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.

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 Deutsches Aussprachewörterbuch (German Pronunciation Dictionary) by Eva-Maria Krech et al., Duden 6 Das Aussprachewörterbuch (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 Bühnendeutsch (stage German), but the latter has its own definition and is slightly different.

Monophthongs
Some scholars treat as an unstressed allophone of. Likewise, some scholars treat as an allophone of the sequence  or as a vocalic realization of syllabic /r̩/. The phonemic status of is also debated – see below.

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 Ähre 'ear of grain' and Ehre 'honor' or Bären 'bears' and Beeren '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 Ehre and Beeren may be pronounced  and, with a tense. Other authors claim that there is regional variation, a distinction occurring especially in southern variaties of Standard German. In contexts other than before intervocalic, the contrast between and  is more stable, so that bäten  'bid, conjunctive', Dänen  'Danes' and Sägen  ('saws, n.') may be differentiated from beten  'to pray', dehnen  'to stretch' and Segen  '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:
 * 1) 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. . On the other hand, such irregularities are not ruled out by any principle.
 * 2) 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.
 * 3) 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.
 * 4) The use of  is a spelling pronunciation rather than an original feature of the language. It is an attempt to "speak as printed" (sprechen wie gedruckt) and to differentiate the spellings $⟨e⟩$ and $⟨ä⟩$ (i.e. speakers attempt to justify the appearance of $⟨e⟩$ and $⟨ä⟩$ in writing by making them distinct in the spoken language).
 * 5) Speakers with an otherwise fairly standard idiolect find it rather difficult to utter longer passages with  and  in the right places. Such persons apparently have to picture the spellings of the words in question, which impedes the flow of speech. However, the examples above with a non-rhotic context for the disputed vowel distinction speak against this view.

Phonemic



 * has been variously described as, and.
 * has been variously described as, , and.
 * has been variously described as, , and.
 * is found only in a handful of interjections such as pfui and hui, and as an alternative to disyllabic  in words such as ruhig.

Phonetic
The following usually are not counted among the German diphthongs as German speakers often feel they are distinct marks of "foreign words" (Fremdwörter). These appear only in loanwords:
 * , as in Croissant, 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 okay 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:


 * notes that the length contrast is not very stable before non-prevocalic and that ", following the pronouncing dictionaries  judge the vowel in Art, Schwert, Fahrt to be long, while the vowel in Ort, Furcht, hart is supposed to be short. The factual basis of this presumed distinction seems very questionable." He goes on stating that in his own dialect, there is no length difference in these words, and that judgements on vowel length in front of non-prevocalic  which is itself vocalized are problematic, in particular if  precedes.


 * According to the "lengthless" analysis, the aforementioned "long" diphthongs are analyzed as, , , , , , and . This makes non-prevocalic  and  homophonous as  or . Non-prevocalic  and  may also merge, but the vowel chart in  shows that they have somewhat different starting points – mid-centralized open-mid front  for the former, open-mid front  for the latter.


 * also states that "laxing of the vowel is predicted to take place in shortened vowels; it does indeed seem to go hand in hand with the vowel shortening in many cases." This leads to, , , , , being pronounced the same as , , , , , . This merger is usual in the Standard Austrian accent, in which e.g. Moor 'bog' is often pronounced ; this, in contrast with the Standard Northern variety, also happens intervocalically, along with the diphthongization of the laxed vowel to , so that e.g. Lehrer 'teacher' is pronounced  (the corresponding Standard Northern pronunciation is ). Another feature of the Standard Austrian accent is complete absorption of  by the preceding , so that e.g. rar 'scarce' is pronounced.

Consonants
With around 22 to 26 phonemes, the German consonant system has an average number of consonants in comparison with other languages. One of the more noteworthy ones is the unusual affricate.


