pronounced as /notice/
German orthography is the orthography used in writing the German language, which is largely phonemic. However, it shows many instances of spellings that are historic or analogous to other spellings rather than phonemic. The pronunciation of almost every word can be derived from its spelling once the spelling rules are known, but the opposite is not generally the case.
Today, Standard High German orthography is regulated by the German: [[Rat für deutsche Rechtschreibung]] (Council for German Orthography), composed of representatives from most German-speaking countries.
See also: German Alphabet.
The modern German alphabet consists of the twenty-six letters of the ISO basic Latin alphabet plus four special letters.
| Letter | Name[1] | Name (IPA) | Spelling Alphabet | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| A | a | German: A | pronounced as //aː// | Anton | |
| B | b | German: Be | pronounced as //beː// | Berta | |
| C | c | German: Ce | pronounced as //t͡seː// | Cäsar | |
| D | d | German: De | pronounced as //deː// | Dora | |
| E | e | German: E | pronounced as //eː// | Emil | |
| F | f | German: Ef | pronounced as //ɛf// | Friedrich | |
| G | g | German: Ge | pronounced as //ɡeː// | Gustav | |
| H | h | German: Ha | pronounced as //haː// | Heinrich | |
| I | i | German: I | pronounced as //iː// | Ida | |
| J | j | German: Jott, German: Je | pronounced as //jɔt// pronounced as //jeː// | Julius | |
| K | k | German: Ka | pronounced as //kaː// | Kaufmann, Konrad | |
| L | l | German: El | pronounced as //ɛl// | Ludwig | |
| M | m | German: Em | pronounced as //ɛm// | Martha | |
| N | n | German: En | pronounced as //ɛn// | Nordpol | |
| O | o | German: O | pronounced as //oː// | Otto | |
| P | p | German: Pe | pronounced as //peː// | Paula | |
| Q | q | German: Qu, German: Que | pronounced as //kuː// pronounced as //kveː// | Quelle | |
| R | r | German: Er | pronounced as //ɛʁ// | Richard | |
| S | s | German: Es | pronounced as //ɛs// | Samuel, Siegfried | |
| T | t | German: Te | pronounced as //teː// | Theodor | |
| U | u | German: U | pronounced as //uː// | Ulrich | |
| V | v | German: Vau | pronounced as //faʊ̯// | Viktor | |
| W | w | German: We | pronounced as //veː// | Wilhelm | |
| X | x | German: Ix | pronounced as //ɪks// | Xanthippe, Xavier | |
| Y | y | German: Ypsilon | pronounced as //ˈʏpsilɔn// pronounced as //ʏˈpsiːlɔn// | Ypsilon | |
| Z | z | German: Zett | pronounced as //t͡sɛt// | Zacharias, Zürich | |
German has four special letters; three are vowels accented with an umlaut sign ((ä, ö, ü)) and one is derived from a ligature of (ſ) (long s) and (z) ((ß); called German: Eszett "ess-zed/zee" or German: scharfes S "sharp s"). They have their own names separate from the letters they are based on.
| Letter | Name | Name (IPA) | Spelling Alphabet | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ä | ä | Ä | pronounced as //ɛː// | Ärger | |
| Ö | ö | Ö | pronounced as //øː// | Ökonom, Österreich | |
| Ü | ü | Ü | pronounced as //yː// | Übermut, Übel | |
| ẞ | ß | German: Eszett, German: scharfes S | pronounced as //ɛsˈt͡sɛt// pronounced as //ˈʃaʁfəs ɛs// | Eszett, scharfes S | |
While the Council for German Orthography considers (ä, ö, ü, ß) distinct letters, disagreement on how to categorize and count them has led to a dispute over the exact number of letters the German alphabet has, the number ranging between 26 (considering special letters as variants of (a, o, u, s)) and 30 (counting all special letters separately).[4]
See also: Umlaut (diacritic). The accented letters (ä, ö, ü) are used to indicate the presence of umlauts (fronting of back vowels). Before the introduction of the printing press, frontalization was indicated by placing an (e) after the back vowel to be modified, but German printers developed the space-saving typographical convention of replacing the full (e) with a small version placed above the vowel to be modified. In German Kurrent writing, the superscripted (e) was simplified to two vertical dashes (as the Kurrent (e) consists largely of two short vertical strokes), which have further been reduced to dots in both handwriting and German typesetting. Although the two dots of umlaut look like those in the diaeresis (trema), the two have different origins and functions.
When it is not possible to use the umlauts (for example, when using a restricted character set) the characters (Ä, Ö, Ü, ä, ö, ü) should be transcribed as (Ae, Oe, Ue, ae, oe, ue) respectively, following the earlier postvocalic-(e) convention; simply using the base vowel (e.g. (u) instead of (ü)) would be wrong and misleading. However, such transcription should be avoided if possible, especially with names. Names often exist in different variants, such as German: Müller and German: Mueller, and with such transcriptions in use one could not work out the correct spelling of the name.
Automatic back-transcribing is wrong not only for names. Consider, for example, German: das neue Buch ("the new book"). This should never be changed to German: das neü Buch, as the second (e) is completely separate from the (u) and does not even belong in the same syllable; German: neue (pronounced as /de/) is German: neu (the root for "new") followed by (e), an inflection. The word (neü) does not exist in German.
