Talk:Standard German phonology/Archive 1

message: 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)
thread_title: &#660;

message: The diminutive ending usually triggers umlaut. This should be mentioned. -- j. 'mach' wust ˈtʰɔ̝ːk͡x 14:09, 26 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: "Tau-chen" or "Täu-chen"?

message: 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)
replies: text: 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)
thread_title: Velar vs. uvular

message: 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)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: 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)
thread_title: french version

message: 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)
thread_title:  Merge current orthography article 

message: The affricates ,  and most importantly,  MUST be mentioned.
This article won't be complete without them.
By the way,  (often written as 'dsch') could be included as well, but it exists in loanwords only. --Pipifax 19:40, 8 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: They've been already listed.  By the way, some linguists think the German  is not a single phoneme but a sequence of  and  because it doesn't appear in a consonant cluster while the true phonemes  and  do like Pfropf  and zwei , and treat the  in  (Deutsch) just like the  in  (hübsch).  What do you guys think?  - TAKASUGI Shinji 04:53, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  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)
thread_title:  Affricates missing ‼ 

message: 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)
replies: text:  Given the disagreement earlier about whether  is  or  and /aː/ as  or , does  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)
replies: text: It can only be followed by [x] (unless it is followed by the notorious diminutive suffix "no-umlaut-" 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)
thread_title:  Äch, Öch, Üch 

message: "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)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: 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 , area #25). --Schuetzm 14:40, 25 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: 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)
thread_title:  vɪçtɪç vs. vɪçtɪk 

message: 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  than as a trilled [r] (if it is pronounced alveolarly at all), so the pronunciation is not , but rather . 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)
replies: text: I don't think either Spanish or Italian has either a  cluster or a  cluster. Angr/talk 12:17, 12 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: 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  or  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)

text: 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)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text:  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)

text: 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)
thread_title:  Pronouncing ''schr-'' 

message: 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)
replies: text: 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)
thread_title:  Siebs = Bühnenaussprache? 

message: 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)
replies: text: I don't think we should mention the  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)
thread_title:  Varieties to be mentioned 

message: 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  ‘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  ‘to smoke’.
I wonder if this one word is actually derived from the version with the nickname suffix  preceded by an /l/ that could be epenthetic or derived from the Bavarian-Austrian diminutive suffix . 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:  Kuhchen ‘little cow’ vs.  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 .
* The example is contrived. Nobody I've encountered would say Kühchen. It's Kalb "calf" or Kälbchen.
* The practice of writing [ən] instead of , 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  is used behind nasals). Perhaps due to the absence of the palatal nasal () in German, however, syllabic nasals do not occur behind [ç]. So even if anyone said *Kuhchen, it would stay distinct from Kuchen:  (or -[ən] if you must) vs .
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  (for instance in Buch [buːx] ‘book’) and [χ] after  (for instance in Bach [baχ] ‘brook’), others say that [x] occurs after  and [χ] after .
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)
thread_title:  The next few edits... 

message: Another difficult one.
Short  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 . The o oscillates freely between [o] and  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  and  (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  is merged with the close-mid front unrounded vowel  in many varieties of standard German, so that, for example, Ähre  'ear' (of wheat, etc.) and Ehre  'honour' are homophones for many speakers.
* We should make clear that when they merge, the result is . 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  that is not terribly similar to the  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  (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  does not occur behind long vowels, making the examples correct. Elsewhere, however, this is unthinkable (making learning French, which has words like libération with , even more difficult).
The open vowels  and  are free allophones together with  and , respectively.
This, too, is regionally different. In Austria  and  have very little or no difference in quality, both being front [a]. Elsewhere, some people have  vs , while others have  vs . (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  occurs in any variety of Standard German, though, again, my sample size is small.)
I think we should also add a footnote about . It is  (the English sound) in some parts of Germany, but there it tends to display at least allophony all the way to what must be  (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  with the "mid-centralized" diacritic. David Marjanović 14:19, 29 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Vowels

message: The German diphthongs are , for instance in Ei  'egg', Sau  'sow', neu  '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  (and eu is ).
Homepage 
Well, describing the first diphthong as  may make sense in English, but less so in German where the sound it begins with is much closer to /o/ than to . Besides, you'll be hard-pressed to find someone who keeps that  voiced at all, let alone word-finally. David Marjanović 14:19, 29 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Diphthongs