 * can be uvular, alveolar or even dental, a consonant or a semivowel, see below.
 * is bilabial–labiodental, rather than purely labiodental.
 * can be apical alveolar,  laminal alveolar  or laminal denti-alveolar . The other possible pronunciation of  that has been reported to occur in unstressed intervocalic positions is retroflex . Austrian German often uses the laminal denti-alveolar articulation.
 * is always clear, as in most Irish English accents. A few Austrian accents may use a velarized instead, but that is considered non-standard.
 * In the Standard Austrian variety, may be affricated to  before front vowels.
 * can be laminal alveolar,  laminal post-dental  (i.e. fronted alveolar, articulated with the blade of the tongue just behind upper front teeth), or even apical alveolar .  Austrian German often uses the post-dental articulation.  are always strongly fricated.
 * are strongly labialized palato-alveolar sibilants .   are fricated more weakly than . There are two variants of these sounds:
 * Laminal, articulated with the foremost part of the blade of the tongue approaching the foremost part of the hard palate, with the tip of the tongue resting behind either upper or lower front teeth.
 * Apico-laminal,  articulated with the tip of the tongue approaching the gums and the foremost part of the blade approaching the foremost part of the hard palate. According to, this variant is used more frequently.
 * has a number of possible realizations:
 * Voiced apical coronal trill,  either alveolar (articulated with the tip of the tongue against the alveolar ridge),  or dental (articulated with the tip of the tongue against the back of the upper front teeth).
 * Distribution: Common in the south (Bavaria and many parts of Switzerland and Austria), but it is also found in some speakers in central and northern Germany, especially the elderly. It is also one of possible realizations of in the Standard Austrian accent, but a more common alveolar realization is an approximant . Even more common are uvular realizations, fricatives  and a trill.
 * Voiced uvular trill, which can be realized as voiceless  after voiceless consonants (as in treten). According to  it is often a flap  intervocalically (as in Ehre).
 * Distribution: Occurs in some conservative varieties—most speakers with a uvular realize it as a fricative or an approximant. It is also one of possible realizations of  in the Standard Austrian accent, but it is less common than a fricative.
 * Dorsal continuant, about the quality of which there is not a complete agreement:
 * describe two fricative variants, namely post-palatal and velar . The post-palatal variant appears before and after front vowels, while the velar variant is used in all other positions.
 * describe it as voiced post-velar fricative.
 * and describe it as voiced uvular fricative ;
 * states that "with educated professional radio and TV announcers, as with professional actors on the stage and in film, the [voiced uvular] fricative [realization of] clearly predominates."
 * In the Standard Austrian accent, the uvular fricative is also the most common realization, although its voicing is variable (that is, it can be either voiced or voiceless ).
 * writes that "the place of articulation of the consonant varies from uvular in e.g. rot ('red') to velar in e.g. treten ('kick'), depending on back or front vowel contexts." He also notes that is devoiced after voiceless plosives and fricatives, especially those within the same word, giving the word treten as an example. According to this author,  can be reduced to an approximant in an intervocalic position.
 * describe it as a uvular fricative or approximant . The latter is less likely to occur word-initially.
 * Distribution: Almost all areas apart from Bavaria and parts of Switzerland.
 * Near-open central unrounded vowel is a post-vocalic allophone of (mostly dorsal) varieties of . The non-syllabic variant of it is not always near-open or central; it is similar to either  or, depending on the environment.
 * Distribution: Widespread, but less common in Switzerland.
 * Retroflex approximant [ɻ⁠] realized like the r in Standard American English.
 * Distribution: Middle Hessian between the Wetterau region and the Westerwald and the Higher Lusatia.
 * The voiceless stops, , are aspirated except when preceded by a sibilant. Many southern dialects do not aspirate , and some northern ones do so only in a stressed position. The voiceless affricates , , and  are never aspirated, and neither are any other consonants besides the aforementioned.
 * The obstruents are voiceless lenis consonants  in southern varieties. Voiceless lenis consonants  continue to contrast with voiceless fortis consonants . The section  covers the issue in more detail.
 * In Austria, intervocalic can be lenited to fricatives.
 * Before and after front vowels ( and, in varieties that realize them as front, and/or ), the velar consonants  are realized as post-palatal . According to, in a parallel process,  before and after back vowels ( and, in varieties that realize them as back,  and/or ) are retracted to post-velar  or even uvular.
 * There is no complete agreement about the nature of ; it has been variously described as:
 * a fricative ,
 * a fricative which can be fricated less strongly than ,
 * a sound variable between a weak fricative and an approximant, and
 * an approximant, which is the usual realization in the Standard Austrian variety.
 * In many varieties of standard German, the glottal stop,, occurs in careful speech before word stems that begin with a vowel and before stressed vowels word-internally, as in Oase [ʔo.ʔaː.zə] (twice). It is much more frequent in northern varieties than in the south. It is not usually considered a phoneme. In colloquial and dialectal speech, is often omitted, especially when the word beginning with a vowel is unstressed.
 * The phonemic status of affricates is controversial. The majority view accepts and, but not  or the non-native ; some accept none, some accept all but , and some accept all.
 * Although occurs in native words, it only appears in historic clusters of  +  (e.g. deutsch < OHG diutisc) or in words with expressive quality (e.g. glitschen, hutschen).  is, however, well-established in loanwords, including German toponyms of non-Germanic origin (e.g. Zschopau).
 * and occur only in words of foreign origin. In certain varieties, they are replaced by  and  altogether.
 * is occasionally considered to be an allophone of, especially in southern varieties of German.
 * and are traditionally regarded as allophones after front vowels and back vowels, respectively. For a more detailed analysis see below at ich-Laut and ach-Laut. According to some analyses,  is an allophone of  after  and according to some also after .  However, according to, the uvular allophone is used after  only in the Standard Austrian variety.
 * Some phonologists do not posit a separate phoneme and use  instead, along with  instead of . The phoneme sequence  is realized as  when  can start a valid onset of the next syllable whose nucleus is a vowel other than unstressed, , or . It becomes  otherwise. For example:
 * Diphthong
 * diphthongieren
 * Englisch
 * Anglo
 * Ganges ~

