German Phonetics

7/29/2019 German Phonetics

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Lawrence Collins

Linguistics 103/ Keating

18 March 2013

German Phonetics

The German language, which is the namesake-language of the Germanic language

family, is a language spoken by over 90 million people. It is the national language of

Germany and Austria, with a combined 80+ million speakers, as well as the official

language of many European nations such as Switzerland and Luxembourg. As a

Germanic language of the Indo-European language family, German is related to other

Germanic languages such as Swedish, Icelandic, and English, with which Germans

lexicon shares 60% common vocabulary. Standard German, which is a variant of High

German, has been the standard form of German with a literary history dating back

centuries, German uses the Latin alphabet along with the diacritic and the ligature .

(Lewis, Simons, and Fennig)

Uwe Muench was the native German speaker with whom I worked. Uwe is from

the German city Cologne (Kln) and has lived in the United States for most of the past 15

years. Aside from German and English, Uwe has knowledge of various other languages

including French and Russian. Uwe speaks German on a nearly daily basis and completed

his Diploma thesis in German.

My primary sources for the phonetics of German were Elements of German and

Sounds of English and German. InElements, separate chapters were dedicated to both the

phonemes and phonetics of German, as well as accompanying sections for the individual

phonemes based on their manner of articulation. Charts and lists of the phones and allo-


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phones of German were also included. In Sounds, similar lists and charts were presented,

but Sounds also included extensive information on other features of German such as into-

nation and stress, as well as contrast the phonemes/phonetics of German and English.

Consonants:The German language contains 21 consonants (1-21). Six affricates (1-6), nine

fricatives (7-14, 21), three nasals (15-17), two approximates (18, 20) and a trill (19). The

majority of the consonants on the wordlist are present in (near) minimum pairs and the

orthography of German, which is fairly phonetic, also reflects the similarity of the

phonetics of the words. My speakers pronunciation of the consonants and their

allophones match (with some exceptions) with the source material. In some instances, the

uvular trill // sounded the most varied and in (35) sounds to be the glottal fricative /h/.

(Moulton)

Vowels:German has 15 vowels (22-36) and 3 diphthongs (37-39). The vowels can be

either long or short, with the higher vowel (amongst similarly articulated pairs-e.g. //

and //) often being the longer of the two, which is the only distinction between (near)

minimum pairs (e.g. rote-/o:t/ and Rotte-/t/). The only significant differentiation

between my source material and my speakers pronunciation was with words ending in

en /n/ which were pronounced as [n] in many instances. Also, the only time my

speakers second pronunciation was different than the firsts was in (6) with [a] as [] the

second time the word was spoken. (Moulton / Antonsen)

Allophones:Of the multiple allophones in German, only the allophones of three consonants

(/k/ /t/ /g/) are presented. The allophones presented for /k/ are aspirated k [kh ] and

aspirated c [c], for /t/, aspirated t [t], and for /g/, the voiceless palatal fricative []. The

most drastic change among the allophones /g/->[] occurs when /g/ appears at the end of


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a word (e.g. Knig) and is pronounced as [] (i.e. Knig-/ c:ni/). My speaker, when

presented with words ending in /g/ (43, 50) pronounced the allophone of /g/ as [] as

expected from the source material. (Antonsen)

Contrast:The two phonemes /x/ and // are often in complementary positions and create

several (near) minimum pairs in German. Both phones are orthographically written as

ch, with the phone /x/ bring pronounced when following a back vowel and the front-

low vowel /a/, and // when following a front and central vowel. This difference in vowel

positioning is represented orthographically with // following vowels with the diacritic

(umlaut) (e.g. Kchen-/khn/ (47)) and /x/ following non-umaluted vowels (e.g.

Kuchen-/khu:xn/ (47)). The length of the preceding vowel can be either long or short in

both situations (e.g. brach-/bra:x/ and brche-/br:/ (45)). (Moulton)

Stress:In German, stress can differentiate two separate words. In the examples provided

(48-52) the difference in stress position between the pairs falls either on the 1-2 or 1-3

syllable. In some examples (e.g. 49 and 52), the difference in stress changes the word to a

related word with a different part of speech (i.e. noun to verb). In (48) this change in

stress changes the word, which is orthographically the same) from a persons name to the

name of the month. The speakers stress position corresponded with the source materials

indication of stress, as well as the phones of the words. (Moulton / Antonsen)

Sentences:

To demonstrate the sounds of German in a larger, more complete context, I

included two sentences that my speaker read, a tongue twister and a sentence from a text.

