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Concept
Standard German phonology
Summary
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.
Some scholars treat /ə/ as an unstressed allophone of /ɛ/. Likewise, some scholars treat /ɐ/ as an allophone of the sequence /ər/ or as a vocalized variant of /r/. The phonemic status of /ɛː/ is also debated – see below.
Close vowels
/iː/ is close front unrounded iː.
/yː/ is close near-front rounded y.
/uː/ is close back rounded uː.
/ɪ/ has been variously described as near-close front unrounded ɪ and near-close near-front unrounded ɪ.
/ʏ/ is near-close near-front rounded ʏ.
/ʊ/ is near-close near-back rounded ʊ.
Mid vowels
/eː/ is close-mid front unrounded eː.
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 [eɪ].
/øː/ has been variously described as close-mid near-front rounded ø and mid near-front rounded ø̞.
Official source
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