Ich-Laut and ach-Laut
Ich-Laut is the voiceless palatal fricative (which is found in the word ich  'I'), and ach-Laut is the voiceless velar fricative  (which is found in the word ach  the interjection 'oh', 'alas'). Laut is the German word for 'sound, phone'. In German, these two sounds are allophones occurring in complementary distribution. The allophone occurs after back vowels and  (for instance in Buch  'book'), the allophone  after front vowels (for instance in mich  'me/myself') and consonants (for instance in Furcht  'fear', manchmal  'sometimes'). The allophone also appears after vocalized $⟨r⟩$ in superregional variants, e.g. in Furcht  'fear'. In southeastern regiolects, the ach-Laut is commonly used here, yielding.

In loanwords, the pronunciation of potential fricatives in onsets of stressed syllables varies: in the Northern varieties of standard German, it is, while in Southern varieties, it is , and in Western varieties, it is (for instance in China:  vs.  vs. ).

The diminutive suffix -chen is always pronounced 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 some comparatively recent coinings, there is no longer an umlaut, for instance in the word Frauchen (a diminutive of Frau 'woman'), so that a back vowel is followed by a, even though normally it would be followed by a , as in rauchen  ('to smoke'). This exception to the allophonic distribution may be an effect of the morphemic boundary or an example of phonemicization, where erstwhile allophones undergo a split into separate phonemes.

The allophonic distribution of after front vowels and  after other vowels is also found in other languages, such as Scots, e.g. licht  'light', dochter  'daughter', and the same distribution is reconstructed for Middle English. However, it is by no means inevitable: Dutch, Yiddish, and many Southern German dialects retain (which can be realized as  instead) in all positions. It is thus reasonable to assume that Old High German ih, the ancestor of modern ich, was pronounced with rather than. While it is impossible to know for certain whether Old English words such as niht (modern night) were pronounced with or,  is likely (see Old English phonology).

Despite the phonetic history, the complementary distribution of and  in modern Standard German is better described as backing of  after a back vowel, rather than fronting of  after a front vowel, because  is used in onsets (Chemie  'chemistry') and after consonants (Molch  'newt'), and is thus the underlying form of the phoneme.

According to Kohler, the German ach-Laut is further differentiated into two allophones, and :  occurs after  (for instance in Buch  'book') and  after  (for instance in Bach  'brook'), while either  or  may occur after, with  predominating.

In Western varieties, there is a strong tendency to realize as unrounded  or, and the phoneme may be confused or merged with  altogether, secondarily leading to hypercorrection effects where  is replaced with , for instance in Fisch , which may be realized as.

Within German dialects, a large variation exists as to the environments which trigger or prevent one realization or the other.

