Standard German phonology facts for kids
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
Single vowels
| Front | Central | Back | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| unrounded | rounded | |||||||
| short | long | short | long | short | long | short | long | |
| Close | ||||||||
| Close-mid | () | |||||||
| Open-mid | () | () | ||||||
| Open | ||||||||
Vowel combos
| Ending point | ||
|---|---|---|
| Front | Back | |
| Open-mid | ||
| Open | ||
Consonants
German has 25 phonemes, which is average among other languages. One of its more unique sounds is the unusual affricate.
| Labial | Dental/ Alveolar |
Palatal | Velar/ Uvular |
Glottal | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | |||||||
| Plosive | fortis | () | |||||
| lenis | |||||||
| Affricate | fortis | ||||||
| lenis | () | ||||||
| Fricative | sibilant | fortis | |||||
| lenis | () | ||||||
| non-sibilant | fortis | () | |||||
| lenis | () | ||||||
| Lateral | |||||||
| Rhotic | |||||||
Ich-Laut and ach-Laut
'Ich-Laut' is the voiceless palatal fricative (found in the word ich 'I'), and ach-Laut is the voiceless velar fricative (as in 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'). (This happens most regularly: if the ⟨r⟩ in Furcht is pronounced as a consonant, ch represents however if, as often happens, it is vocalized as resembling the vowel then ⟨ch⟩ may represent yielding.)
- Ladefoged, Peter; Maddieson, Ian (1996). The Sounds of the World's Languages. Oxford: Blackwell. ISBN 0-631-19814-8.
See also
In Spanish: Fonología del alemán para niños
