Standard German phonology
It deals with current phonology and phonetics as well as with historical developments thereof as well as the geographical variants and the influence of German dialects.
While the spelling of German is officially standardised by an international organisation (the Council for German Orthography) the pronunciation has no official standard and relies on a de facto standard documented in reference works such as Deutsches Aussprachewörterbuch (German Pronunciation Dictionary) by Eva-Maria Krech et al.,[1] Duden 6 Das Aussprachewörterbuch (Duden volume 6, The Pronunciation Dictionary) by Max Mangold and the training materials of radio and television stations such as Westdeutscher Rundfunk, Deutschlandfunk, or Schweizer Radio und Fernsehen.
In dialects with r-vocalization, historical /a(ː)r/ (phonetically typically a long monophthong [äː]) may undergo a shortening akin to /aː/ when unstressed, as in one pronunciation of Radar 'radar' as [ˈʁaːda] (phonemically /ˈraːdaːr/).
[31] Most commonly, they are merged before an intervocalic /r/, so that potential minimal pairs such as Ähre 'ear of grain' and Ehre 'honor' or Bären 'bears' and Beeren 'berries' are rendered homophonous, as /ˈɛːrə/ and /ˈbɛːrən/.
Some authors claim that no distinction between /ɛː/ and /eː/ is possible in this position unless in hypercorrect pronunciation, in which Ehre and Beeren may be pronounced [ˈeːʁə] and [ˈbeːʁən], with a tense /eː/.
[32] Other authors claim that there is regional variation, a distinction occurring especially in southern varieties of Standard German.
[33] In contexts other than before intervocalic /r/, the contrast between /ɛː/ and /eː/ is more stable, so that bäten /ˈbɛːtən/ 'bid, conjunctive', Dänen /ˈdɛːnən/ 'Danes' and Sägen /ˈzɛːɡən/ ('saws, n.') may be differentiated from beten /ˈbeːtən/ 'to pray', dehnen /ˈdeːnən/ 'to stretch' and Segen /ˈzeːɡən/ 'blessing'.
[96] Usually, this ending triggers umlaut (compare for instance Hund [hʊnt] 'dog' to Hündchen [ˈhʏntçn̩] 'little dog'), so theoretically, it could only occur after front vowels.
However, it is by no means inevitable: Dutch, Yiddish, and many Southern German dialects retain [x] (which can be realized as [χ] instead) in all positions.
It is thus reasonable to assume that Old High German ih, the ancestor of modern ich, was pronounced with [x] rather than [ç].
Despite the phonetic history, the complementary distribution of [ç] and [x] in modern Standard German is better described as backing of /ç/ after a back vowel, rather than fronting of /x/ after a front vowel, because [ç] is used in onsets (Chemie [çeˈmiː] 'chemistry') and after consonants (Molch [mɔlç] 'newt'), and is thus the underlying form of the phoneme.
[100] The lenis consonants /b, d, ɡ, v, ð, z, ʒ, j, r, dʒ/[99] range from being weakly voiced to almost voiceless [b̥, d̥, ɡ̊, v̥, ð̥, z̥, ʒ̊, j̥, r̥, d̥ʒ̊] after voiceless consonants:[100] Kasbah [ˈkasb̥a] ('kasbah'), abdanken [ˈapd̥aŋkn̩] ('to resign'), rotgelb [ˈʁoːtɡ̊ɛlp] ('red-yellow'), Abwurf [ˈapv̥ʊʁf] ('dropping'), Absicht [ˈapz̥ɪçt] ('intention'), Holzjalousie [ˈhɔltsʒ̊aluziː] ('wooden jalousie'), wegjagen [ˈvɛkj̥aːɡn̩] ('to chase away'), tropfen [ˈtʁ̥ɔpfn̩] ('to drop'), Obstjuice [ˈoːpstd̥ʒ̊uːs] ('fruit juice').