Fortis–lenis pairs
Various German consonants occur in pairs at the same place of articulation and in the same manner of articulation, namely the pairs, , , ,. These pairs are often called fortis–lenis pairs, since describing them as voiced–voiceless pairs is inadequate. With certain qualifications,, and  are also considered fortis–lenis pairs.

Fortis-lenis distinction for is unimportant.

The fortis stops are aspirated in many varieties. The aspiration is strongest in the onset of a stressed syllable (such as Taler 'thaler'), weaker in the onset of an unstressed syllable (such as Vater  'father'), and weakest in the syllable coda (such as in Saat  'seed'). All fortis consonants, i.e. are fully voiceless.

The lenis consonants range from being weakly voiced to almost voiceless  after voiceless consonants: Kasbah  ('kasbah'), abdanken  ('to resign'), rotgelb  ('red-yellow'), Abwurf  ('dropping'), Absicht  ('intention'), Holzjalousie  ('wooden jalousie'), wegjagen  ('to chase away'), tropfen  ('to drop'), Obstjuice  ('fruit juice'). states that they are "to a large extent voiced" in all other environments, but some studies have found the stops  to be voiceless word/utterance-initially in most dialects (while still contrasting with  due to the aspiration of the latter).

are voiceless in most southern varieties of German. For clarity, they are often transcribed as.

The nature of the phonetic difference between the voiceless lenis consonants and the similarly voiceless fortis consonants is controversial. It is generally described as a difference in articulatory force, and occasionally as a difference in articulatory length; for the most part, it is assumed that one of these characteristics implies the other.

In various central and southern varieties, the opposition between fortis and lenis is neutralized in the syllable onset; sometimes just in the onset of stressed syllables, sometimes in all cases.

The pair is not considered a fortis–lenis pair, but a simple voiceless–voiced pair, as  remains voiced in all varieties, including the Southern varieties that devoice the lenes (with however some exceptions). Generally, the southern is realized as the voiced approximant. However, there are southern varieties which differentiate between a fortis (such as in sträflich  'culpable' from Middle High German stræflich) and a lenis  (, such as in höflich  'polite' from Middle High German hovelîch); this is analogous to the opposition of fortis   and lenis.

Coda devoicing
In varieties from Northern Germany, lenis stops in the syllable coda are realized as fortis stops. This does not happen in varieties from Southern Germany, Austria or Switzerland.

Since the lenis stops are unvoiced or at most variably voiced (as stated above), this cannot be called devoicing in the strict sense of the word because it does not involve the loss of phonetic voice. More accurately, it can be called coda fortition or a neutralization of fortis and lenis sounds in the coda. Fricatives are truly and contrastively voiced in Northern Germany. Therefore, the fricatives undergo coda devoicing in the strict sense of the word. It is disputed whether coda devoicing is due to a constraint which specifically operates on syllable codas or whether it arises from constraints which "protect voicing in privileged positions".

Coda voicing
As against standard pronunciation rules, in western varieties including those of the Rhineland, coda fortis–lenis neutralization results in voicing rather than devoicing if the following word begins with a vowel. For example, mit uns becomes and darf ich becomes. The same sandhi phenomenon exists also as a general rule in the Luxembourgish language.

Stress
In German words there is always one syllable carrying main stress, with all other syllables either being unstressed or carrying a secondary stress. The position of the main stress syllable has been a matter of debate. Traditionally, word stress is seen as falling onto the first stem syllable. In recent analyses, there is agreement that main stress is placed onto one of the last three (stressable) syllables. Within this three-syllable window, word stress is put regularly onto the second-to-last syllable, the penultimate syllable. However, syllable quantity may modify this pattern: a heavy final or prefinal syllable, i.e., one with a long vowel or with one or more consonants in the syllable coda, will usually attract main stress.


 * Examples:
 * final stress: Eleˈfant, Krokoˈdil, Kaˈmel
 * penultimate stress:  ˈTurban, ˈKonsul, ˈBison
 * antepenultimate stress:  ˈPinguin,  ˈRisiko,  ˈMonitor

A set of illustrative examples also stems from Japanese loan words, as these cannot be borrowed with their stress patterns (Japanese has a system of pitch accents, completely different from word stress in Germanic languages):


 * final stress: Shoˈgun, Samuˈrai
 * penultimate stress: Mitsuˈbishi, Ikeˈbana
 * antepenultimate stress: Hiˈroshima,  ˈOsaka

A list of Japanese words in German reveals that none of the words with four syllables has initial stress, confirming the three-syllable-window analysis.