message: In the northern varieties,  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 = . I'd have dropped the second , 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  in front of und. I think I've read somewhere that some analyze  as occurring in front of stressed vowel-initial syllables "in German".
 and  occur only in words of foreign origin. In certain varieties, they are replaced by  and  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],  and  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  instead of . (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  
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 
 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  scandal last year, which some (not all) newscasters pronounced using an odd, vaguely -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 , 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  are voiceless  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  has merged into /o/, yet Ofen  "oven" and offen  "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 :
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 , 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)
thread_title: Consonants

message: The aspiration is […] weakest in the syllable coda (such as in Saat )."
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)
thread_title: Fortis & lenis

message: 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)
replies: text: *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)
thread_title:  "Kuhchen" 

message: 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)
replies: text: Maybe like Berlin, Vienna, Liechtenstein, Bern, and maybe Munich.Cameron Nedland 04:56, 1 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Vowel Chart 

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

message: 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)
replies: text: Yes (…as allophones in some regional versions of Standard German, that is). David Marjanović 16:05, 16 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Phonology vs. Phonetics 

message: 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)
thread_title:  Ich-Laut 

message: 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)
thread_title:  The archive 

message: 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" (  ) in Standard German. The book uses the the phonetic symbol "" 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)
replies: text: Indeed,  is the unrounded version of  (check the IPA chart) but the German vowel is more central than : it is .  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  (though it is still commonly transcribed as  mostly for historical reasons.  So the authors are possibly confused as they hear , see this sound transcribed as  and figure a better way to describe it is to call it an unrounded .  Æµ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 00:08, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: <-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)

text: 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)
replies: text:  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)
thread_title:  "er" at the end of words? 

message: 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)
replies: text: 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)

text: 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)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text:  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)
replies: text:  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 , [x] after  and , and free variation between [x] and [χ], with [χ] predominating, after , , and . +Angr 17:43, 17 April 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: 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  is not unusual.--Zahnradzacken (talk) 22:04, 17 April 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: 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)

text: 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)
thread_title:  Velar ach-Laut? 

message: 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)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text:  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)

text:  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)
thread_title:  I Question the Entire Trans-Regional Character of This Article 

message: 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)
replies: text: 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)
thread_title:  ach laut and yiddish 

message: 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)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: Some dialects may pronounce it as , which is even more like English sh but I don't know how widespread this is.  — Æµ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi] 22:59, 5 March 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: It seems to me that anyone pronouncing the ich sound as  would perceive it as the same phoneme as 'sch. — Æµ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi] 15:41, 14 March 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: [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)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: 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)
thread_title:  "ICH" sound 

message: "[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)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: 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)

text: 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)
replies: text: 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)
thread_title:  [r] and elder people...? 

message: Isn't [tʁɔpʰʷn] the same as /tʁɔpɸn/?Dakhart (talk) 18:43, 6 October 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: 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)
thread_title:  IPA-question 

message: 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)
thread_title:  Improper use of IPA 

message: 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)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: 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)
thread_title:  [ʝ] ? 

message: 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 . NO aspiration, and the /t/ is soft enough to almost give a /d/ sound. But even Austrians would always pronounce their Bundesland Kärnten as  but NEVER . What YOU are about, with the /k/, might be Saxonia and their (occasional) pronunciation of Karte (card) . 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)
replies: text: 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: , ,  (what's up with the glottal stops? Is the  really post-glottalized?), . Peter238 (v̥ɪˑzɪʔ mɑˑɪ̯ tˢʰoˑk̚ pʰɛˑɪ̯d̥ʒ̊) 00:12, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

text: 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)
thread_title:  Example, please 

message: 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)
thread_title:  Changes to intro regarding "Standard German" 

message: 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)
thread_title:  Request clarity on vowels 

message: 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)
replies: text: Done, thanks! Peter238 (talk) 20:48, 16 June 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Middle High German 

message: 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)
replies: text: We already have such an article. Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 16:37, 5 March 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pronunciation vs spelling