difference is clear, but I would like to know where these terms come from. — GPodkolzin Talk 14:19, 9 July 2021 (UTC)

Voiced sibilants

Related to the discussion further above, I'm surprised to find that there is no mention in the article of the fact that in some (southern) varieties of Standard German, voiced sibilants are consistently devoiced or even merge with their voiceless counterparts, at least in some environments (such as word-initially). As far as I'm aware, this is the case in Austrian Standard German and Swiss Standard German, for instance, and also in my own regional Bavarian-coloured variety of Standard German. Even in the north, /ʒ/ and /d͡ʒ/ are not always realised as such, and may not even be accepted as phonemes at all. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 17:40, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

There is a note to that regard: “The obstruents /b, d, ɡ, z, ʒ, dʒ/ are voiceless lenis [b̥, d̥, ɡ̊, z̥, ʒ̊, d̥ʒ̊] in southern varieties, and they contrast with voiceless fortis [p, t, k, s, ʃ, tʃ].” I am not entirely convinced of the latter part of that note. Devoiced [ʒ̊, d̥ʒ̊] merges with [ʃ, tʃ] – in stark contrast with devoiced [b̥, d̥, ɡ̊, z̥] which remain distinct from [p, t, k, s]. I am amending that note accordingly. --mach 🙈🙉🙊 19:04, 17 March 2023 (UTC)
Thank you! I used search strings like /z/, /z or z/, and completely missed that paragraph while skimming too. At least the paragraph is now improved (though it could use a reference). I just realised there's a whole section on the subject! --Florian Blaschke (talk) 23:29, 17 March 2023 (UTC)
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