Talk:Standard German phonology

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)

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.

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)

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)

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)

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 [ɑ]. People who thus pronounce these characters will call the first a 'long a', the second a 'short a'. [oliver lenz]

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)

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)

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)