Talk:German alphabet

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I'm almost absolutely positive that the umlauts aren't alphabetised separately. -- Toby Bartels 04:10 12 Jun 2003 (UTC)

You are right. I think this page is dispensable altogether; there is no "German alphabet"; we use the same 26 Latin letters as everyone else. Umlauts are no separate letters and aren't sorted separately; most people make no difference between "Ä" and "A" when sorting. Phonebooks are a bit more picky and sort "Ä" as if it still was the ligature from which it derived, "Ae". djmutex 06:54 12 Jun 2003 (UTC)

I don't think think that the article's completely useless. It's got stuff about phonebooks in it, for example. ^_^ -- Toby Bartels 08:14 12 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Thank you, except that I think you misunderstood what I was trying to say. :-) djmutex 08:59 12 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Geographical names

I do not understand the sentence Geographical names in particular are often required to be written with A, O, U plus e, in particular the word "required".

Does this mean "there are circumstances in which no geographical names with Umlauts are allowed"? I don't think so.

Or does it mean "there are geographical names with ae/oe/ue which are never written with umlauts"? That is certainly true (the Duden mentiones Oelsnitz and Oebisfelde), but this is true for many names, not only geographical ones. Goethe is never spelled with ö.

-- Austrian 22:19, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Some general thoughts

I'm afraid this page is trying to replicate much of the information that is already found under ß and Umlaut, and these articles are as comprehensive as this one can ever hope to be. I would like to suggest that we cut down the descriptions of the extra letters a little and concentrate on a comprehensive account of collation rules, pointing, of course, the inclined reader to the mentioned articles.

By the way, I removed the section about Fraktur. Fraktur is not an alphabet. It's a typeface which can be used to print the 30 letters described in this article just like an Antiqua typeface can. --SKopp 01:48, 1 August 2005 (UTC)

I'm reluctant to just unilaterally revert it, but I don't think the stuff on Fraktur should've been removed. Fraktur's not an alphabet, true (at least, for given values of alphabet), but Fraktur was quite significant to the German orthography. The italicised word's why I'm reluctant to just add it back, but I think something about Fraktur should be mentioned that's mostly just a link to a page on Fraktur. I don't think you could get less than what was there before (modifying the word 'alphabet' as appropriate). (People also often use words like 'German alphabet' to express a meaning ambiguous between blackletter and Fraktur styles, so in any case something about Fraktur needs to be here.) Felix the Cassowary 08:34, 1 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Information I would like to see

I think this article is missing some information about the "common" letters. It (barely) explains the use of y, x, c, ß, etc., but doesn't explain how the other letters are used (e.g.: Are "f" and "v" two letters for the same sound? The first vowel of the name of the letter "y" corresponds to one of ä, ö, ü or is it a different vowel? Is it pronounced as its name implies?). The name of the letters may give some clue, but they are not enough. Some information from "German Phonology" may help to enrich this article.

y is pronounced ['ypsilo:n], the first vowel is the same as an ü. In German words, y can be pronounced like ü (Xylofon, Physik), like i (Baby, Handy) or like j (Yacht) --Androl 13:35, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
f is always pronounced [f], v is either pronounced [f] or [v]. x is [ks], ß is [s], and c is one of a myriad of variants depending on the word's origin, what di- or trigraph it's part of, and so on. —Nightstallion (?) 14:58, 3 June 2006 (UTC)
Does anybody object if I add a pronunciation table near the end of the article? After all, German phonology does only list the sounds, but not how written German is to be pronounced. --Wutzofant (✉✍) 12:08, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
In the beginning of a word "v" is pronounced as [f] in all words and names that are originally German (or Dutch). Otherwise, so in loanwords from other languages and in the midst of a word "v" is pronounced as [v] (exceptions: evangelisch, Hannover) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.52.180.182 (talk) 18:32, 16 October 2007 (UTC)


"The letter x (Ix, /ɪks/) occurs almost only in loan words. Natively German words that are now pronounced with a /ks/ sound are usually written using chs or cks." - The 2 very common Expections are "Axt" (axe) and "Hexe" (witch) - e - bost at gmx dot de 217.82.118.125 07:07, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] W equals V, V equals W

How did the stereotype arise that German speakers, when speaking English, mispronounce the V like a W? I understand the W=V part, but how does V=W when clearly V=F? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 67.188.172.165 (talk • contribs) 11:14, 5 October 2006 GMT+11.

It’s the sounds, not the writing system, that count here. The German sound of w is not always [v]; frequently, it’s a sound mid-way between [v] and [w] (a labiodental approximant). This particular phone can sound like either /v/ or /w/ to English speakers, and often sounds like the other one. —Felix the Cassowary 06:20, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Letter combinations

Nothing is written about the letter combination, used in German, i.e.: ie, ei, sch, tsch, etc. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Asker123 (talk • contribs) 10:06, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Comes the question: do these combinations have a place in the alphabet?. I know that for example in Hungarian the "combinations" cs, dz, dzs, gy, ly, ny, sz, ty and zs have their own place in the alphabet but that isn't the case in German: ie are two letters: i and e. So, in my opinion, the combinations might be worth mentioning somewhere but not in this article. Richard 09:35, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Error

Quote: "loan words from the French language spelling and diacritics are usually preserved"

This is not true. Indeed, the accents are usually not preserved, except for -é- in the end of a word: Café, Kommuniqué, etc. It is only in exceptions that an accent grave or circonflexe can occur.

[edit] Ë

From the article:

In proper names there rarely may also appear an ë, which is not an umlaut, but a trema to distinguish what could be a digraph as in French, like oe in Bernhard Hoëcker (although in this case the trema was added artificially by that person).

That is unclear. How does Herr Hoëcker pronounce his name? How is "Hoecker" pronounced (when not mispronounced "Höcker")? And how does Ferdinand Piëch pronounce his name? Piëch already has a Wikipedia article so might make a better/additional example; though of course there is no possible confusion with *Pïch. jnestorius(talk) 11:18, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

I think that, without the trema, Hoecker would indeed often be pronounced as if it were Höcker (two syllables). Since it should be pronounced Ho: ecker (three syllables) mr. Hoëcker added a trema (I guess he got tired of his name being mispronounced).
Piëch is Pi: eχ (two syllables) where Piech could be pronounced Pi:χ (one syllable).
Richard 09:05, 19 March 2008 (UTC)