Mangold (2005) states that they are "to a large extent voiced" [b, d, ɡ, v, ð, z, ʒ, j, r, dʒ] in all other environments,[99] but some studies have found the stops /b, d, ɡ/ to be voiceless word/utterance-initially in most dialects (while still contrasting with /p, t, k/ due to the aspiration of the latter).
In addition, German uses different stresses for separable prefixes and inseparable prefixes in verbs and words derived from such verbs: Like all infants, German infants go through a babbling stage in the early phases of phonological acquisition, during which they produce the sounds they will later use in their first words.
[109] Early word productions are phonetically simple and usually follow the syllable structure CV or CVC, although this generalization has been challenged.
[112] One case study found that a 17-month-old child acquiring German replaced the voiceless velar fricative [x] with the nearest available continuant [h], or deleted it altogether (Buch [buːx] 'book' pronounced [buh] or [buː]).
[121] In many cases, the subjects (mean age = 5.1) avoided making phonotactic violations, opting instead for other consonants or clusters in their speech.
This suggests that phonotactic constraints do apply to the speech of German children with phonological delay, at least in the case of word-initial consonant clusters.
[122] Additional research[123] has also shown that spelling consistencies seen in German raise children's phonemic awareness as they acquire reading skills.
Only in one case, in the grammatical ending -ig (which corresponds to English -y), the fricative pronunciation of final ⟨g⟩ is prescribed by the Siebs standard, for instance wichtig [ˈvɪçtɪç] ('important'), Wichtigkeit [ˈvɪçtɪçkaɪt] ('importance').
Many speakers do not distinguish the affricate /pf/ from the simple fricative /f/ in the beginning of a word,[124] in which case the verb (er) fährt ('[he] travels') and the noun Pferd ('horse') are both pronounced [fɛɐ̯t].
Some speakers also have peculiar pronunciation for /pf/ in the middle or end of a word, replacing the [f] in /pf/ with a voiceless bilabial fricative, i.e. a consonant produced by pressing air flow through the tensed lips.
In everyday speech, more mergers occur, some of which are universal and some of which are typical for certain regions or dialect backgrounds.
If the clusters [mp], [lt], [nt], or [ŋk] are followed by another consonant, the stops /p/, /t/ and /k/ usually lose their phonemic status.
A remnant of their former diphthong character is shown when [iː] continues to be written ie in German (as in Liebe 'love').
Loanwords are often adapted to German phonology but to varying degrees, depending on the speaker and the commonness of the word.
Many speakers replace them with /ʃ/ and /tʃ/ respectively (especially in Southern Germany, Austria and Switzerland), so that Dschungel (from English jungle) can be pronounced [ˈdʒʊŋl̩] or [ˈtʃʊŋl̩].
Some speakers pronounce them similarly to their native pronunciation, but many speakers change non-native phonemes to similar German phonemes (even if they pronounce them in a rather English manner in an English-language setting): French loanwords, once very numerous, have in part been replaced by native German coinages or more recently English loanwords.
For example, Ballon [baˈlõː] ('balloon') may be realized as [baˈlɔŋ] or [baˈloːn], Parfüm [paʁˈfœ̃ː] ('perfume') as [paʁˈfœŋ] or [paʁˈfyːm] and Orange [oˈʁãːʒə] ('orange') as [oˈʁaŋʒə] or [oˈʁanʒə].