Furthermore, in northern and western Germany, there are family names and place names in which (e) lengthens the preceding vowel (by acting as a German: [[:de:Dehnungszeichen#Dehnungs-e nach anderen Vokalen|Dehnungs-e]]), as in the former Dutch orthography, such as German: [[Straelen]], which is pronounced with a long (a), not an (ä). Similar cases are German: [[Coesfeld]] and German: [[Bernkastel-Kues]].
In proper names and ethnonyms, there may also appear a rare (ë) and (ï), which are not letters with an umlaut, but a diaeresis, used as in French and English to distinguish what could be a digraph, for example, (ai) in German: [[Crimean Karaites|Karaïmen]], (eu) in German: [[Aleuts|Alëuten]], (ie) in German: [[Ferdinand Piëch|Piëch]], (oe) in German: [[Clemens von Loë|von Loë]] and German: [[Bernhard Hoëcker|Hoëcker]] (although Hoëcker added the diaeresis himself), and (ue) in German: [[Niue|Niuë]].[5] Occasionally, a diaeresis may be used in some well-known names, i.e.: German: [[Italy|Italiën]][6] (usually written as German: Italien).
Swiss keyboards and typewriters do not allow easy input of uppercase letters with umlauts (nor (ß)) because their positions are taken by the most frequent French diacritics. Uppercase umlauts were dropped because they are less common than lowercase ones (especially in Switzerland). Geographical names in particular are supposed to be written with (a, o, u) plus (e), except German: [[Austria|Österreich]]. The omission can cause some inconvenience, since the first letter of every noun is capitalized in German.
Unlike in Hungarian, the exact shape of the umlaut diacritics – especially when handwritten – is not important, because they are the only ones in the language (not counting the tittle on (i) and (j)). They will be understood whether they look like dots ((¨)), acute accents ((˝)) or vertical bars ((‖)). A horizontal bar (macron, (¯)), a breve ((˘)), a tiny (N) or (e), a tilde ((˜)), and such variations are often used in stylized writing (e.g. logos). However, the breve – or the ring ((°)) – was traditionally used in some scripts to distinguish a from an . In rare cases, the was underlined. The breved was common in some Kurrent-derived handwritings; it was mandatory in Sütterlin.
German: Eszett or German: scharfes S ((ß)) represents the “s” sound. The German spelling reform of 1996 somewhat reduced usage of this letter in Germany and Austria. It is not used in Switzerland and Liechtenstein.
As (ß) derives from a ligature of lowercase letters, it is exclusively used in the middle or at the end of a word. The proper transcription when it cannot be used is (and in earlier times). This transcription can give rise to ambiguities, albeit rarely; one such case is German: in Maßen "in moderation" vs. German: in Massen "en masse". In all-caps, (ß) is replaced by or, optionally, by the uppercase (ß). The uppercase was included in Unicode 5.1 as U+1E9E in 2008. Since 2010 its use is mandatory in official documentation in Germany when writing geographical names in all-caps.[7] The option of using the uppercase in all-caps was officially added to the German orthography in 2017.[8]
Although nowadays substituted correctly only by, the letter actually originates from a distinct ligature: long s with (round) z . Some people therefore prefer to substitute by, as it can avoid possible ambiguities (as in the above German: Maßen vs German: Massen example).
Incorrect use of the letter is a common type of spelling error even among native German writers. The spelling reform of 1996 changed the rules concerning and (no forced replacement of to at word's end). This required a change of habits and is often disregarded: some people even incorrectly assumed that the had been abolished completely. However, if the vowel preceding the (s) is long, the correct spelling remains (as in ). If the vowel is short, it becomes, e.g. German: Ich denke, dass… "I think that…". This follows the general rule in German that a long vowel is followed by a single consonant, while a short vowel is followed by a double consonant.
This change towards the so-called Heyse spelling, however, introduced a new sort of spelling error, as the long/short pronunciation differs regionally. It was already mostly abolished in the late 19th century (and finally with the first unified German spelling of 1901) in favor of the Adelung spelling. Besides the long/short pronunciation issue, which can be attributed to dialect speaking (for instance, in the northern parts of Germany German: Spaß is typically pronounced short, i.e. Spass, whereas particularly in Bavaria elongated may occur as in German: Geschoss which is pronounced Geschoß in certain regions), Heyse spelling also introduces reading ambiguities that do not occur with Adelung spelling such as German: Prozessorientierung (Adelung: German: Prozeßorientierung) vs. German: Prozessorarchitektur (Adelung: German: Prozessorarchitektur). It is therefore recommended to insert hyphens where required for reading assistance, i.e. German: Prozessor-Architektur vs. German: Prozess-Orientierung.
In the Fraktur typeface and similar scripts, a long s was used except in syllable endings (cf. Greek sigma) and sometimes it was historically used in antiqua fonts as well; but it went out of general use in the early 1940s along with the Fraktur typeface. An example where this convention would avoid ambiguity is German: Wachſtube (pronounced as /de/) "guardhouse", written and German: Wachstube (pronounced as /de/) "tube of wax", written .
There are three ways to deal with the umlauts in alphabetic sorting.
Microsoft Windows in German versions offers the choice between the first two variants in its internationalisation settings.
