Bühnendeutsch

Bühnendeutsch (, "stage German") or Bühnenaussprache (, "stage pronunciation") is a unified set of pronunciation rules for the German literary language used in the theatre of the German Sprachraum. Established in the 19th century, it came to be considered pure High German. It was codified in the pronouncing dictionary Deutsche Bühnenaussprache, edited by the German scholar Theodor Siebs, and first published in 1898.

An artificial standard not corresponding directly to any dialect, Bühnendeutsch is mostly based on Standard German as spoken in Northern Germany. For example, the suffix -ig is pronounced.

Three acceptable realizations of
Until 1957, only two pronunciations were allowed: an alveolar trill and an alveolar flap. After 1957, a uvular trill was also allowed. A voiced uvular fricative, used extensively in contemporary Standard German, is not allowed. Therefore, rot ('red') can be pronounced, and  but not.

Rhoticism
The vocalized realization of  found in German or Austrian Standard German corresponds to  in Bühnendeutsch so für 'for' is pronounced  rather than.

Whenever the sequence is vocalized to  in German or Austrian Standard German, Bühnendeutsch requires a sequence  so besser 'better' is pronounced  rather than.

In contemporary Standard German, both of these features are found almost exclusively in Switzerland.

No schwa-elision
Contrary to Standard German, cannot be elided before a sonorant consonant (making it syllabic) so Faden 'yarn' is pronounced  rather than the standard.

Fronting of word-final schwa
In loanwords from Latin and Ancient Greek, the word-final is realized as a short, tense  so Psyche 'psyche' is pronounced  rather than the standard.

Syllable-final fortition
As in Standard German, syllable-final obstruents written with the letters used also for syllable-initial lenis sounds ($⟨b, d, g⟩$ etc.) are realized as fortis so Absicht 'intention' is pronounced (note the full voicing of, which, in position immediately after a fortis, occurs in Bühnendeutsch: see below), but Bad 'bath' is pronounced.

The corresponding standard southern (Southern German, Austrian, Swiss) pronunciations contain lenis consonants in that position: and, respectively.

Strong aspiration of
The voiceless plosives are aspirated  in the same environments as in Standard German but more strongly, especially to environments in which the Standard German plosives are aspirated moderately and weakly: in unstressed intervocalic and word-final positions. That can be transcribed in the IPA as. The voiceless affricates are unaspirated, as in Standard German.

Complete voicing of lenis obstruents
The lenis obstruents are fully voiced  after voiceless obstruents so abdanken 'to resign' is pronounced. That is in contrast with the Northern pronunciation, which requires the lenis sounds to be devoiced in that position:. Southern accents (Southern German, Austrian, Swiss) generally realize the lenis sounds as voiceless in most or all positions and do not feature syllable-final fortition:.