/aɪnst ˈʃtrɪtɛn zɪç ˈnɔrtvɪnt ʊnt ˈzɔnɛ | veːr fɔn ˈiːnɛn ˈbaɪdɛn voːl deːr ˈʃtɛrkɛrɛ ˈvɛːrɛ | als aɪn ˈvandɛrɛr | deːr ɪn ˈaɪnɛn ˈvarmɛn ˈmantɛl ɡɛˈhʏlt vaːr | dɛs ˈveːɡɛs daˈheːrˌkaːm ‖ ziː ˈvʊrdɛn ˈaɪnɪç | das ˈdeːrjeːnɪɡɛ fyːr deːn ˈʃtɛrkɛrɛn ˈɡɛltɛn ˈzɔltɛ | deːr deːn ˈvandɛrɛr ˈtsvɪŋɛn ˈvʏrdɛ | ˈzaɪnɛn ˈmantɛl ˈaptsuːˌneːmɛn ‖ deːr ˈnɔrtvɪnt bliːs mɪt ˈalɛr maxt | ˈaːbɛr jeː ˈmeːr eːr bliːs | ˈdɛstoː ˈfɛstɛr ˈhʏltɛ zɪç deːr ˈvandɛrɛr ɪn ˈzaɪnɛn ˈmantɛl aɪn ‖ ˈɛntlɪç ɡaːp deːr ˈnɔrtvɪnt deːn kampf aʊf ‖ nuːn ɛrˈvɛrmtɛ diː ˈzɔnɛ diː lʊft mɪt ˈiːrɛn ˈfrɔɪntlɪçɛn ˈʃtraːlɛn | ʊnt ʃoːn naːx ˈveːnɪɡɛn aʊɡɛnˈblɪkɛn tsoːk deːr ˈvandɛrɛr ˈzaɪnɛn ˈmantɛl aʊs ‖ daː ˈmʊstɛ deːr ˈnɔrtvɪnt ˈtsuːɡeːbɛn | das diː ˈzɔnɛ fɔn ˈiːnɛn ˈbaɪdɛn deːr ˈʃtɛrkɛrɛ vaːr/ [aɪns ˈʃtʁɪtn̩ zɪç ˈnɔɐ̯tvɪnt ʊntˈz̥ɔnə | veːɐ̯ fɔn ˈiːnː ˈbaɪdn̩ voːl deːɐ̯ ˈʃtɛɐ̯kəʁə ˈvɛːʁə | als aɪn ˈvandəʁɐ | deːɐ̯ ɪn ˈaɪnː ˈvaːɐ̯mn̩ ˈmantl̩ ɡəˈhʏlt vaːɐ̯ | dəs ˈveːɡəs daˈheːɐ̯kaːm ‖ ziː ˈvʊɐ̯dn̩ ˈaɪnɪç | das ˈdeːɐ̯jeːnɪɡə fʏɐ̯ deːn ˈʃtɛɐ̯kəʁən ˈɡɛltn̩ ˈzɔltə | deːɐ̯ deːn ˈvandəʁɐ ˈtsvɪŋ̍ ˈvʏɐ̯də | ˈzaɪnː ˈmantl̩ ˈaptsʊˌneːmː ‖ deːɐ̯ ˈnɔɐ̯tvɪnt bliːs mɪt ˈalɐ maxt | ˈaːbɐ jeˈmeːɐ̯ eːɐ̯ bliːs | ˈdɛsto ˈfɛstɐ ˈhʏltə zɪç deːɐ̯ ˈvandəʁɐ ɪn ˈzaɪnː ˈmantl̩ aɪn ‖ ˈɛntlɪç ɡaːp deːɐ̯ ˈnɔɐ̯tvɪnt deːn kampf aʊf ‖ nuːn ɛɐ̯ˈvɛɐ̯mtə diː ˈzɔnə diː lʊft mɪt ˈiːɐ̯n̩ ˈfʁɔɪntlɪçn̩ ˈʃtʁaːln̩ | ʊnt ʃoːnaːx ˈveːnɪɡŋ̍ aʊɡŋ̍ˈblɪkŋ̍ tsoːk deːɐ̯ ˈvandəʁɐ ˈzaɪnː ˈmantl̩ aʊs ‖ daː ˈmʊstə deːɐ̯ ˈnɔɐ̯tvɪnt ˈtsuːɡeːbm̩ | das diː ˈzɔnə fɔn ˈiːnː ˈbaɪdn̩ deːɐ̯ ˈʃtɛɐ̯kəʁə vaːɐ̯][129] Einst stritten sich Nordwind und Sonne, wer von ihnen beiden wohl der Stärkere wäre, als ein Wanderer, der in einen warmen Mantel gehüllt war, des Weges daherkam.
