The Standard German phonology is the standard pronunciation of the German language. It consists of the current phonology and phonetics as well as the historical developments thereof as well as geographical variation 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 (German Pronunciation Dictionary) by Eva-Maria Krech et al.,Pages 1-2 of the book () discuss (the standard pronunciation which is the topic of this dictionary). It also mentions (German has developed into a pluricentric language separate standard varieties (and hence standard pronunciations)), but refers to these standards as (regional and sociolectal variants). (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. This standardised pronunciation was invented, rather than coming from any particular German-speaking city. But the pronunciation that Germans usually consider to be closest to the standard is that of Hanover. Standard German is sometimes referred to as (stage German), but the latter has its own definition and is slightly different.Differences include the pronunciation of the endings , , and .
Vowels
Monophthongs +Monophthong phonemes of Standard German Front Central Back Unrounded Rounded short long short long short long short long Close Close-mid () Open-mid () () Open
Some scholarsSee the discussions in and treat as an unstressed allophone of . Likewise, some scholars treat as an allophone of the sequence or as a vocalic realization of syllabic . The phonemic status of is also debated – see below.
Notes Close vowels is close front unrounded .See the vowel charts in . is close near-front rounded . is close back rounded . has been variously described as near-close front unrounded and near-close near-front unrounded . is near-close near-front rounded . is near-close near-back rounded . Mid vowels is close-mid front unrounded . In non-standard accents of the Low German speaking area, as well as in some Bavarian and Austrian accents it may be pronounced as a narrow closing diphthong . has been variously described as close-mid near-front rounded and mid near-front rounded . One source shows it as considerably centralized on the vowel chart (the one shown above), closer to than cardinal . In non-standard accents of the Low German speaking area, as well as in some Austrian accents it may be pronounced as a narrow closing diphthong . is close-mid back rounded . In non-standard accents of the Low German speaking area, as well as in some Austrian accents it may be pronounced as a narrow closing diphthong . has been variously described as mid central unrounded . and close-mid central unrounded . It occurs only in unstressed syllables, for instance in ('occupy'). It is often considered a complementary allophone together with , which only rarely or regionally occurs in unstressed syllables (e.g. ). If a sonorant follows in the syllable coda, the schwa often disappears so that the sonorant becomes syllabic, for instance ('pillow'), ('donkey'). However, Standard German spoken in Luxembourg often lacks syllabic sonorants under the influence of Luxembourgish, so that e.g. ('put') is pronounced , rather than . has been variously described as mid near-front unrounded and open-mid front unrounded . has been variously described as mid front unrounded and open-mid front unrounded . has been variously described as open-mid near-front rounded and somewhat lowered open-mid near-front rounded . has been variously described as somewhat fronted open-mid back rounded and open-mid back rounded . Open vowels is near-open central unrounded . It is a common allophone of the sequence common to all German-speaking areas but Switzerland. As schwa /ə/ is never pronounced here, it is also possible to interpret as the vocalic allophone of the syllabic sonorant /r̩/. has been variously described as open front unrounded and open central unrounded . Some scholarsE.g. differentiate two short , namely front and back .. Authors state that can be realized as Polish , i.e. central . The latter occurs only in unstressed open syllables, exactly as . Standard Austrian pronunciation of this vowel is back . Front or even is a common realization of in northern German varieties influenced by Low German. has been variously described as open central unrounded and open back unrounded . Because of this, it is sometimes transcribed .e.g. by (without length marks, i.e. as —the vowel chart on page 87 places and in the same open central position ), (without length marks, i.e. as ) and . Back is the Standard Austrian pronunciation. It is also a common realization of in northern German varieties influenced by Low German (in which it may even be rounded ). notes that "there is a tendency to neutralize the distinction between , , and . That is, , , and have final syllables which are perceptually very similar, and are nearly or completely identical in some dialects." He also says that "outside of a word context, cannot be distinguished from . (As early as 1847, Verdi's librettist found it natural, when adapting a play by Schiller into the Italian language, to render the distinctly German name Roller as Rolla.) According to the 7th edition of Das Aussprachewörterbuch, the standard pronunciation differentiates from unstressed (which typically belongs to phoneme, see below). The authors claim that the difference is one of height: vs. . However, they tend to be neutralized in the Berlin/Brandenburg Metropolitan Region towards an open central . Conversely, in southern Germany, is often realized as (in turn, Standard is often closer to ). In Franconia and partially also in the coastal regions of Germany, the vowel is closer to , whereas in west-central Germany it is slightly more open, that is . In each case but the first one, is strongly differentiated from . In regions without r-vocalization, the difference is always present. According to a 2020 study, is not distinguished from unstressed in Northern Standard German. Word pairs such as 'opera' (traditionally transcribed ) and 'grandpa' (traditionally transcribed ) are thus homophones (as ), rather than minimal pairs. The merged vowel has a centralized quality . The authors of the study advocate for ditching the distinction in transcriptions aimed at foreign learners of German. This neutralization may not apply to all dialects with r-vocalization, particularly the southern ones.
