That was all completely new to me. Never heard the guys name. Crazy that every German knows the Duden but not Sieb. Thanks for providing me with this most interesting piece of knowledge.
@@rewboss I heard about his book in school, and most certainly his name was mentioned, but this is information you forget as you hear it. So thank you for refreshing my knowledge.
Ein Tip für Vorlesende: Wörter mit der Nachsilbe -ig werden -ich ausgesprochen. selig = selich; ruppig = ruppich, lusig =lustich, pappig = pappich usw. usf. PS: Teppich wird aber nicht mit -ig geschrieben obwohl es so klingt.
I had only been in Germany for a short time, and was unsure how to pronounce a word, and asked my colleague if it was correct (was das richtig?) using the soft fricative sound. He said I was correct except that I had pronounced “Richtig” incorrectly. There followed a heated discussion between him (from Bavaria) and his girlfriend (from the north) about the correct way to pronounce “richtig”, I thought “wow! They can’t even agree on the correct way to pronounce ”correct”!”.
@@Quotenwagnerianer And that is where you are wrong. Nowadays, the southern German pronunciation is also deemed right. On websites such as Wiktionary, you will come across both pronunciations displayed equally and without any comment. However, the preferred choice of the media is another matter.
@@louismart This is the same question that I sometimes get about English. The question about "Is bath with a short a (as in northern English dialects) or bath with a long a (as in southern English dialects) the correct one?? Well, just as in German with the hard and soft g at the end of richtig, they are all correct. There is no right or wrong. As Flubberfrrosch says, the national media will choose one of them. But local radio in southern Germany uses the hard g and local radio in the north uses the soft g.
When taking enunciation lessons in university, it was quite common for us to say "könich" naturally but hypercorrecting it for "official" speech to "könik" because that's how it's written, only for the teacher to correct us back to "könich" because of this. The harder part was to get us Saxons to actually pronounce a ch, though, and not to say "gönish".
Yep, I have experienced this as well, it's very common to mistakenly correct "Könich" to "König" when trying to speak proper standard German, even though "Könich" is already correct!
We say Schleswich-Holstein, I think it is easy. The h of Holstein is not very strongly pronounced, just a little breath between 'wich and 'ol. Also, I have heard many southerners say Hohlstein and that sounds stupid, it should be short
I am a native speaker and come from the middle of Germany and I constantly switch from the northern to the southern pronuciation and back (i.e. sometimes I use the northern pronunciation "Könich" and sometimes the southern pronuncation "Könik"...). However, I am not choosing consciously, it's just purely coincidental how I pronounce words in "-ig". :)
I come from Braunschweig and noticed that I randomly switched my pronunciation of the city name. I had no idea which one was correct. Then, one day, I saw the mayor of Braunschweig on TV and said to myself - I am gonna check now how he says it, he must know. He said the city name twice in one sentence, and said it differently within the same sentence! Just like me. Thanks, British guy, for explaining my mother tongue to me. It is "Braunschweich" in someting called official Siebs German Stage Language. Who knew.
@@doczoocLaut Wiktionary wird es mit [k] ausgesprochen. Ich nehme an, die „ig“-Regel gilt nicht für Diphtonge wie „eig“. Man spricht ja „Zeug“ in der Standardaussprache auch nicht „zoich“ aus, sondern „zoig“.
@@doczooc I do switch as well, but not randomly. I adapt to the environment. Being born and raised in Schleswig-Holstein, but living in Berlin now (and being surrounded mostly by people who were not raised here...), I have a slight southern leaning, but as soon someone else in the room speaks with a northern pronunciation, I switch back to my "native German".
Was on the train from Munich to Hamburg and for half of the trip, the conductor was apparently Austrian and kept telling us the train is headed to Hambuak, wherever that is...
There is an explanation for why only "-ig" is pronounced with a fricative. The process that turned final g's to fricatives started with high front vowels (i, ü), and spread to others. These changes in turn spread across the German language, with "-ig" spreading farthest simply because it had had more time. That is why you can say "Flukzeuk", "Flukzeuch", and "Fluchzeuch", but never "Fluchzeuk": if you have a fricative after "u", you certainly have it after "i". And this all goes to show that even a "standard" language has phonological exceptions, processes that are mid-way, or frozen in time.
I am an Austrian actor and "Bühnendeutsch" is an important part of acting school (or private acting lessons), even in Austria. We use a couple of pronunciation training books where Siebs is mentioned. I have to look at them again, maybe there is some more info about him in them.
Alles, was Sie brauchen ist "Der kleine Hey". Was der arme Mensch in seinem Video vergißt, ist, daß es nicht nur auf die richtige Aussprache ankommt, sondern auf die Stimme und die Intonation und die Pausen. Engländer sind einfach so kaputt. Auf der ekligen Insel müssen Sie eine Eliteschule besuchen, um "akzentfreies" Englisch zu sprechen. In Deutschland reicht der Theaterbesuch oder die Audition von Hörbüchern mit unseren besten Deutschsprechern und Deutschsprecherinnen. Wir brauchen keine Toffs, die sich für weiß was halten, uns reichen die Mimen. Für uns ist das etwas Musikalisches, und nicht ein Zugehörigkeitsausweis zu einer Klasse. Und hier haben auch all die Abstufungen der Mundarten ihren Platz. Von einer leichten Intonation bis hin zum ausgeprägten Dialekt, alles Klang und Musik, alles Melodie. Daher auch die große Akzeptanz von Musik aller Art und die reiche Kompositionskunst. Das verbindet Deutschland mit Österreich. Die Schweizer tun sich da ein wenig schwer. Spricht man Hochdeutsch in der Schweiz, dann geraten die immer schrecklich unter Druck, als wäre Hochdeutsch ein einziger Vorwurf an die Schweizer und ihre bizarren Endungen und Verkomplizierung von Wörtern, die so einfach sein können. Aber die Eidgenossen wollen es so.
A (Northern) German walks into a bar in Vienna... German: "Juter Mann, kann man hier Rum kriechen?" Waiter *pointing to the floor*: "Wann'S wolln... bitte..."
Could we get more videos on this topic? I found it rather fascinating, I had never head of Siebs, only of Duden and the difference between southern and northern prononciations are extremely interesting.
I saw an ad last year on a poster and found it hilarious. "So cremig, das nehm ich." I grew up in Saxony-Anhalt and NRW but the last 16 years I've lived in southern Hesse. That slogan just does not work here. It was very obviously not created by anyone living south of Kassel.
Frankfurt is well south of Kassel last time I checked, and the normal pronunciation of -ig here is definitely -ich. :p Well, -ich or -isch, depending on how dialectal you want to be. But certainly not -ig.
@HeadsFullOfEyeballs it varies a lot but I definitely hear -ig at least as much as -ich and -isch here in Frankfurt with people my age (early 20's). I also say mostly -ig with a few -ich and -isch too
Me, a Northerner, I got a lot of laughter by southerners, asking in the middle of the pandemic: Seid Ihr alle gut väsorcht? They understood: verseucht. I meant to say: versorgt.
This reminds me of Eliezer Ben-Yehuda around the same time setting Sephardic Hebrew (and specifically Algerian) as the standard pronunciation. And I recall Nynorsk being formulated around the same period in Norway as well. So it was the hot trend.
And before anyone says it, the uvular trill in modern Hebrew comes from the old Judeo-Iraqi dialect of Arabic, not Yiddish, and it only caught on starting in the 1950s. I’m unaware of any dialect of Yiddish which has that sound. True, German does, as shown in this video, but Yiddish had been effectively instinct in Germany since Napoleon. And there have been internal sound changes since then unrelated to any outside influence.
Very true, regarding Norwegian. However, there they actually came up with the compromise of two standard dialects, "Nynorsk" (New Norwegian) and "Bokmål" (Book Language) and each Norwegian canton chose one dialect as a standard and the other one as a mandatory school subject.
@@SamAronow What uvular trill? I've almost always heard Hebrew spoken with an uvular fricative (ʁ rather than ʀ), rarely with an aveolar trill (in non-Ashkenazi Hebrew), correct me if I'm wrong. And I've never heard a Yiddish speaker use anything else than a uvular fricative, even in the oldest films. As far as I know, the consonant system of Ivrit is based on Ashkenazi Hebrew, which in turn is very similar to Yiddish and ultimately German.
@@timkratz742 Having lived in Israel for six years, all I've heard from natives is a uvular trill or uvular approximant stemming from a trill, and I've only ever heard Yiddish speakers using an alveolar tap. Ashkenazi Hebrew has _way_ more sounds than Sephardic or standardized Hebrew; if it had been based off of Ashkenazi pronunciation, non-initial ת would be pronounced /s/ instead of /t/ and there would still be 8 vowels (as it was in ancient times) instead of just 5.
This reminds me of a former conductor of a choir I was part of. He cited Siebs quite often, telling us how to pronounce this and that, e.g., that it is „Könich“ (König) but „könicklich“ (königlich).
Exactly. "Wichtich", but "wichtiger". I assume Siebs had good reason to do it that way, but it seems unnecessarily complicated to me. Unfortunately, it's surprisingly difficult to find much information about him.
'Köniklich', but 'Könichtum', the pronounciation of '-ig' depends on the following consonant, if there is one. And yes, I already heard about the "Bühnensprache" (which IMHO is not the same as Hochdeutsch, but in that I'm not sure), and also have seen some written rules about that. But I cannot remember having heard the name Siebs before.
@@rewboss In case of doubt , for a foreigner, always use the Southern ig, it never really sounds wrong or socially misplaced at most it sounds southern.
@@ReinhardHahn-vs2dh Konigtum sounds weird, never heard. Seems like a approximative translation of kingdom. I'd say Königreich, The Duden say with the g not the ch. The Duden say Königtum is "veraltetert". Older than myself it seems,
@@HelmutQ Analoge Bildung zu Bistum (Bischofreich?) und Herzogtum (Herzogreich?) würde ich mal annehmen - aber es hat sich jeweils nur eine Form durchgesetzt.
As a born and raised Schleswig-Holsteiner I can kinda corroborate this. I would NEVER pronounce the G in Schleswig as a G (or K), but whether I pronounce the G in Hamburg as a G or a CH depends on how northern I want or don't want to sound.
Very interesting, I didn't know about Siebs, but shouldn't you mention also that the standard version is called 'Hochdeutsch' - High German? Also I would say Schleswig with a long E - schlEHswig, like BrEHmen. Glad you are sharing positive messages about Germany and the German language with the world.
Didn't you notice that rewboss's skill level with vowel lengths is still slightly behind? But to be fair, it's one of the hardest things for a native English speaker to get right, as English doesn't have semantic vowel length.
@@AidanEyewitnessSemantic, as in "changing the meaning". For example, "betten" and "beten". Those are two different words and the only difference is the length of the vowel. English doesn't have that feature. It has words where the "proper" pronunciation includes vowel length, but it's not semantic. "steel" and "still" are such a pair, yet in many areas, those sound the same. Listeners may find it hard to recognise which word was said if someone pronounces "steel" with a short "ee", but they don't get the same "you used the wrong word" feeling a native German speaker would get. For them, long and short "ee"s are semantically the same, just like "st" and "scht" are the same for a German speaker.
A small detail (maybe you left it out for the sake of brevity?): The pronunciation standard today is based on Siebs but not exactly his version. In Siebs' stage pronunciation, "Mutter" would actually sound ['mʊtər], not ['mʊtɐ], which is the standard now.
Standardized dialects envolve over time, like every dialect does. There are also clear differences between modern Received Pronunciation and the RP of the 1930s, which you can very clear hear in words like "often".
I persume that this change in pronouciation also has to do with the increasing quality of sound in radio etc which makes it no longer nessecary to have a very clear and unique pronounciation for euch syllabe. An example where the unverstanding still is difficult is when a choir sings, so there the 'r' of 'Mutter' normally is not omitted.
Frisian is not a dialect, but a language ... with its own regional dialects, same goes for Lower-Saxon/German language, both languages are Unesco world heritage protected minority languages, same as Welsh and Scottish Gaelic languages 😊
Here in Poland we are taught the standard German pronunciation as everywhere else but due to similarities in spelling between languages as well as long contact with Germany, the actual pronunciation of German words favours the central-southern accents. So, Hamburg is /'xamburk/, Schleswig is /'ʂlezvik/ and Freiburg im Breisgau is /'frɨburk/.
@@begone2753This X in "xamburk" stands for a guttural sound what is called in German "ach"-Laut. So "xamburk" would be pronounced something like "chamburk" if you would write it with German letters.
Weirdly here in Norway we did not really end up with any real "standard" pronunciation, instead we ended up with 2 official written forms of Norwegian: "bokmål" (lit. "Book Language", basically standard Danish with some revisions) and "nynorsk" (lit. "New Norwegian" which is a constructed dialect created as a hybrid of several dialects with a bias towards western and central inland dialects), in addition we also have 2 unofficial variants "riksmål" (lit. "Kingdom/Country Language", the prefix "riks-" have about the same meaning as "reichs-" in German, a more conservative, i.e. more Danish variant of bokmål) and "høgnorsk" (lit. "High Norwegian", a more conservative form of nynorsk i.e. fewer allowed loanwords and preferring the least Danish sounding forms). But we don't really have an official standard for pronunciation; in practice the most widely understood form of Norwegian is bokmål with an Oslo accent (the western Oslo dialect is also basically the same as bokmål/riksmål) since abut 1/4 of the population live in or around Oslo. But in general everyone speaks their own dialect, only modifying their vocabulary closer to either bokmål or nynorsk still in their native accent when speaking to people from everywhere in the country such as in broadcasts. Even when people from different dialects are having trouble understanding a dialect word, we typically still will not change accent when explaining an uncommon dialect word; only as a last resort if you really struggle will people switch to a Oslo accent (usually somewhat mocking tone) and "translate" the word to standard bokmål. So in that sense the Oslo dialect is the de facto standard; but being unable to understand other accents and dialect words is seen as rather embarassing, and refusing to understand a different dialect; which usually only old (60+) "posh" people would ever do; is seen as very arrogant. Though when talking to immigrants, we'll generally gladly speak bokmål in a (often very broken) Oslo accent or some other accent the immigrant in question is more familiar with; because after all you probably need to grow up here to understand all the accents.
Interesting. But I thought that "riksmål" was just the older word for "bokmål" and has become obsolete as a term and even as a living language now with the modifications introduced to bokmål in time?
@@geotropa1043Correct, it is the old name of bokmål, but theres also some people today who still use a form of bokmål where they reject most/all of the spelling reforms since before the name change and therefore call what they write "riksmål". My impression is it's mostly teens and young people who do it just to be silly and contrarian; as well as a small minority of weird and very conservative people who genuinely use it unironically.
Very interesting. However, as a native speaker who grew up in Schleswig-Holstein, I would pronounce the e in "Schleswig" like the first syllable in "lesen", not like the first syllable in "hässlich". And yes, I do say "Schleswich", and "König" rhymes with "fröhlich" (but "Könige" doesn't rhyme with "fröhliche", now that I think about it, so the spelling -ig does make sense even with North German accent.).
Really interesting to hear about him. Duden is well known, but I never ever heard about Sieb. Tbh I didn't catch you saying Hannover wrong in sense of hAnnover instead hannOver, but more that you still phrase it with the English A, so it sounds more like hÄnnover
Too bad Siebs didn't choose Hessian as a point of reference. Hamborsch, lusdisch - so consistent, so easy. ;) By the by: your frontal vowel could be just a tiny bit more open; your Ham still sounds a little too much like Häm (Northerners would disagree).
This is a great video! As a german from northern germany I never new or even asked the question, if the german radio broadcasting had something similar to the recieved pronunciation. Thanks for casting a light on this topic!
Linguistics is descriptive, not prescriptive. They way people talk is correct in principle. That said, there is something about creating a higher order of a sort of traffic German. For example, I only moved ca 75 miles to go to university and when I let loose in my native dialect where I was studying people had genuinely trouble understanding me. Also, since the -ig ending of "König" and "Honig" etc. is the only case of pronunciation not mapping onto spelling in German that I can think of off the top of my head I would never dream of correcting anybody about it, native speaker or not. German is hard enough as it is.
Wow, kudos! That was a very interesting and informed dive into the history of the German language - and you definitely taught me, a native speaker, a thing :) Thanks a lot!
Love your videos, Andrew...but no matter what Siebs or Duden stated at the time, Hamburg will always be HamburCH except for some stuck-up persons who pronounce it "Hambuig" (yes, with a sort of i before the g). I would normally say FreiburG (I studied there for a while 40-some years ago), and also NürnberG...but then, the Franconians themselves pronounce their biggest city "NermberCH". I guess there's no real right or wrong in that regard. Another example (and a true story, I swear I heard it as a child from whom it happened to): There are areas in North Rhine-Westphalia where a "J" (German: Jot, pronounced yott) is pronounced like a "G" at the beginning of a word or name. A godfather of mine was a Lutheran pastor, and I'll just present his name here as "Jansen" (the original was different). He once went somewhere to register or whatever and said or showed a document that his name was Jansen and he was a pastor. The official said "Ah, your name is Gansen!", and my godfather corrected him, "Nein, Jansen, mit Jot", and the officer answered, "Yes, of course, Reverend, with 'Gott'" (meaning God).
As a southern German no one ever told me it was Schleswich and except for northern Germans Ive never heard anyone say it that way I and most people I know have always said Schleswig. The ch ending is going to make you sound very weird here.
Well, that was implied in the video: I was taught the Siebs standard, which is as close to official as you can get, but the Siebs standard is not how most native Germans speak IRL.
I also would pronounce "schmutzig" as "schmutzick" and not "schmutzich". I never knew that the official standard for pronouncing "ig" is "ich". I am also from the south if Germany.
As another southern German, I learned it when I attended a course on correct speaking held by an Austrian, of all people, at Freiburg University, of all places. So yes, it's definitely a real thing. And it's a good and fair compromise between the natural pronunciations of north and south.
Did you never listen to the Tagesschau? Since when did anyone ever say "Schleswig-Holstein" without the ch sound? By the way there is another exacmple of standard german deviating from southern pronouciation: "Ch" at the start of a word. Like "Chemie" or "China" is pronounced as "Kemie" and "Kina " in southern Germany. But not in standard german. There is it is dependant on the following vowel. "a" and "o" turn it into a "K". Like for example "Mitochondrien" being pronounced as "Mitokondrien".
Theaterdeutsch ist auch von der Aussprache her, nicht das gleiche wie Standarddeutsch. Theaterdeutsch ist besonders verständlich und schwieriger auszusprechen. Es wird pranktisch jeder konsonant gesprochen. Das macht kein normaler deutscher, auch kein deutschlehrer in der Schule. Und, nein, auch Du sprichst kein Theaterdeutsch. Du würdest damit auffallen.
Andrew, Schleswig wird mit gedehntem 'e' gesprochen wie Schleeswich. Jedenfalls kenne ich es so. Tipp: Tagesschau hören. Und ich höre gerne Sie! Mit Dresden ist es ähnlich: Dreesden
Wow, very interesting! Learned something today. I'm from the Northwest and I pronounce the "g" like a "ch" and the word "Regen" (rain) sounds like "reeechen" here. 😂 My pronounciation of Standard German is messed up anyway, because I grew up with Low German ("Plattdeutsch") ... sometimes my Grammar is also off. 🤐😂 Somehow it's nice how diverse the dialects are in our country. My mother lives for almost 15 years in Bavaria, in the southeast and Saturday I visit her for a week and travel there with Deutsche Bahn (very brave, I know...I'm curious if I arrive reasonably on time) and I'm already mentally preparing myself that I will not understand at least a third of the conversations in Lower Bavarian dialects.😂
If you understand a third, then you already understand more than most Prussians ( = non-Bavarians) do. I'm from a tourist place in Niederbayern, I know what I'm talking about ... edit: Oh, excuse me, you said you DO NOT understand one third, so you can understand two thirds? Welcome, please apply for Bavarian citizenship! (I mean, that's once we've left the Federation, which probably won't happen, but you never know.)
@@eisikater1584 Thanks 😂at least the very old grumpy neighbour of my mum does not jokingly insult me with "Saupreuss!" anymore if I don't understand something 😂 I'm getting used to it, slowly but steadily. And thanks for your offer to the Bavarian citizenship, but I'll stay a "Friesenjung" my whole life I guess 🤭🤭
@@eastfrisianguy Sure you will, just like I'll forever be a "Waidler", a guy from the Bavarian Forest. I traveled a lot when I was young, and I know I can make me some sort of home anywhere, but these hills keep calling me back.
I will, indeed, rush to correct you: You pronounced Schleswig *almost* correctly (the e is short) but Hamburg is pronounced Hamboich. Next up for southerners: Pronouncing Itzehoe without second e, but with long o.
Wow! I learned a lot of my own language! I never knew that before. I am from southern Germany. I am swabian. And we - exactly as you told - say "Hamburk", "Fraiburk" and "Schleswik". And by the way, in our dialect there's no soft "s" like a bees humming. We always say "s" sharp. My son said, 'glittering'. (As a child he can't say "s" but something like a "th" in English. Thank you very much for the interesting video.
This "actors standard" for pronunciation also has its downsides. German movies are typically made in this artificial language style, also forcing dialect into something "in between" to make them understandable to everyone. This makes dialog in German movies always somewhat unreal and is part of why they rarely turn out to be successful. Other countries do this less intense and you can hear the actors origin clearly, often its part in the story as well. For the UK, it would be odd to see a movie where people from London, Liverpool and Edinburgh sound pretty much the same.
Very nice video. As someone who grew up and went to school in Vienna, we learned a different version of why things are supposed to be pronounced this or that way. We were told that the correct way to speak (purportedly accepted throughout the German-speaking "world") is burgtheaterdeutsch. Specifically, the way Paula Vessely spoke. So if she said Schleswich or bestaeticht (which she did), then that was correct. But, again allegedly, she didn't pronounce things this way following Siebs, but because the Burgtheater crew had decided that this sounded nice and was easy to understand across the theater before microphones, amplifiers, and speakers were available. Your version is probably more accurate, though the two stories don't strictly contradict each other (leaving aside that Paula Vessely is too recent...) Maybe it's worth theorizing that what Siebs got from the theater managers was based on experience involving accoustics in large enclosed spaces. --> Important insights for helping baddies choose the perfect language to address their armies of minions.
It makes a lot of sense to pronounce these 2 cities the Sieb way. Hamburg pronunciation is consistent with how "Burg" is pronounced in general. This way all the cities ending in -burg are pronounced the same and you dont need to know where it is or whatever. The pronunciation of Schleswig is consistent with all words ending in -ig, like "fertig" "König" and so on. Which is indeed the northern German way though. If you pronounce all -ig words the southern way with a hard "g" then it is fine to pronounce Schleswig this way as well. Basically, "-rg" is pronunced always the same and "-ig" is pronounced always the same.
I learned German initially through primarily written-based means, & have at times been told that I speak with a Swabian accent. For instance, I pronounce "durch" as written, not as "doich".
I'm Swiss, but I live in Germany, and through media consumption (mostly online) I assimilated a German dialect to the point where most people can't tell that I'm not native (Swiss people have a very distinct dialect when speaking High German). I believe the German dialect I tend to speak is mostly rooted in NRW, with bits and bobs mixed in from other bigger cities (Hamburg and Berlin come to mind). If I think with my "Swiss German brain", pronouncing g as a hard "g" is very natural. But through assimilation, whenever I speak "German German", g's like in "Hamburg" get slurred to a soft "-ch" ("Hamburch"), mostly because it's less effort.
NRW is super interesting if you're interested in dialects. There are so many dialects that sound so incredibly different (Rhine area, Siegen, Ruhr area, Westfalia) -- not to mention that you get the complete picture with both northern and central German dialects in one state.
I believe you mean "accent" not "dialect". Swiss speak various dialects, if they speak "standard German" they usually have a strong accent. An accent is just a slight variation in pronunciation, a dialect is a variation of a language affecting vocabulary and grammar.
I as a German from NRW don't understand anything in Swiss German. I really need subtitles if someone is speaking Schweizerdeutsch. Because I don't understand enough to kow about what the person is speaking. I don't understand enough bawarian too but swiss dialect is literally nonintellible for me
Would Rewboss pass the "Inglourious Basterds" German language test ? I doubt it. But speaking as a native in a foreign language is extremelly rare... Extremely rare are the French speaking German actors who do get by unnoticed in the French cinema... : - Romy Schneider : always had a bit of a slight accent and therefore quite a few times played the role of a German immigrant... - Diane Kruger : almost no accent, but anyhow never really had a true French native role - Hardy Krügger : quite an accent, played many German soldier roles.. - Paula Beer : a strong accent, never as a French native - Marlene Dietrich : a slight accent, never as a French native - Daniel Brühl : quite an accent - Christoph Waltz : perfect accent for a WW2 German officer but never played in French cinema ! Do some French actors get by unnoticed as German native speakers ? I can't tell
I don't know about French actors speaking perfect German, but there's a funny story about the opposite: So in the 1960s, the Winnetou movies (German western movies about an Indian called Winnetou) were all the rage, with Winnetou being played by the French actor Pierre Brice. In most Winnetou movies, he's dubbed by German voice actors. But Pierre Brice insisted that he wanted to do the speaking himself since he was able to speak German. So there is a late Winnetou movie, where out of no good reason, the Indian Winnetou has an extremely heavy French accent, and it's hilarious.
@@onurbschrednei4569 Well it surely was hilarious but in a far fetched way it makes sense since the word Winnetou has a french sounding final "ou"... (but the word Apache comes from Spanish and not French). It's a bit of a weird name. Do Germans pronounce two sounds (o and u) or one (u) ? Pierre Brice has never been famous in France, only being vaguely a supporting actor in a few French movies. The Winnetou character is almost mute in the movies that surely explain why a French actor could be hired. And that could also explain why the Winnetou movies are totally unknown in France (the idea that a native Frenchman plays the part of an indian in a German western movie seems ludicrous from the start). In a sense the French exchanged Pierre Brice against Romy Schneider and their respective carreers outside of their native land are totally unknown to most of their native land people.
I didn't know any of this, very interesting stuff. In Switzerland it's obviously very different. In writing we use Swiss Standard German which is a variation of Standard German with some changes to vocabulary (e.g. Trottoir, Coiffeur/Coiffeuse, Perron, Portemonnaie, Poulet), spelling (e.g. Sauce, Cousine), some words meaning different things and most importantly, there's no ß. As for pronunciation, it's a case of "just try your best or whatever", maybe Radio and TV have a standard, I don't know. Outside of that, the dialects are way more popular anyway, even many programs on TV and on the Radio are in the dialects. And then everyone just speaks their own dialect and we mostly get by. About your pronunciation: I notice that (in this video and similar ones) your "a" sounds different from what I would considered normal: It sounds like in the word "apple", whereas the usual pronunciation is less open and therefore sounds darker. From what I've heard from your German though, you don't always do it that strongly. When you speak entire sentences without focusing too much on the pronunciation of individual words it tends to mostly (but I guess not completely) go away. This of course isn't a problem, my guess is that it's just how most people find out that your native language is English. At least I don't really notice anything else that sounds non-native.
So Swiss-Germans are multi-tiered : - with family, friends and neighbours : dialect - within Swiss-German community : Standard Swiss-German - with French-Swiss : French or English - with Germans : Standard German or Standard Swiss-German - in International relations : English Swiss-French have only 1 French language since dialects are not much spoken...
@@jandron94 You got one major point wrong: Within Swiss-German community, we nearly always speak our dialects. There are very few situation where we don't. Most of us also aren't able to differentiate between the standard German languages of Germany and Switzerland. Also, shame on those who use English as a lingua franca within Switzerland.
@@jonistan9268 Well if someone says Vélo or Merci you know it's Swiss-German and not German, also when I said Swiss-German community I meant the rare occasions when addressing the whole Swiss-German community (like when the CH President makes his annual speech). Sadly indeed English tends to be more and more spoken in Switzerland, especially in big cities, and the French-Swiss never really did the required efforts to have a good level in German (whatever type of German). For instance quite a few Swiss-German actors played in French in French cinema or tv but I don't expect many French-Swiss actors having played in German in German cinema or TV...
@@jandron94 Yes, there are these situation where Standard (Swiss) German is spoken. It's the language of education, so it's spoken in schools. Speeches are usually in standard German too because you usually prepare them in writing and in theory you don't write the dialect. They should usually also be understood by German speakers who don't understand dialects. It's the language spoken in parliament by Swiss Germans, because otherwise not everyone understands. It's used on TV and on the radio for certain programs. In church it depends on the kind of church you go to, the "official" ones probably won't use dialects. But then again, it's totally fine to use dialects in very formal situations like for example in court, assuming everyone involved understands it.
Super, da zuzuhören! Aber einige Dinge möchte ich gern korrigieren: Schleswig, ob nun mit -ig oder -ich gesprochen, hat in jedem Fall ein langes E, während Hamburg stets mit dem kurzen A gesprochen wird. Und Freiburg wird niemals als "Friburg" ausgesprochen, es sei denn, man wählt die französische Intonation Fribour(g).
Greetings from Germany! I'm was raised in the north (Schleswig-Holstein) and we pronounced the "g" in "Hamburg" the same as in "Schleswig". And the "e" in Schleswig like a "long e" as in "Schnee". I always knew the first one is northern dialect but thought it the second one is not dialect but maybe I'm wrong. Nice Video! Thanks!
That’s amazing that actually the ‘standardised way’ of speaking German is really so recent! Thank you for this fascinating video! Having learnt German as a child in the 1960/70s in Hannover from my Grandparents and Mother, I had always just assumed that this was simply the ‘correct’ way to pronounce everything (Hannoverian spoken German is very close….possibly the closet…to this standardised form? ) and that all other accents were in some way ‘wrong’ and not proper Hochdeutsch. As German is really a second language to me (even though I could speak it before English as a very young child) because I grew up and was educated in London, I have great difficulty understanding anyone speaking in German if they’re not speaking in this standardised form e.g I can almost not understand Bavarians at all! I never realised that it is actually such a relatively recent adoption and in essence due to one person.
Don't worry, I've been living in Bavaria for ages now and I still can't understand everything people from rural areas say. I do understand quite a few non-standard English dialects strangely enough (far better than crude Bavarian), although I only spent my childhood in an English speaking country.
Im Niederländischen wird "g" generell als "ch" ausgesprochen. Und im Norddeutschen besteht immer die Tendenz zum "ch" wenn der letzte Buchstabe ein "g" ist.
Sadly, no. "Dude" is an Americanism, and originally meant a man who was too concerned with the way he looked -- a dandy or a fop. Nobody knows exactly where it comes from, but the best theory is that it comes from "Yankee Doodle": according to the song, he put a feather in his hat and called it "macaroni", which at the time was a slang word for fancy European-style clothes.
@@rewboss The rest of the story: As you correctly pointed out, from the 1780's to the 1960's, dude primarily meant a male person who dressed in an extremely fashionable manner (a dandy) or a conspicuously citified person who was visiting a rural location, a "city slicker," in western American parlance, as well as in the 1991 film of the same name. Later, "dude" evolved into a colloquialism for any male person, a meaning that slipped into mainstream American slang more or less in the 1970's, and became particularly popular amongst stoners, surfers and skate boarders. Current slang retains at least some use of all three of these common meanings. However, in the Coen Brothers 1998 film, "The Big Lebowski," The Dude was portrayed as a satirical persona of the ultimate American slacker, who doesn't really work, smokes weed, drinks a lot, and basically engages in trivial pursuits (such as bowling). Thankfully, His Dudeness isn't a real person, it's merely what all slackers aspire to be. Vielen Dank und beste Grüße.
Thanks for a very informative posting. As an enthusiastic German language student who can read and write but can't understand the spoken German of any of my neighbors, I keep wishing that folks would at least choose a common way of speaking. (I've got to give up on that!) This bit of history feels enlightening. It gives me a bit of perspective on why things are as they are. I especially enjoy when your postings have something important to teach me. But you can just be funny if you wish.
Let me tell you it's defintely "g" in both cases. Why? Because I'm Austrian ;) Much more annoying to me is when Germans say instead of CHina "SCHina" or instead of CHemie "SCHemie", which is totally wrong in Germany and Austria.
Maybe nobody ever mentioned SchleswiCH before the recent flooding :-)? Anyway, before now having completed my 27th year living in Lower Saxony, I lived the longest time of my life in SchleswiCH-Holstein, and everyone pronounced it that way. By the way, it's also LübEEk (and also MEEklenburg, by the way) and Bad OldeslOH and ItzehOH (trying to emulate the German pronunciation here, not the English). Though for some reason, it has always been LaBÖH. Oh well, even German isn't perfect.
@@wezerd Right, my (long ago) former girl friend's parents, who were living in LübEEK, were members in the local MEKelbörger Platt association. Although LübEEK is not in MEEKlenburg, but in SchleeswiCH-Holstein.
Another perhaps amusing story: My now-deceased mother-in-law, born 1930 in Pomerania, was sent to Bavaria (don't know where) by the so-called Kinderlandverschickung (lovely compound word, isn't it?) during WW II (the word meaning sending children out into the countryside to let them be safe outside heavily bombarded cities, in this case Berlin). The kids were speaking their normal language which, I'd say, except for a few idiosyncrasies is close to "high German". But the farmer's wife where they stayed criticized them for speaking unintelligibly, while she herself maintained regarding the local Bavarians: "Mir sprech'n noch dr Schrift!", meaning that they, of all German tribes!, were speaking true to the written form of German.
So fascinating to meet Thodor Siebs again - I keep coming across his work. Among the German far right there was an old tradition of regarding the former Duchy of Slesvig/Schleswig and sometimes all of Jutland as "ancient West Germanic land" which had been colonised by North Germanic Danes and should be reclaimed. When this went full throttle in the 1930s, some of the Danish agitators (who were pretty right-wing themselves and tried to move the border the other way) contacted the eminent philologist Theodor Siebs who was not into politics and answered that this was unfounded, since old dialects and place names contained nothing West Germanic from the city of Schleswig and northwards. When they published his answer, the Nazis were furious with him and forced the poor man to retract his statements in public. That was one of the juiciest discoveries in my master's thesis. Later, I discovered that he was deep into Frisian studies, another passion of mine.
6:25 - Actually, the *original* 1900s version of Siebs' “Bühnenaussprache” prescribed a voiced alveolar trill or tap [r ~ ɾ], only in a 1950s revision the voiced uvular trill or the uvular fricative ([ʀ ~ ʁ] in IPA) were allowed - vocalising the rhotic (as the near-open central vowel [ɐ]) was discouraged (except for unstressed monosyllabic words) even in the latest editions of the book, which by then was renamed “Deutsche Aussprache: Reine und gemäßigte Hochlautung” in the 1960s (the 19th edition is from 1969). There's a handy chart on page 85 in that edition which lays out the prescribed pronunciation patterns. It can be downloaded from the Internet Archive, if anyone is interested.
It's complicated, because as you state, the standard pronunciation has evolved, as all dialects do. That would have turned a 7-minute video into a 30-minute documentary, which I think would tax the patience of even my most loyal subscribers. But you're right about vocalising the rhotic, that's common practice but it's not Siebs. That one escaped my attention.
The German language had a "unification" history rather similar to Italian. Both countries were extremely fragmented with countless varieties of speech, and now both have a standard variety that nobody really speaks and a billion accents and dialects. In Italy, though, the standard variety is only ever used by voice actors (actual actors usually retain their original accents). The so called "dialects" are mostly separate languages that in many regions are very distinct from the standard variety, and their use is seen as uneducated. Most young people, especially in the north, aren't native speakers of the local languages anymore because they don't see why they should bother speaking a "useless" and "inferior" language, whilst in the south, still very rooted in tradition, the languages are still spoken by everyone albeit they are seen as uneducated in formal contexts. In the centre of the country, the local speeches are the closest to the standard Italian that was developed from the dialect of Florence, so people there mostly just speak their variety 90% of the time as there are only small differences in pronounciation and vocabulary. The other languages though, especially in the north, differ a lot from the standard in the grammar as well. Is the situation any similar in German-speaking countries? I'd love to know more about the topic. Is the use of local dialects frowned upon, or do people go with it? I've heard that the German language from Austria and Switzerland is particularly different.
Rewboss already mentioned this, but basically modern standard German is based mostly on South German dialects, but with a North German pronunciation. So contrary to Italian, where the specific Florence dialect was chosen, there is no place in Germany where Standard German naturally occurred, it's more like a Frankenstein monster. In addition, Northern Germany originally spoke Low German, but when Martin Luther published his translated Bible in his High German dialect, and most of Northern Germany became Protestant, High German became the prestigious German variant that has mostly killed off Low German (although some old people still speak it). So now there's this situation where South Germans still mostly speak in their dialects, while North Germans mostly speak Standard German, with sometimes a very slight Northern twist.
11 месяцев назад
After years referring to the dictionary as Duden, I can't get over the fact that Duden was originally a person...
Wow, every day you learn something new. Even as a German native I love to watch your videos. I love your humor and I always learn something new about Germany or the German language. And that our language is spelled in a southern German style but pronounced in a northern style was absolutely new to me.
