German phonology

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The German standard language contains 37 phonemes; 16 vowels and 21 consonants.

Since German is a pluricentric language, there is not a single standard pronunciation but several ones usually associated with the national varieties of Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

Contents

1 Vowels 2 Diphthongs 3 Consonants 3.1 Ich-Laut and ach-Laut 4 Stress

Vowels

	front				central		back
	unrounded		rounded
	short	long	short	long	short	long	short	long
close	1		1				1
near-open
close-mid	1		1				1
mid					2
open-mid		3
open					4	4

1. Short occur only in unstressed syllables of loanwords, for instance in Psychometrie 'psychometry'. They are usually considered complementary allophones together with their long counterparts.
2. The schwa occurs only in unstressed syllables, for instance in besetzen 'occupy'. It is often considered a complementary allophone together with . If a sonorant follows in the syllable coda, the schwa often disappears so that the sonorant becomes syllabic, for instance Kissen 'pillow', Esel 'donkey', besser 'better'. Note that the syllabic is realized as in many varieties, for instance besser 'better'.
3. The long open-mid front unrounded vowel is merged with the close-mid front unrounded vowel in the Northern varieties of standard German.
4. The open vowels and are free allophones together with and .

The vowels are often analyzed according to a tenseness contrast, being the tense vowels and their lax counterpairs. Like the English checked vowels, the German lax vowels require to be followed by a consonant, with the notable exception of (which is however absent in many varieties). In order to apply the division into pairs of tense and lax to all German vowels, is sometimes considered the lax counterpart of tense .

Diphthongs

The German diphthongs are , for instance in Ei 'egg', Sau 'pig', neu , Säule 'column'. Occasionally, they are transcribed as .

Marginally, there occur some more diphthongs, for instance in interjections such as pfui , and in loanwords, among others, as in Feuilleton , Homepage , Croissant . It is debated whether such diphthongs should be considered phonemes of the German language or not.

In the varieties where vowelizes to in the syllable coda (see below), a diphthong ending in may be formed with virtually every vowel.

Consonants

	Bilabial	Labiodental	Alveolar	Postalveolar	Palatal	Velar	Uvular	Glottal
Plosive	p  b		t  d			k  g		1
nasal	m		n
Fricative		f	s  z		2	x2	3	h
Approximant					j
Liquids			r3  l				3

1. 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.
2. and are complementary allophones after front vowels and back vowels. For a more detailed analysis see below at ich-Laut and ach-Laut.
3. , and are free allophones of each other. is used only in Southern varieties. In the syllable coda, the allophone is used in many varieties, except in the South-West.

The voiceless stops , , are aspirated except when preceded by a sibiliant. The obstruents are voiceless in the Southern varieties.

Ich-Laut and ach-Laut

The term ich-Laut 'I-sound' refers to the voiceless palatal fricative , the term ach-Laut 'alas-sound' to the voiceless velar fricative . In German, these two sounds are allophones. The allophone occurs after back vowels and (for instance in Bach 'brook'), the allophone after front vowels (for instance in ich 'I') and consonants (for instance in Furcht ). In the onset of stressed syllables (loanwords only), the pronunciation varies: In the Northern varieties of standard German, it is , in Southern varieties, it is (for instance in China: vs. ).

The diminutive suffix -chen is always pronunced with an ich-Laut . 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 a comparingly recent coining, the word Frauchen 'female dog owner' (a diminutive of Frau 'woman'), no umlaut is triggered so that a back vowel is followed by , even though normally it would be followed by a , as in rauchen . This contradiction to the allophonic distribution is explained as a morphemic boundary effect. If the diminutive -chen without umlaut is added to the words Kuh 'cow' or Tau 'rope', then the resulting words Kuhchen and form minimal pairs with Kuchen 'cake', tauchen 'to dive'. However, these diminutive forms are not only extremely rare, but they could as well be formed as Kühchen , Täuchen .

An allophonic distribution whereby of after front vowels and after other vowels is a common one, and can be heard also in Scottish, 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 in all positions. It is thus reasonable to assume that Old High German ih, the ancestor of modern ich, was pronounced with rather than . And it is therefore impossible to tell whether Old English words such as niht (modern night) were pronounced with or .

Stress

The first syllable of German words receives stress, with the following exceptions:

• Words beginning with be-, ge-, er-, ver-, zer-, ent- or a few others receive stress on their second syllable.
• Compound adverbs, with her, hin, da, or wo as their first part, receive stress on their second part.
• Many loanwords, especially proper names, keep their original stress.de:Aussprache der deutschen Sprache

hu:Német kiejtés