A sort of combination of nos. 1 and 2 also exists, in use in a couple of lexica: The umlaut is sorted with the base character, but an (ae, oe, ue) in proper names is sorted with the umlaut if it is actually spoken that way (with the umlaut getting immediate precedence). A possible sequence of names then would be German: Mukovic; Muller; Müller; Mueller; Multmann in this order.
German: Eszett is sorted as though it were (ss). Occasionally it is treated as (s), but this is generally considered incorrect. Words distinguished only by (ß) vs. (ss) can only appear in the (presently used) Heyse writing and are even then rare and possibly dependent on local pronunciation, but if they appear, the word with (ß) gets precedence, and German: Geschoß (storey; South German pronunciation) would be sorted before Geschoss (projectile).
Accents in French loanwords are always ignored in collation.
In rare contexts (e.g. in older indices) (sch) (phonetic value equal to English (sh)) and likewise (st) and (ch) are treated as single letters, but the vocalic digraphs (ai, ei) (historically (ay, ey)), (au, äu, eu) and the historic (ui, oi) never are.
German names containing umlauts ((ä, ö, ü)) and/or (ß) are spelled in the correct way in the non-machine-readable zone of the passport, but with (AE, OE, UE) and/or (SS) in the machine-readable zone, e.g. (Müller) becomes (MUELLER), (Weiß) becomes (WEISS), and (Gößmann) becomes (GOESSMANN). The transcription mentioned above is generally used for aircraft tickets et cetera, but sometimes (like in US visas) simple vowels are used (German: MULLER, GOSSMANN). As a result, passport, visa, and aircraft ticket may display different spellings of the same name. The three possible spelling variants of the same name (e.g. German: Müller/Mueller/Muller) in different documents sometimes lead to confusion, and the use of two different spellings within the same document may give persons unfamiliar with German orthography the impression that the document is a forgery.
Even before the introduction of the capital (ẞ), it was recommended to use the minuscule (ß) as a capital letter in family names in documents (e.g. German: HEINZ GRO'''ß'''E, today's spelling: German: HEINZ GRO'''ẞ'''E).
German naming law accepts umlauts and/or (ß) in family names as a reason for an official name change. Even a spelling change, e.g. from German: Müller to German: Mueller or from German: Weiß to German: Weiss is regarded as a name change.
A typical feature of German spelling is the general capitalization of nouns and of most nominalized words. In addition, capital letters are used: at the beginning of sentences (may be used after a colon, when the part of a sentence after the colon can be treated as a sentence); in the formal pronoun German: Sie 'you' and the determiner German: Ihr 'your' (optionally in other second-person pronouns in letters); in adjectives at the beginning of proper names (e.g. German: der Stille Ozean 'the Pacific Ocean'); in adjectives with the suffix '-er' from geographical names (e.g. German: Berliner); in adjectives with the suffix '-sch' from proper names if written with the apostrophe before the suffix (e.g. German: Ohm'sches Gesetz 'Ohm's law', also written German: ohmsches Gesetz).
Compound words, including nouns, are usually written together, e.g. German: Haustür (German: Haus + German: Tür; 'house door'), German: Tischlampe (German: Tisch + German: Lampe; 'table lamp'), German: Kaltwasserhahn (German: Kalt + German: Wasser + German: Hahn; 'cold water tap/faucet). This can lead to long words: the longest word in regular use, German: Rechtsschutzversicherungsgesellschaften[9] ('legal protection insurance companies'), consists of 39 letters.
Compounds involving letters, abbreviations, or numbers (written in figures, even with added suffixes) are hyphenated: German: A-Dur 'A major', German: US-Botschaft 'US embassy', German: 10-prozentig 'with 10 percent', German: 10er-Gruppe 'group of ten'. The hyphen is used when adding suffixes to letters: German: n-te 'nth'. It is used in substantivated compounds such as German: Entweder-oder 'alternative' (literally 'either-or'); in phrase-word compounds such as German: Tag-und-Nacht-Gleiche 'equinox', German: Auf-die-lange-Bank-Schieben 'postponing' (substantivation of German: auf die lange Bank schieben 'to postpone'); in compounds of words containing hyphen with other words: German: A-Dur-Tonleiter 'A major scale'; in coordinated adjectives: German: deutsch-englisches Wörterbuch 'German-English dictionary'. Compound adjectives meaning colours are written with a hyphen if they mean two colours: German: rot-braun 'red and brown', but without a hyphen if they mean an intermediate colour: German: rotbraun 'reddish brown' (from the spelling reform of 1996 to the 2024 revision of the orthographic rules, both variants could be used in both meanings). Optionally the hyphen can be used to emphasize individual components, to clarify the meaning of complicated compounds, to avoid misunderstandings or when three identical letters occur together (in practice, in this case it is mostly used when writing nouns with triple vowels, e. g. German: See-Elefant 'elephant seal').
The hyphen is used in compounds where the second part or both parts are proper names, e. g. German: Foto-Hansen 'the photographer Hansen', German: Müller-Lüdenscheid 'Lüdenscheid, the city of millers', double-barrelled surnames such as German: Meyer-Schmidt; geographical names such as German: [[Baden-Württemberg]]. Double given names are variously written as German: Anna-Maria, Anna Maria, Annamaria. Some compound geographical names are written as one word (e. g. German: Nordkorea 'North Korea') or as two words (e. g. geographical names beginning with German: Sankt or German: Bad). The hyphen is not used when compounds with a proper name in the second part are used as common nouns, e. g. German: Heulsuse 'crybaby'; also in the name of the fountain German: [[Gänseliesel]]. The hyphen is used in words derived from proper names with hyphen, from proper names of more than one word, or from more than one proper name (optional in derivations with the suffix German: -er from geographical names from more than one word). Optionally the hyphen can be used in compounds where the first part is a proper name. Compounds of the type "geographical name+specification" are written with a hyphen or as two words: German: München-Ost or German: München Ost.
Even though vowel length is phonemic in German, it is not consistently represented. However, there are different ways of identifying long vowels:
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Even though German does not have phonemic consonant length, there are many instances of doubled or even tripled consonants in the spelling. A single consonant following a checked vowel is doubled if another vowel follows, for instance German: i'''mm'''er 'always', German: la'''ss'''en 'let'. These consonants are analyzed as ambisyllabic because they constitute not only the syllable onset of the second syllable but also the syllable coda of the first syllable, which must not be empty because the syllable nucleus is a checked vowel.
By analogy, if a word has one form with a doubled consonant, all forms of that word are written with a doubled consonant, even if they do not fulfill the conditions for consonant doubling; for instance, German: re'''nn'''en 'to run' → German: er re'''nn'''t 'he runs'; German: Kü'''ss'''e 'kisses' → German: Ku'''ss''' 'kiss'.
Doubled consonants can occur in composite words when the first part ends in the same consonant the second part starts with, e.g. in the word German: Schaffell ('sheepskin', composed of German: Schaf 'sheep' and German: Fell 'skin, fur, pelt').
Composite words can also have tripled letters. While this is usually a sign that the consonant is actually spoken long, it does not affect the pronunciation per se: the in German: Sauerstoffflasche ('oxygen bottle', composed of German: Sauerstoff 'oxygen' and German: Flasche 'bottle') is exactly as long as the ff in German: Schaffell. According to the spelling before 1996, the three consonants would be shortened before vowels, but retained before consonants and in hyphenation, so the word German: Schifffahrt ('navigation, shipping', composed of German: Schiff 'ship' and German: Fahrt 'drive, trip, tour') was then written German: Schiffahrt, whereas German: Sauerstoffflasche already had a triple . With the aforementioned change in spelling, even a new source of triple consonants, which in pre-1996 spelling could not occur as it was rendered, was introduced, e.g. German: Mussspiel ('compulsory round' in certain card games, composed of German: muss 'must' and German: Spiel 'game').
For technical terms, the foreign spelling is often retained such as pronounced as //f// or pronounced as //yː// in the word German: Physik (physics) of Greek origin. For some common affixes however, like German: -graphie or German: Photo-, it is allowed to use German: -grafie or German: Foto- instead.[10] Both German: Photographie and German: Fotografie are correct, but the mixed variants German: *Fotographie or German: *Photografie are not.
For other foreign words, both the foreign spelling and a revised German spelling are correct such as German: {{linktext|Delphin / German: Delfin[11] or German: {{linktext|Portemonnaie / German: Portmonee, though in the latter case the revised one does not usually occur.[12]
For some words for which the Germanized form was common even before the reform of 1996, the foreign version is no longer allowed. A notable example is the word German: Foto "photograph", which may no longer be spelled as German: Photo.[13] Other examples are German: Telephon (telephone) which was already Germanized as German: Telefon some decades ago or German: Bureau (office) which got replaced by the Germanized version German: Büro even earlier.
Except for the common sequences German: sch (pronounced as //ʃ//), German: ch (pronounced as /[x]/ or pronounced as /[ç]/) and German: ck (pronounced as //k//), the letter appears only in loanwords or in proper nouns. In many loanwords, including most words of Latin origin, the letter pronounced (pronounced as //k//) has been replaced by . Alternatively, German words which come from Latin words with before are usually pronounced with (pronounced as //ts//) and spelled with . However, certain older spellings occasionally remain, mostly for decorative reasons, such as German: Circus instead of German: Zirkus.
The letter in German appears only in the sequence (pronounced as //kv//) except for loanwords such as German: [[Coq au vin]] or German: [[Qigong]] (the latter is also written German: Chigong).
The letter (German: Ix, pronounced as //ɪks//) occurs almost exclusively in loanwords such as German: Xylofon (xylophone) and names, e.g. German: Alexander and German: Xanthippe. Native German words now pronounced with a pronounced as //ks// sound are usually written using or, as with German: Fuchs (fox). Some exceptions occur such as German: Hexe (witch), German: Nixe (mermaid), German: Axt (axe) and German: [[Xanten]].
The letter (German: Ypsilon, pronounced as //ˈʏpsilɔn//) occurs almost exclusively in loanwords, especially words of Greek origin, but some such words (such as German: {{linktext|Typ) have become so common that they are no longer perceived as foreign. It used to be more common in earlier centuries, and traces of this earlier usage persist in proper names. It is used either as an alternative letter for, for instance in German: Mayer / German: Meyer (a common family name that occurs also in the spellings German: Maier / German: Meier), or especially in the Southwest, as a representation of pronounced as /[iː]/ that goes back to an old IJ (digraph), for instance in German: [[Schwyz]] or German: Schnyder (an Alemannic variant of the name German: Schneider). Another notable exception is German: Bayern ("Bavaria") and derived words like German: bayrisch ("Bavarian"); this actually used to be spelt with an until the King of Bavaria introduced the as a sign of his philhellenism (his son would become King of Greece later).
The Latin and Ancient Greek diphthongs (ae (αι)) and (oe (οι)) are normally rendered as (ä) and (ö) in German, whereas English usually uses a simple (e) (but see List of English words that may be spelled with a ligature): German: Präsens 'present tense' (Latin Latin: tempus praesens), German: Föderation 'federation' (Latin Latin: foederatio).
The etymological spelling (-ti-) for the sounds pronounced as /[tsɪ̯]/ before vowels is used in many words of Latin origin, mostly ending in (-tion), but also (-tiell, -tiös), etc. Latin (-tia) in feminine nouns is typically simplified to (-z) in German; in related words, both (-ti-) and (-zi-) are allowed: German: Potenz 'power' (from Latin Latin: potentia), German: Potential/Potenzial 'potential' (noun), German: potentiell/potenziell 'potential' (adj.). Latin (-tia) in neuter plural nouns may be retained, but is also Germanized orthographically and morphologically to (-zien): German: Ingrediens 'ingredient', plural German: Ingredienzien; German: Solvens 'expectorant', plural German: Solventia or German: Solvenzien.
In loan words from the French language, spelling and accents are usually preserved. For instance, café in the sense of "coffeehouse" is always written German: Café in German; accentless Cafe would be considered erroneous, and the word cannot be written German: Kaffee, which means "coffee". (German: Café is normally pronounced pronounced as //kaˈfeː//; German: Kaffee is mostly pronounced pronounced as //ˈkafe// in Germany but pronounced as //kaˈfeː// in Austria.) Thus, German typewriters and computer keyboards offer two dead keys: one for the acute and grave accents and one for circumflex. Other letters occur less often such as in loan words from French or Portuguese, and in loan words from Spanish.
A number of loanwords from French are spelled in a partially adapted way: German: Quarantäne pronounced as //kaʁanˈtɛːnə// (quarantine), German: Kommuniqué pronounced as //kɔmyniˈkeː, kɔmuniˈkeː// (communiqué), German: Ouvertüre pronounced as //u.vɛʁˈtyː.ʁə// (overture) from French French: quarantaine, communiqué, ouverture. In Switzerland, where French is one of the official languages, people are less prone to use adapted and especially partially adapted spellings of loanwords from French and more often use original spellings, e.g. German: Communiqué.
In one curious instance, the word German: Ski ('ski') is pronounced as if it were German: *Schi all over the German-speaking areas (reflecting its pronunciation in its source language Norwegian), but only written that way in Austria.[14]
This section lists German letters and letter combinations, and how to pronounce them transliterated into the International Phonetic Alphabet. This is the pronunciation of Standard German. Note that the pronunciation of standard German varies slightly from region to region. In fact, it is possible to tell where most German speakers come from by their accent in standard German (not to be confused with the different German dialects).
Foreign words are usually pronounced approximately as they are in the original language.
Double consonants are pronounced as single consonants, except in compound words.
| Grapheme(s) | Phoneme(s) | Notes | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| b | otherwise | pronounced as /[b]/ or pronounced as /[b̥]/ | ||
| syllable final | pronounced as /[p]/ | |||
| c | otherwise | pronounced as /[k]/ | Used in some loanwords and proper names. In many cases, (k) or (z) have replaced an etymological (c). In proper names, the letter (c) before (ö) may be pronounced either pronounced as /[ts]/ (e. g. German: Cölestin) or pronounced as /[k]/ (e. g. Cölbe). | |
| before (ä, e, i, ö) | pronounced as /[ts]/ | |||
| ch | after (a, o, u) | pronounced as /[x]/ | In Austro-Bavarian, especially in Austria, pronounced as /[ç]/ may always be substituted by pronounced as /[x]/. Word-initial (ch) is used only in loanwords. In words of Ancient Greek origin, word-initial (ch) is pronounced pronounced as /[k]/ before (a, o, l, r) (with rare exceptions : German: Charisma, where both pronounced as /[k]/ and pronounced as /[ç]/ are possible); normally pronounced as /[ç]/ before (e, i, y) (but pronounced as /[k]/ in Southern Germany and Austria); pronounced as /[ç]/ before (th). In the word German: Orchester and in geographical names such as Chemnitz or Chur, (ch) is pronounced as /[k]/ (Chur is also sometimes pronounced with pronounced as /[x]/). | |
| after other vowels or consonants | pronounced as /[ç]/ | |||
| word-initially in words of Ancient Greek origin | pronounced as /[ç]/ or pronounced as /[k]/ | |||
| the suffix -German: chen | pronounced as /[ç]/ | |||
| In loanwords and foreign proper names | pronounced as /[tʃ]/, pronounced as /[ʃ]/ | |||
| chs | within a morpheme (e.g. German: Dachs pronounced as /[daks]/ "badger") | pronounced as /[ks]/ | ||
| across a morpheme boundary (e.g. German: Dachs pronounced as /[daxs]/ "roof (gen.)") | pronounced as /[çs]/ or pronounced as /[xs]/ | |||
| ck | pronounced as /[k]/ | Follows short vowels | ||
| d | otherwise | pronounced as /[d]/ or pronounced as /[d̥]/ | ||
| syllable final | pronounced as /[t]/ | |||
| dsch | pronounced as /[dʒ]/ or pronounced as /[tʃ]/ | Used in loanwords and transliterations only. Words borrowed from English can alternatively retain the original (j) or (g). Many speakers pronounce (dsch) as pronounced as /[t͡ʃ]/ (= ⟨tsch⟩), because pronounced as /[dʒ]/ is not native to German. | ||
| dt | pronounced as /[t]/ | Used in the word German: Stadt, in morpheme bounds (e.g. German: beredt, verwandt), and in some proper names. | ||
| f | pronounced as /[f]/ | |||
| g | otherwise | pronounced as /[ɡ]/ or pronounced as /[ɡ̊]/ | pronounced as /[ʒ]/ before (e, i) in loanwords from French (as in German: Genie) | |
| syllable final | pronounced as /[k]/ | |||
| when part of word-final -(ig) | pronounced as /[ç]/ or pronounced as /[k]/ (Southern Germany) | |||
| h | before a vowel | pronounced as /[h]/ | ||
| when lengthening a vowel | silent | |||
| j | pronounced as /[j]/ | pronounced as /[ʒ]/ in loanwords from French, e.g. German: Journalist pronounced as /[ʒʊʁnaˈlɪst]/, from French French: journaliste. | ||
| k | pronounced as /[k]/ | |||
| l | pronounced as /[l]/ | |||
| m | pronounced as /[m]/ | |||
| n | pronounced as /[n]/ | |||
| ng | usually | pronounced as /[ŋ]/ | ||
| Across morpheme boundaries | pronounced as /[nɡ]/ or pronounced as /[nɡ̊]/ | |||
| nk | pronounced as /[ŋk]/ | |||
| p | pronounced as /[p]/ | |||
| pf | pronounced as /[pf]/ | For some speakers pronounced as /[f]/ morpheme initially. | ||
| ph | pronounced as /[f]/ | Used in words of Ancient Greek origin. | ||
| qu | pronounced as /[kv]/ or pronounced as /[kw]/ (in a few regions) | |||
| r | pronounced as /[ʁ]/ before vowels, pronounced as /[ɐ]/ otherwise, or pronounced as /[ɐ]/ after long vowels (except pronounced as /[aː]/), pronounced as /[ʁ]/ otherwise | [15] | ||
| (Austro-Bavarian) | pronounced as /[r ~ ɾ]/ before vowels, pronounced as /[ɐ]/ otherwise | |||
| (Swiss Standard German) | pronounced as /[r]/ in all cases | |||
| rh | same as r | Used in words of Ancient Greek origin and in some proper names. | ||
| s | before vowel (except after obstruents) | pronounced as /[z]/ or pronounced as /[z̥]/ | ||
| before consonants, after obstruents, or when final | pronounced as /[s]/ | |||
| before (p, t) at the beginning of a word or syllable | pronounced as /[ʃ]/ | |||
| sch | otherwise | pronounced as /[ʃ]/ | ||
| when part of the diminutive of a word ending on (s), (e.g. German: Mäuschen "little mouse") | pronounced as /[sç]/ | |||
| ss | pronounced as /[s]/ | |||
| ß | pronounced as /[s]/ | |||
| t | pronounced as /[t]/ | Silent at the end of loanwords from French (although spelling may be otherwise Germanized: German: Debüt, Eklat, Kuvert, Porträt) | ||
| th | pronounced as /[t]/ | Used in words of Ancient Greek origin and in some proper names. | ||
| ti | otherwise | pronounced as /[ti]/ | ||
| in -(tion, tia, tial, tiar, tiär, tie, tiell, tient, tiös, tium) | pronounced as /[tsɪ̯]/ | Used in words of Latin origin. | ||
| tsch | pronounced as /[tʃ]/ | |||
| tz | pronounced as /[ts]/ | follows short vowels | ||
| tzsch | pronounced as /[tʃ]/ | Used in some proper names. | ||
| v | otherwise | pronounced as /[f]/ | ||
| in foreign borrowings not at the end of a word | pronounced as /[v]/ | |||
| w | pronounced as /[v]/ | |||
| x | pronounced as /[ks]/ | |||
| y | pronounced as /[j]/ | Used in some loanwords, e. g. Yeti pronounced as //ˈjeːti// | ||
| z | pronounced as /[ts]/ | |||
| zsch | pronounced as /[tʃ]/ | Used in some proper names. | ||
| front | central | back | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| unrounded | rounded | ||||||||
| short | long | short | long | short | long | short | long | ||
| close | (pronounced as /[i]/) | pronounced as /[iː]/ (i, ie, ih, ieh) | (pronounced as /[y]/) | pronounced as /[yː]/ (ü, üh, y) | (pronounced as /[u]/) | pronounced as /[uː]/ (u, uh) | |||
| near-close | pronounced as /[ɪ]/ (i) | pronounced as /[ʏ]/ (ü, y) | pronounced as /[ʊ]/ (u) | ||||||
| close-mid | (pronounced as /[e]/) | pronounced as /[eː]/ (e, eh, ee) | (pronounced as /[ø]/) | pronounced as /[øː]/ (ö, öh) | (pronounced as /[o]/) | pronounced as /[oː]/ (o, oh, oo) | |||
| open-mid | pronounced as /[ɛ]/ (ä, e) | pronounced as /[ɛː]/ (ä, äh) | pronounced as /[œ]/ (ö) | pronounced as /[ə]/ (e) | pronounced as /[ɔ]/ (o) | ||||
| near-open | pronounced as /[ɐ]/ -(er) | ||||||||
| open | pronounced as /[a]/ (a) | pronounced as /[aː]/ (a, ah, aa) | |||||||
| front | back | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| unrounded | rounded | |||
| close | pronounced as /[ɔʏ]/ (eu, äu) | |||
| open | pronounced as /[aɪ]/ (ei, ai) | pronounced as /[aʊ]/ (au) |
Consonants are often doubled in writing to indicate the preceding vowel is to be pronounced as a short vowel, mostly when the vowel is stressed. Only consonants written by single letters can be doubled; compare German: Wasser to German: waschen, not *German: waschschen. Hence, short and long vowels before the digraph (ch) are not distinguished in writing: German: Drache pronounced as //ˈdʁaxə//, German: Sprache pronounced as //ˈʃpʁaːxə// .
