

It is often considered a complementary allophone together with, which only rarely occurs in unstressed syllables (e.g. It occurs only in unstressed syllables, for instance in b esetz en ('occupy'). /ə/ has been variously described as mid central unrounded.In non-standard accents of the Low German speaking area, as well as in some Austrian accents it may be pronounced as a narrow closing diphthong./øː/ has been variously described as close-mid near-front rounded and mid near-front rounded.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.

/ɪ/ has been variously described as near-close front unrounded and near-close near-front unrounded.The phonemic status of /ɛː/ is also debated – see below. Likewise, some scholars treat /ɐ/ as an allophone of the sequence /ər/ or as a vocalized variant of /r/. Some scholars treat /ə/ as an unstressed allophone of /ɛ/. Vowels Monophthongs of standard German, from Dudenredaktion, Kleiner & Knöbl (2015:34) Monophthongs Monophthong phonemes of Standard German Standard German is sometimes referred to as Bühnendeutsch (stage German), but the latter has its own definition and is slightly different. But the pronunciation that Germans usually consider to be closest to the standard is that of Hanover. This standardised pronunciation was invented, rather than coming from any particular German-speaking city. 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. 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. The phonology of Standard German is the standard pronunciation or accent of the German language. For the distinction between, / / and ⟨ ⟩, see IPA § Brackets and transcription delimiters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA. This article contains phonetic transcriptions in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA).
