Standard German phonology

The phonology of Standard German is the standard pronunciation or accent of the German language. 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.

Vowels

Monophthongs of standard German, from Dudenredaktion, Kleiner & Knöbl (2015)

Single vowels

Monophthong phonemes of Standard German

	Front				Central		Back
	unrounded		rounded
	short	long	short	long	short	long	short	long
Close	ɪ	iː	ʏ	yː			ʊ	uː
Close-mid		eː		øː	(ə)			oː
Open-mid	ɛ	(ɛː)	œ		(ɐ)		ɔ
Open					a	aː

Vowel combos

Diphthongs of standard German, from Dudenredaktion, Kleiner & Knöbl (2015)

	Ending point
	Front	Back
Open-mid	ɔʏ̯
Open	aɪ̯	aʊ̯

Consonants

German has 25 phonemes, which is average among other languages. One of its more unique sounds is the unusual affricate /p͡f/.

			Labial	Dental/ Alveolar	Palatal	Velar/ Uvular	Glottal
Nasal
Plosive		fortis					()
		lenis
Affricate		fortis
		lenis			()
Fricative	sibilant	fortis
		lenis			()
	non-sibilant	fortis		()
		lenis		()
Lateral
Rhotic				r

Ich-Laut and ach-Laut

'Ich-Laut' is the voiceless palatal fricative [ç] (found in the word ich [ʔɪç] 'I'), and ach-Laut is the voiceless velar fricative [x] (as in ach [ax] the interjection 'oh', 'alas'). Laut [laʊ̯t] is the German word for 'sound, phone'.

In German, these two sounds are allophones occurring in complementary distribution. The allophone [x] occurs after back vowels and /a aː/ (for instance in Buch [buːx] 'book'), the allophone [ç] after front vowels (for instance in mich [mɪç] 'me/myself') and consonants (for instance in Furcht [fʊʁçt] 'fear', manchmal [ˈmançmaːl] 'sometimes'). (This happens most regularly: if the ⟨r⟩ in Furcht is pronounced as a consonant, ch represents [ç]; however if, as often happens, it is vocalized as [ɐ], resembling the vowel [a], then ⟨ch⟩ may represent [x], yielding [fʊɐ̯xt].)

Standard German Phonology Media

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  German diphthongs ending in [ɐ̯] (part 1), from Kohler (1999:88)

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  German diphthongs ending in [ɐ̯] (part 2), from Kohler (1999:88)

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  A map showing the German dialect area with black/white squares indicating the Ich-Laut and the Ach-Laut

References

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Other websites

• Listen to the pronunciation of German first names