Most one-syllable words that end in a single consonant are pronounced with long vowels, but there are some exceptions such as German: an, das, es, in, mit, and German: von. The (e) in the ending -German: en is often silent, as in German: bitten . The ending -German: er is often pronounced pronounced as /[ɐ]/, but in some regions, people say pronounced as /[ʀ̩]/ or pronounced as /[r̩]/. The (e) in the endings -German: el (pronounced as /[əl~l̩]/, e.g. German: Tunnel, German: Mörtel) and -German: em (pronounced as /[əm~m̩]/ in the dative case of adjectives, e.g. German: kleinem from German: klein) is pronounced short despite these endings have just a single consonant on the end, but this (e) is nearly always an unstressed syllable. The suffixes -German: in, -German: nis and the word endings -German: as, -German: is, -German: os, -German: us contain short unstressed vowels, but duplicate the final consonants in the plurals: German: Leserin — German: Leserinnen, German: Kürbis — German: Kürbisse .
pronounced as /[a]/ as in German: Wasser
pronounced as /[ɛ]/ as in German: Männer
pronounced as /[ɛ]/ as in German: Bett ; unstressed pronounced as /[ə]/ as in German: Ochse ; in -(er) pronounced as /[ɐ]/ or pronounced as /[ɛɐ̯]/ as in German: Wasser
A vowel usually represents a long sound if the vowel in question occurs:
Long vowels are generally pronounced with greater tenseness than short vowels.
The long vowels map as follows:
pronounced as /[aʊ]/ as in German: laut 'loud'
pronounced as /[ɔʏ]/ as in German: Deutschland 'Germany'
pronounced as /[aɪ]/ as in German: Seite 'side'
A pre-stress long vowel shortens:
pronounced as /[i]/
pronounced as /[y]/
pronounced as /[u]/
pronounced as /[e]/
pronounced as /[ø]/
pronounced as /[o]/
In some German proper names, unusual spellings occur, e. g. (ui) pronounced as /[yː]/: Duisburg pronounced as //dyːsbʊʁk//;(ow) pronounced as /[oː]/: Treptow pronounced as //ˈtʁeːptoː//.
The period (full stop) is used at the end of sentences, for abbreviations, and for ordinal numbers, such as German: der 1. for German: der erste (the first). The combination "abbreviation point+full stop at the end of a sentence" is simplified to a single point.
The comma is used between for enumerations (but the serial comma is not used), before adversative conjunctions, after vocative phrases, for clarifying words such as appositions, before and after infinitive and participle constructions, and between clauses in a sentence. A comma may link two independent clauses without a conjunction. The comma is not used before the direct speech; in this case, the colon is used. Using the comma in infinitive phrases was optional before 2024, when the revision of the orthographic rules made it mandatory.
The exclamation mark and the question mark are used for exclamative and interrogative sentences. The exclamation mark may be used for addressing people in letters.
The semicolon is used for divisions of a sentence greater than that with the comma.
The colon is used before direct speech and quotes, after a generalizing word before enumerations (but not when the words German: das ist, das heißt, nämlich, zum Beispiel are inserted), before explanations and generalizations, and after words in questionnaires, timetables, etc. (e. g. German: Vater: Franz Müller).
The em dash is used for marking a sharp transition from one thought to another one, between remarks of a dialogue (as a quotation dash), between keywords in a review, between commands, for contrasting, for marking unexpected changes, for marking an unfinished direct speech, and sometimes instead of parentheses in parenthetical constructions.
The ellipsis is used for unfinished thoughts and incomplete citations.
The parentheses are used for parenthetical information.
The square brackets are used instead of parentheses inside parentheses and for editor's words inside quotations.
The quotation marks are written as »…« or „…“. They are used for direct speech, quotes, names of books, periodicals, films, etc., and for words in unusual meaning. Quotation inside a quotation is written in single quotation marks: ›…‹ or ‚…‘. If a quotation is followed by a period or a comma, it is placed outside the quotation marks.
The apostrophe is used for contracted forms (such as German: ’s for German: es) except forms with omitted final (e) (was sometimes used in this case in the past) and preposition+article contractions. It is also used for genitive of proper names ending in (s, ß, x, z, ce), but not if preceded by the definite article.