Although there is also a length contrast, vowels are often analyzed according to a tenseness contrast, with long being the tense vowels and short their lax counterparts. Like the English checked vowels, the German lax vowels require a following consonant, with the notable exception of (which is absent in many varieties, as discussed below). is sometimes considered the lax counterpart of tense in order to maintain this tense/lax division. Short occur in unstressed syllables of loanwords, for instance in ('psychometry'). They are usually considered allophones of tense vowels (thus ), which cannot occur in unstressed syllables (unless in compounds). is similarly shortened in those positions, with the difference being that it is shortened also in native words, such as aforementioned 'grandpa' (phonemically ).
In dialects with r-vocalization, historical (phonetically typically a long monophthong ) may undergo a shortening akin to when unstressed, as in one pronunciation of 'radar' as (phonemically ). An analogous process has taken place in Danish, as in the cognate , meaning the same.
Northern German varieties influenced by Low German could be analyzed as lacking contrasting vowel quantity entirely: has a different quality than (see above). These varieties also consistently lack , and use only in its place.
Phonemic status of The existence of a phoneme in German is disputed. The distinction between the long lax and the long tense does not exist in some varieties of Standard German, and many authors treat the phoneme as peripheral and regard a distinction between it and as a spelling pronunciation. Most commonly, they are merged before an intervocalic , so that potential minimal pairs such as 'ear of grain' and 'honor' or 'bears' and 'berries' are rendered homophonous, as and . Some authors claim that no distinction between and is possible in this position unless in hypercorrect pronunciation, in which and may be pronounced and , with a tense . Other authors claim that there is regional variation, a distinction occurring especially in southern varieties of Standard German. In contexts other than before intervocalic , the contrast between and is more stable, so that 'bid, conjunctive', 'Danes' and ('saws, n.') may be differentiated from 'to pray', 'to stretch' and 'blessing'. Even here the vowels can merge, but to a tense : . Scholars who question the existence of a phoneme do so for the following reasons: The existence of a phoneme is an irregularity in a vowel system that otherwise has pairs of long and tense vs. short and lax vowels such as vs. . The phoneme has developed out of the spelling of the language rather than from any historical sound change. Most examples of Middle High German /ǣ/ correspond to New High German rather than , indicating that the modern is not a regular development. Although some dialects (e.g. Ripuarian and some Alemannic dialects) have an opposition of vs. , their usage does not follow that of the standard. There is also little agreement across dialects as to whether individual lexical items should be pronounced with or with . E.g. South Hessian dialects have in Käse but in Leben.Südhessisches Wörterbuch online
Diphthongs
Phonemic
Ending pointFrontBack Near-close () Open-mid Open
has been variously described as ,Source: . On the page 14, the author states that , and are of the same quality as vowels of which they consist. On the page 8, he states that is low central. See vowel chart in . Despite their true ending points, Kohler still transcribes them as , i.e. with higher offsets than those actually have. and .Source: . Authors do not provide a vowel chart. Instead, they state rather vaguely that "the diphthong is a monosyllabic compound consisting of the unrounded open vowel and the unrounded mid front vowel ." has been variously described as , , and .Source: . Authors do not provide a vowel chart. Instead, they state rather vaguely that "the diphthong is a monosyllabic compound consisting of the unrounded open vowel and the rounded mid back vowel ." has been variously described as , , and .. Authors do not provide a vowel chart. Instead, they state rather vaguely that "the diphthong is a monosyllabic compound consisting of the rounded mid back vowel and the rounded mid front vowel ." is found only in a handful of interjections such as and , and as an alternative to disyllabic in words such as .
Phonetic The following usually are not counted among the German diphthongs as German speakers often feel they are distinct marks of "foreign words" (). These appear only in loanwords: , as in , colloquially: . Many German speakers use and as adaptations of the English diphthongs and in English loanwords, according to , or they replace them with the native German long vowels and . Thus, the word may be pronounced or . However, and do not recognize these diphthongs as phonemes, and prescribe pronunciations with the long vowels and instead.
In the varieties where speakers vocalize to in the syllable coda, a diphthong ending in may be formed with every stressable vowel: