Phonology
Consonants
* are bilabial, whereas are labiodental. * are dental . ** is alveolar after . * are velar, are uvular, and is palatal. do not constitute a voiceless-voiced pair. **The contrast is restricted to the word-initial position. In many cases, it corresponds to the contrast in Standard German. ** occurs only in onsets, and it has a few possible pronunciations, which are in free variation with one another: ***Voiced uvular approximant ; ***Voiced or voiceless lenis uvular fricative; ***Voiceless uvular trill ; ***Voiceless lenis uvular stop . * may be voiced between sonorants. **Word-final are sometimes voiced to . **Word-initially, the contrast is neutralized before , which means that e.g. the word ''Kleid'' ('dress') can be pronounced as either or . *When a stop or fricative precedes, the sequences can be realized as syllabic consonants . The nasals appear depending on the place of articulation of the preceding consonant, so that it can be bilabial , dental , velar or uvular . *When another nasal precedes a syllabic nasal, such sequence is realized as a single consonant of variable length. *Non-phonemic glottal stop is inserted in two cases: **Before word-initial vowels, even the unstressed ones. **Before stressed syllable-initial vowels within words.Vowels
* The pharyngealized vowels correspond to the sequences of vowel + in the standard language. * The non-native vowels are occasionally used in cognates of some Standard German words, such as ''brüder'' ('brothers'). In other cases, they are pronounced the same as . * Unstressed short oral monophthongs may fall together as . * are often diphthongal in careful speech. Monophthongal realizations are optionally shortened in certain positions. * corresponds to Standard German . * Monophthongs are somewhat retracted when they precede dorsals, except . The retraction is strongest before . To a certain extent, this is also true of monophthongs that follow dorsal consonants. * Monophthongs are allophonically pharyngealized if a vowel in the following syllable is pharyngealized. * The phonetic quality of the monophthongs is as follows: ** are close to the canonical values of the corresponding IPA symbols . ** is close-mid . ** are more central than the canonical values of the corresponding IPA symbols: . ** is mid . ** is mid near-back . ** are central . ** is near-open near-front . * The starting point of is higher and more front than the canonical value of the corresponding IPA symbol (). * The starting points of and are higher and more central than the canonical value of the corresponding IPA symbol (). * The ending points of Chemnitz German diphthongs are close to the canonical values of the corresponding IPA symbols ().Sample
The sample text is a reading of the first sentence of The North Wind and the Sun.Broad phonetic transcription
Orthographic version (standard German)
References
Bibliography
* {{refend Central German languages Chemnitz German dialects Languages of Germany City colloquials