Secondary stresses precede the main stress if at least two syllables are present, as in ̩Bib-li- ̩o-the-'ka-rin.

Suffixes, if containing a stressable vowel, are either stressed (-ei, ion, -al, etc.) or unstressed (-ung, -heit, -isch, etc.)

In addition, German uses different stresses for separable prefixes and inseparable prefixes in verbs and words derived from such verbs:
 * Words beginning with be-, ge-, er-, ver-, zer-, ent-, emp- and a few other inseparable prefixes are stressed on the root.
 * Words beginning with the separable prefixes ab-, auf-, ein-, vor-, and most prepositional adverbs are stressed on the prefix.
 * Some prefixes, notably über-, unter-, um-, and durch-, can function as separable or inseparable prefixes and are stressed or not accordingly.
 * A few homographs with such prefixes exist. They are not perfect homophones. Consider the word umschreiben. As ˈum•schreiben (separable prefix), it means 'to rewrite' and is pronounced, with stress on the first syllable. Its associated noun, die ˈUmschreibung is also stressed on the first syllable – . On the other hand, umˈschreiben (inseparable prefix) is pronounced , with stress on the second syllable. This word means 'to paraphrase', and its associated noun, die Umˈschreibung is also stressed on the second syllable – . Another example is the word umˈfahren; with stress on the root it means 'to drive around (an obstacle in the street)', and with stress on the prefix  it means 'to run down/over' or 'to knock down'.

General
Like all infants, German infants go through a babbling stage in the early phases of phonological acquisition, during which they produce the sounds they will later use in their first words. Phoneme inventories begin with stops, nasals, and vowels; (contrasting) short vowels and liquids appear next, followed by fricatives and affricates, and finally all other consonants and consonant clusters. Children begin to produce protowords near the end of their first year. These words do not approximate adult forms, yet have a specific and consistent meaning. Early word productions are phonetically simple and usually follow the syllable structure CV or CVC, although this generalization has been challenged. The first vowels produced are, , and , followed by , , and , with rounded vowels emerging last. German children often use phonological processes to simplify their early word production. For example, they may delete an unstressed syllable (Schokolade 'chocolate' pronounced ), or replace a fricative with a corresponding stop (Dach 'roof' pronounced ). One case study found that a 17-month-old child acquiring German replaced the voiceless velar fricative with the nearest available continuant, or deleted it altogether (Buch  'book' pronounced  or ).

Prosodically, children prefer bisyllabic words with the pattern strong – weak over monosyllabic words.

Vowel space development
In 2009, Lintfert examined the development of vowel space of German speakers in their first three years of life. During the babbling stage, vowel distribution has no clear pattern. However, stressed and unstressed vowels already show different distributions in the vowel space. Once word production begins, stressed vowels expand in the vowel space, while the F1 – F2 vowel space of unstressed vowels becomes more centralized. The majority of infants are then capable of stable production of F1. The variability of formant frequencies among individuals decreases with age. After 24 months, infants expand their vowel space individually at different rates. However, if the parents' utterances possess a well-defined vowel space, their children produce clearly distinguished vowel classes earlier. By about three years old, children command the production of all vowels, and they attempt to produce the four cardinal vowels,, , and , at the extreme limits of the F1–F2 vowel space (i.e., the height and backness of the vowels are made extreme by the infants).

Nasals
The acquisition of nasals in German differs from that of Dutch, a phonologically closely related language. German children produce proportionately more nasals in onset position (sounds before a vowel in a syllable) than Dutch children do. German children, once they reached 16 months, also produced significantly more nasals in syllables containing schwas, when compared with Dutch-speaking children. This may reflect differences in the languages the children are being exposed to, although the researchers claim that the development of nasals likely cannot be seen apart from the more general phonological system the child is developing.

