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^ abcdefgIn Austrian Standard German and Swiss Standard German, the lenis obstruents /b, d, ɡ, z, dʒ, ʒ/ are voiceless [b̥, d̥, ɡ̊, z̥, d̥ʒ̊, ʒ̊] and are distinguished from /p, t, k, s, tʃ, ʃ/ only by articulatory strength (/v/ is really voiced). The distinction is also retained word-finally. In German Standard German, voiceless [b̥, d̥, ɡ̊, z̥, d̥ʒ̊, ʒ̊] as well as [v̥] occur allophonically after fortis obstruents and, for /b, d, ɡ/, often also word-initially. See fortis and lenis.
^ abcIn German Standard German, voiced stops /b, d, ɡ/ are devoiced to [p, t, k] at the end of a syllable.
^ abcPronunciation of /r/ in German varies according to region and speaker. While older prescriptive pronunciation dictionaries allowed only [r], that pronunciation is now found mainly in Switzerland, Bavaria and Austria. In other regions, the uvular pronunciation prevails, mainly as a fricative/approximant [ʁ]. In many regions except for most parts of Switzerland, the /r/ in the syllable coda is vocalized to [ɐ̯] after long vowels or after all vowels, and /ər/ is pronounced as [ɐ]
^Many speakers lack /dʒ/ and replace it with its voiceless counterpart /tʃ/.
^ abcSome scholars write [ɑː] for our [aː], and [ɑ] for its shortened counterpart, thus differentiating between regular [a] and shortened [ɑ] (see e.g. Wierzbicka & Rynkowska (1992:412–415)).
^ abcdefghThe nasal vowels occur in French loans. They are long [ãː, ɛ̃ː, õː, œ̃ː] when stressed and short [ã, ɛ̃, õ, œ̃] when unstressed. In colloquial speech they may be replaced with [aŋ, ɛŋ, ɔŋ, œŋ] irrespective of length, and the [ŋ] in these sequences may optionally be assimilated to the place of articulation of a following consonant, e.g. Ensemble[aŋˈsaŋbl̩] or [anˈsambl̩] for [ãˈsãːbl̩] (Mangold (2005:65)).
^[œːɐ̯] is the German rendering of the English NURSE vowel /ɜːr/. It also appears in certain French surnames, e.g. Vasseur. (Krech et al. (2009:64, 142)).
^ abcdefg[a, e, i, o, ø, u, y], the short versions of the long vowels [aː, eː, iː, oː, øː, uː, yː], are used at the end of unstressed syllables before the accented syllable and occur mainly in loanwords. In native words, the accent is generally on the first syllable, and syllables before the accent other than prepositional prefixes are rare but occasionally occur, e.g. in jedoch[jeˈdɔx], soeben[zoˈʔeːbn̩], vielleicht[fiˈlaɪçt] etc. In casual speech short [e, i, o, ø, u, y] preceding a phonemic consonant (i.e., not a [ʔ]) may be replaced with [ɛ, ɪ, ɔ, œ, ʊ, ʏ], e.g. [jɛˈdɔx], [fɪˈlaɪçt] (Mangold (2005:65)).
Bibliography
Hove, Ingrid (2002), Die Aussprache der Standardsprache in der Schweiz, Tübingen: Niemeyer, ISBN 978-3-484-23147-4
Krech, Eva Maria; Stock, Eberhard; Hirschfeld, Ursula; Anders, Lutz-Christian (2009), Deutsches Aussprachewörterbuch, Berlin, New York: Walter de Gruyter, ISBN 978-3-11-018202-6
Mangold, Max (2005), Das Aussprachewörterbuch (6th ed.), Duden, ISBN 978-3411040667
Wierzbicka, Irena; Rynkowska, Teresa (1992), Samouczek języka niemieckiego: kurs wstępny (6th ed.), Warszawa: Wiedza Powszechna, ISBN 83-214-0284-4