The oldest known German texts date back to the 8th century. They were written mainly in monasteries in different local dialects of Old High German. In these texts, (z) along with combinations such as (tz, cz, zz, sz, zs) was chosen to transcribe the sounds pronounced as //ts// and pronounced as //s(ː)//, which is ultimately the origin of the modern German letters (z, tz) and (ß) (an old (sz) ligature). After the Carolingian Renaissance, however, during the reigns of the Ottonian and Salian dynasties in the 10th century and 11th century, German was rarely written, the literary language being almost exclusively Latin.
Notker the German is a notable exception in his period: not only are his German compositions of high stylistic value, but his orthography is also the first to follow a strictly coherent system.
Significant production of German texts only resumed during the reign of the Hohenstaufen dynasty (in the High Middle Ages). Around the year 1200, there was a tendency towards a standardized Middle High German language and spelling for the first time, based on the Franconian-Swabian language of the Hohenstaufen court. However, that language was used only in the epic poetry and minnesang lyric of the knight culture. These early tendencies of standardization ceased in the interregnum after the death of the last Hohenstaufen king in 1254. Certain features of today's German orthography still date back to Middle High German: the use of the trigraph (sch) for pronounced as //ʃ// and the occasional use of (v) for pronounced as //f// because around the 12th and 13th century, the prevocalic pronounced as //f// was voiced.
In the following centuries, the only variety that showed a marked tendency to be used across regions was the Middle Low German of the Hanseatic League, based on the variety of Lübeck and used in many areas of northern Germany and indeed northern Europe in general.
By the 16th century, a new interregional standard developed on the basis of the East Central German and Austro-Bavarian varieties. This was influenced by several factors:
Mid-16th century Counter-Reformation reintroduced Catholicism to Austria and Bavaria, prompting a rejection of the Lutheran language. Instead, a specific southern interregional language was used, based on the language of the Habsburg chancellery.
In northern Germany, the Lutheran East Central German replaced the Low German written language until the mid-17th century. In the early 18th century, the Lutheran standard was also introduced in the southern states and countries, Austria, Bavaria and Switzerland, due to the influence of northern German writers, grammarians such as Johann Christoph Gottsched or language cultivation societies such as the Fruitbearing Society.
Though, by the mid-18th century, one norm was generally established, there was no institutionalized standardization. Only with the introduction of compulsory education in late 18th and early 19th century was the spelling further standardized, though at first independently in each state because of the political fragmentation of Germany. Only the foundation of the German Empire in 1871 allowed for further standardization.
In 1876, the Prussian government instituted the to achieve a standardization for the entire German Empire. However, its results were rejected, notably by Prime Minister of Prussia Otto von Bismarck.
In 1880, Gymnasium director Konrad Duden published the German: Vollständiges Orthographisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache ('Complete Orthographic Dictionary of the German Language'), known simply as the "Duden". In the same year, the Duden was declared to be authoritative in Prussia. Since Prussia was, by far, the largest state in the German Empire, its regulations also influenced spelling elsewhere, for instance, in 1894, when Switzerland recognized the Duden.
In 1901, the interior minister of the German Empire instituted the Second Orthographic Conference. It declared the Duden to be authoritative, with a few innovations. In 1902, its results were approved by the governments of the German Empire, Austria and Switzerland.
In 1944, the Nazi German government planned a reform of the orthography, but because of World War II, it was never implemented.
After 1902, German spelling was essentially decided de facto by the editors of the Duden dictionaries. After World War II, this tradition was followed with two different centers: Mannheim in West Germany and Leipzig in East Germany. By the early 1950s, a few other publishing houses had begun to attack the Duden monopoly in the West by putting out their own dictionaries, which did not always hold to the "official" spellings prescribed by Duden. In response, the Ministers of Culture of the federal states in West Germany officially declared the Duden spellings to be binding as of November 1955.
The Duden editors used their power cautiously because they considered their primary task to be the documentation of usage, not the creation of rules. At the same time, however, they found themselves forced to make finer and finer distinctions in the production of German spelling rules, and each new print run introduced a few reformed spellings.
See main article: German orthography reform of 1996.
German spelling and punctuation was changed in 1996 (German: Reform der deutschen Rechtschreibung von 1996) with the intent to simplify German orthography, and thus to make the language easier to learn,[16] without substantially changing the rules familiar to users of the language. The rules of the new spelling concern correspondence between sounds and written letters (including rules for spelling loan words), capitalisation, joined and separate words, hyphenated spellings, punctuation, and hyphenation at the end of a line. Place names and family names were excluded from the reform.
The reform was adopted initially by Germany, Austria, Liechtenstein and Switzerland, and later by Luxembourg as well.
The new orthography is mandatory only in schools. A 1998 decision of the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany confirmed that there is no law on the spelling people use in daily life, so they can use the old or the new spelling. While the reform is not very popular in opinion polls, it has been adopted by all major dictionaries and the majority of publishing houses.
Das Wort Ski wurde im 19. Jahrhundert vom norwegischen ski ‚Scheit (gespaltenes Holz); Schneeschuh‘ entlehnt, das seinerseits von dem gleichbedeutenden altnordischen skíð abstammt und mit dem deutschen Wort Scheit urverwandt ist.[1]
Als Pluralform sind laut Duden Ski und Skier bzw. Schi und Schier üblich.[2] Die Aussprache ist vornehmlich wie „Schi“ (wie auch original im Norwegischen), lokal bzw. dialektal kommt sie auch als „Schki“ (etwa in Graubünden oder im Wallis) vor.