Phonotactic constraints and reading
A 2006 study examined the acquisition of German in phonologically delayed children (specifically, issues with fronting of velars and stopping of fricatives) and whether they applied phonotactic constraints to word-initial consonant clusters containing these modified consonants. In many cases, the subjects (mean age = 5.1) avoided making phonotactic violations, opting instead for other consonants or clusters in their speech. This suggests that phonotactic constraints do apply to the speech of German children with phonological delay, at least in the case of word-initial consonant clusters. Additional research has also shown that spelling consistencies seen in German raise children's phonemic awareness as they acquire reading skills.

Sound changes and mergers
A common merger is that of at the end of a syllable with  or, for instance Krieg  ('war'), but Kriege  ('wars'); er lag  ('he lay'), but wir lagen  ('we lay'). This pronunciation is frequent all over central and northern Germany. It is characteristic of regional languages and dialects, particularly Low German in the North, where $⟨g⟩$ represents a fricative, becoming voiceless in the syllable coda, as is common in German (final-obstruent devoicing). However common it is, this pronunciation is considered sub-standard. Only in one case, in the grammatical ending -ig (which corresponds to English -y), the fricative pronunciation of final $⟨g⟩$ is prescribed by the Siebs standard, for instance wichtig ('important'), Wichtigkeit  ('importance'). The merger occurs neither in Austro-Bavarian and Alemannic German nor in the corresponding varieties of Standard German, and therefore in these regions -ig is pronounced.

Many speakers do not distinguish the affricate from the simple fricative  in the beginning of a word, in which case the verb (er) fährt ('[he] travels') and the noun Pferd ('horse') are both pronounced. This most commonly occurs in northern and western Germany, where the local dialects did not originally have the sound. Some speakers also have peculiar pronunciation for in the middle or end of a word, replacing the  in  with a voiceless bilabial fricative, i.e. a consonant produced by pressing air flow through the tensed lips. Thereby Tropfen ('drop') becomes, rather than.

Many speakers who have a vocalization of after  merge this combination with long  (i.e.  >  or  >  or ). Hereby, Schaf ('sheep') and scharf ('sharp') can both be pronounced or. This merger does not occur where is a front vowel while  is realised as a back vowel. Here the words are kept distinct as ('sheep') and  ('sharp').

In umlaut forms, the difference usually reoccurs: Schäfer or  vs. schärfer. Speakers with this merger also often use (instead of formally normal ) where it stems from original. The word Archen ('arks') is thus pronounced, which makes a minimal pair with Aachen , arguably making the difference between and  phonemic, rather than just allophonic, for these speakers.

In the standard pronunciation, the vowel qualities, , , , as well as , , , , are all still distinguished even in unstressed syllables. In this latter case, however, many simplify the system in various degrees. For some speakers, this may go so far as to merge all four into one, hence misspellings by schoolchildren such as Bräutegam (instead of Bräutigam) or Portogal (instead of Portugal).

In everyday speech, more mergers occur, some of which are universal and some of which are typical for certain regions or dialect backgrounds. Overall, there is a strong tendency of reduction and contraction. For example, long vowels may be shortened, consonant clusters may be simplified, word-final may be dropped in some cases, and the suffix -en may be contracted with preceding consonants, e.g.  for haben  ('to have').

If the clusters, , , or are followed by another consonant, the stops ,  and  usually lose their phonemic status. Thus while the standard pronunciation distinguishes ganz ('whole') from Gans  ('goose'), as well as er sinkt  from er singt, the two pairs are homophones for most speakers. The commonest practice is to drop the stop (thus, for both words), but some speakers insert the stop where it is not etymological (,  for both words), or they alternate between the two ways. Only a few speakers retain a phonemic distinction.

Middle High German
The Middle High German vowels and  developed into the modern Standard German diphthong, whereas  and  developed into. For example, Middle High German heiz and wîz  ('hot' and 'white') became Standard German heiß  and weiß. In some dialects, the Middle High German vowels have not changed, e.g. Swiss German heiss and wiiss, while in other dialects or languages, the vowels have changed but the distinction is kept, e.g. Bavarian hoaß  and weiß , Ripuarian heeß  and wieß  (however the Colognian dialect has kept the original [ei] diphthong in heiß), Yiddish הײס heys  and װײַס vays.