The tongue twister (53) involved the alternating patterns of /f/ and /fts/ in the begin-

ning of the words, as well as /s/ and // at the end of the words. My speaker was able to

say the tongue twister without any difficulty and pronounced it as given from the source


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material. The line of text (54), which comes from a fairy tale Der Wolf und die sieben

Gleilein (The Wolf and the Seven Young Kids) was selected as it contains many of the

unique and characteristic sounds of German: the velar /x/, the affricate /pf/, the diphthong

/aw/, uvular//, the vowel //, and both long and short i. The only difference between my

speakers reading and the reference is the pronunciation of und-/?nd/ as [?nd] at the

end of the sentence. As neither text included stress markers, I indicated the stress in my

phonetic transcriptions. (Ladefoged / Antonsen)

IPA Charts

(Weinberger)

Word List

#. phoneme orthography English phonemic phonetic#1 phonetic#2

Consonants:

1. p passe yoke /pas/ [pas]

2. b Ba bass /bas/ [bas]3. t Tasse cup /tas/ [tas]

4. d das the (neuter) /das/ [das]

5. k Kasse cash desk /kas/ [kas]6. g Gasse alley /gas/ [gas] [gs]

7. f fasse to grasp /fas/ [fas]

8. v was what /vas/ [vas]

9. s Satin satin /sate/ [sate]10. z Satz sentence /zats/ [zats]

11. Schatz treasure /ats/ [ats]

12. Genie genius /e:ni:/ [e:ni:]13. China China /i:na/ [i:na]

Kchen kitchens /khn/ [khn]

14. x rauchen to smoke /auxn/ [auxn]15. m Masse mass /mas/ [mas]


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16. n nasse wet /nas/ [nas]

17. hngen to hang /hn/ [hn]18. l lasse to stop /las/ [las]

19. Rasse race /as/ [as]

20. j Jacke jacket /jak/ [ jak]

21. h hasse to hate /has/ [has](Moulton)Vowels:

22. /i:/ bieten to offer /bi:tn/ [bi:tn]

23. // bitten to ask /btn/ [btn]24. /e:/ beten to pray /be:tn/ [be:tn]

25. // Betten beds /btn/ [btn]

26. /u:/ Rute switch /u:t/ [u:t]

27. // Kutte habit /kt/ [kt]28. /o:/ rote red /o:t/ [o:t]

29. // Rotte mob /t/ [t]

30. /y:/ Gte kindess /y:t/ [y:t]

31. // Mtter mothers /mt/ [mt]32. /:/ Goethe Goethe /:t/ [:t]

33. // Gtter gods /t/ [t]

34. /a:/ rate to rate /a:t/ [a:t]35. // Ratte rat /t/ [ht]

36. /ai/ leite to run /lait/ [lait]

37. /j/ Leute people /ljt/ [ljt]38. /aw/ Laute lute /lawt/ [lawt]

39. // gesagt said /gsa:gth/ [gsa:gt](Moulton / Antonsen)

Allophones:

41. /k/Kasse cash desk /kas/ [kas]

Kuchen cake /khu:xn/ [khu:xn]

Kissen pillow /csn/ [csn]

42. /t/Tasse cup /tas/ [tas]

Tanne fir / tan/ [tan]

43. /g/gasse alley /gas/ [gas]

Knig king /c:ni/ [c:ni](Antonsen)

Contrast: /x/ //

44. Dach roof /dx/ [dx]Dcher roofs /dr/ [dr]

45. brach unexploited /bra:x/ [bra:x]

brche unexploited /br:/ [br:]

46. Loch hole /lox/ [lox]Lcher holes /lyr/ [lyr]

47. Kuchen cake /khu:xn/ [khu:xn]


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Kchen kitchens /khn/ [khn](Moulton)

Stress:

48. August-name August-name /augst/ [augst]

August-month August-month /augst/ [augst]

49. unterrichten to teach /ntrritn/ [ntrritn]Unterricht lesson /untrrit/ [untrrit]

50. leben to live / le:bn/ [le:bn]

lebendig living /leb:nd/ [leb:nd]51. Muse muse /mu:z/ [mu:z]

Museum museum /muze:m/ [muze:m]

52. Dosis dose /do:zs/ [do:zs]dosieren to measure /dozirn/ [dozirn]

(Moulton / Antonsen)

Sentences:

53. Fischers Fritze fischt frische Fische. Frische Fische fischt Fischers Fritze.

/fz fts ft f f/ /f f ft fz frts/

[fz ftsftff] [ffftfz frts](Ladefoged)

54. Es dauerte nicht lange, so klopfte jemand an der Haustr und rieft.

/?es dawrt nixt lang so klpft jemand ?an d hawzt ?nd ri:ft h/[?es dawrt nixt lang so klpft jemand ?an dhawzt ?nd ri:ft]

(Antonsen)

References

Antonsen, Elmer H.Elements of German. Tuscaloosa, Alabama: The University of

Alabama Press, 2007. Print.

Ladefoged, Peter, ed. "Word List for German, Standard." UCLA Phonetics Lab Archive.

UCLA Phonetics Lab, 21 Apr 2009. Web. 18 Mar 2013.

.

Lewis, M. Paul, Gary F. Simons, and Charles G. Fennig, eds. "German, Standard."

Ethnologue. Ethnologue, n.d. Web. 18 Mar 2013.

.

Moulton, William G. The Sounds of English and German. Chicago: University of

Chicago Press, 1962. Print.

Weinberger, Steven H., ed. "German IPA." Speech Accent Archive. George Mason

University, 28 Feb 2013. Web. 18 Mar 2013. .

German Phonetics

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