The Middle High German diphthongs, and  became the modern Standard German long vowels ,  and  after the Middle High German long vowels changed to diphthongs. Most Upper German dialects retain the diphthongs. A remnant of their former diphthong character is shown when continues to be written ie in German (as in Liebe 'love').

Loanwords
German incorporates a significant number of loanwords from other languages. Loanwords are often adapted to German phonology but to varying degrees, depending on the speaker and the commonness of the word. and do not occur in native German words but are common in a number of French and English loan words. Many speakers replace them with and  respectively (especially in Southern Germany, Austria and Switzerland), so that Dschungel (from English jungle) can be pronounced  or. Some speakers in Northern and Western Germany merge with, so that Journalist (phonemically ) can be pronounced ,  or. The realization of as, however, is uncommon.

Loanwords from English
Many English words are used in German, especially in technology and pop culture. Some speakers pronounce them similarly to their native pronunciation, but many speakers change non-native phonemes to similar German phonemes (even if they pronounce them in a rather English manner in an English-language setting):
 * English are usually pronounced as in RP or General American; some speakers replace them with  and  respectively (th-alveolarization) e.g. Thriller.
 * English can be pronounced the same as in English, i.e., or as the corresponding native German  e.g. Rock  or . German and Austrian speakers tend to be variably rhotic when using English loanwords.
 * English is often replaced with German  e.g. Whisk(e)y.
 * word-initial is often retained (especially in the South, where word-initial  is common), but many speakers replace it with  e.g. Sound.
 * word-initial and  are usually retained, but some speakers (especially in South Western Germany and Western Austria) replace them with  and  e.g. Steak  or, Spray  or.
 * English is usually retained, but in Northern and Western Germany as well as Luxembourg, it is often replaced with  e.g. Chips.
 * In Northern Standard German, final-obstruent devoicing is applied to English loan words just as to other words e.g. Airbag, Lord or , Backstage . However, in Southern Standard German, in Swiss Standard German and Austrian Standard German, final-obstruent devoicing does not occur and so speakers are more likely to retain the original pronunciation of word-final lenes (although realizing them as fortes may occur because of confusing English spelling with pronunciation).
 * English and  are often replaced with  and  respectively e.g. Homepage.
 * English and  are pronounced the same, as German  (met–mat merger) e.g. Backup.
 * English and  are pronounced the same, as German  (cot–caught merger) e.g. Box.
 * English is usually pronounced as German  e.g. Cutter.
 * English is usually pronounced as German  e.g. Shirt  or.
 * English is pronounced as  (happy-tensing) e.g. Whisk(e)y.

Loanwords from French
French loanwords, once very numerous, have in part been replaced by native German coinages or more recently English loanwords. Besides, they can also contain the characteristic nasal vowels , , and  (always long). However, their status as phonemes is questionable and they are often resolved into sequences either of (short) oral vowel and (in the north), or of (long or short) oral vowel and  or sometimes  (in the south). For example, Ballon ('balloon') may be realized as  or, Parfüm  ('perfume') as  or  and Orange  ('orange') as  or.

Sample
The sample text is a reading of "The North Wind and the Sun". The phonemic transcription treats every instance of and  as  and, respectively. The phonetic transcription is a fairly narrow transcription of the educated northern accent. The speaker transcribed in the narrow transcription is 62 years old, and he is reading in a colloquial style. Aspiration, glottal stops and devoicing of the lenes after fortes are not transcribed.

The audio file contains the whole fable and was recorded by a much younger speaker.

Orthographic version
Einst stritten sich Nordwind und Sonne, wer von ihnen beiden wohl der Stärkere wäre, als ein Wanderer, der in einen warmen Mantel gehüllt war, des Weges daherkam. Sie wurden einig, daß derjenige für den Stärkeren gelten sollte, der den Wanderer zwingen würde, seinen Mantel abzunehmen. Der Nordwind blies mit aller Macht, aber je mehr er blies, desto fester hüllte sich der Wanderer in seinen Mantel ein. Endlich gab der Nordwind den Kampf auf. Nun erwärmte die Sonne die Luft mit ihren freundlichen Strahlen, und schon nach wenigen Augenblicken zog der Wanderer seinen Mantel aus. Da mußte der Nordwind zugeben, daß die Sonne von ihnen beiden der Stärkere war.