In school my German Teacher once explained us, that "Könich" is the actuall pronounciation of "König" and we should try it. It was hilarious. Barely anybody was able to pronounce it. It was always like "Könisch". In generell in my Area there is barely a difference between -ch (as in ich, not as in Buch) and -sch.
Or, you end up speaking German (or whatever language) with the accent of where you learned to speak it. Bartending in Balingen certainly put some permanent Spaetzle in my German. I can speak with a reasonable Hoch Deutsch pronunciation, but I always have to concentrate.
Concerning your pronounciation: It's Hamburg, not Hämburg. :-) A related topic which may interest you and which most Germans don't know is why and when formerly common French words were forcibly eliminated from the German language (in Germany, luckily not in Switzerland). I highly recommend the educating and also entertaining book "Die Sprachreiniger" by Karl-Heinz Göttert, edited by the Propyläen Verlag. (Spoiler: The culprit were not the Nazis.)
Indeed the language "defrenchification" in German seems to be barely documented (surely because this is not a thing to be nowadays especially proud of since it tends to be associated with "purification"), even more so on RU-vid. If my scarce and vaguely remembered information is correct it was initiated in the 18th century by some kind of German philosopher and developped in the 19th century with the anti-french activism that followed the Napoleonic invasions... The Flemings performed the kind of same defrenchification in the 1960's because their daily language was riddled with French, especially technical terms like bike parts, etc... My feeling is that the defrenchification in Germany was eventually detrimental to the German language itself since it made it less "universal" and even more far remote from French or other latin languages... or even from English (so full of French/Latin "universal" vocabulary...) Still is that in Germany (as in Flanders) some French words survived : Niveau, Friseur, interessant, Regisseur, etc. What is "amazing" is that the French pronunciation of those words is quite well respected in German (unlike English which completely distorts it).
Hey @Rewboss how about making a video about the incomprehensible Sütterlin writing script? Why was it produced and did its creator Ludwig Sütterlin just want to give people a hard time?
We have the 'problem' with the two words "Teich" (lake) and "Teig" (dough). BOTH words are pronounced "taich" because of this "-ig" - rule. And the ending "-ig" has another pronuncing than the expanded (female) version "-igin": "König" -> "könich" (king) but "Königin" -> "königin" (queen)
Actually, to me, how you pronounced the endings of these two words was never strange... the way how you rush through the "Schles" in "Schleswig", though... ^^
When I speak business german I say -ig or -urg. But at home We say -ich and -urch. Same goes for -ieg / -iech, -eg / -ech. And then there are some rare exchanges between -r and -ch but that's very local and I hope it won't spread ever.
As native German speaker from Austria, a number of things finally make sense now. Thanks! I always believed spoken German to be pluricentric (and it arguably is so) ... Years ago someone working in German radio told me that the -ig fricative is not a regional variant , but the standardised pronunciation, and that they were explicitly taught so at school/uni... To this day, in had never heard about Sieb and his standardised/theatre pronunciation, so I found that hard to believe... (Btw, there is no fricative -ig in Austria, so it even sounds slightly more dialectal to my ears, rather than "standard", just like unvoiced "s” like in "Sieb", etc. - as, like you mentioned, the orthography follows Southern/Bavarian
If you are a native speaker of German, you're probably a German and as such you are probably rushing to correct someone about something at any time of the day. It's just what we do.
Interestingly, the local pronunciation of Nürnberg = Nuremberg in Franconia (which is the northern part of Bavaria) is something like "Nemberch", the final "ch" sounding as in the personal pronoun "ich".
It’s good to remember that languages are spectrums - there are a myriad shades of pronunciation and usage that span territory and time. It seems natural that a region as complex and scattered in history as German-language states would have such a wide variety differences, and the need for standardization for mass communications. I wonder if this will continue to the point that everyone will be communicating in a standardized American manner (or perhaps Mandarin 🤔😏 )
I didn't know that about my native language. 😅 Being from the Hannover region my dialect is mild to non-existent. But I tend to not pronounce Rs at the end of words if they follow an A. For example Okular (Engl. ocular) would become Okula.
I am from Schleswig-Holstein and i definitely say "Schleswich" but I do not say "Hamburch" but I say "Hamburk" just like you. Btw we say Schleeeswig not Schlässswig
For me who lives at the southern end of northern germany, this exact example is fluid and ever changing depending on how I feel that day. It can be Hamburch or not Perhaps I feel like saying Schleswig instead of Schleswich. Who knows? I certainly don't
Some dialects expand the idea of the fricative at -ig also to -eg; you may know as you live near Aschaffenburg IIRC. Specifically, in Hesse, we pronounce "Weg" like [ve:ç], not [ve:k]. And if you are a true Hessian, you can't say "ch" but make it "sch": [ve:ɕ] (like "Wesch" with long e). Also, the Umlaute undergo the same phenomenon (ä, ö, ü) as they count as fronted like i and e. (If I may give you a tip for your almost perfect German pronunciation: You should hold the e longer and closer in words like Schleswig; it still sounds a bit too short and open, more like Schlässwig.)
The idea of taking inspiration from actors to standardize a language is probably the most clever idea I have ever heard of. That's thinking out of the box
It's one of those ideas that you would never have thought of yourself, but when somebody else thinks of it your reaction is, "Of course! It's so obvious!" Which is usually the hallmark of a clever idea.
That's also the reason we say "Könich" or "billich" instead of "König" and "billig". And as a Berliner, when you see a -il or -ir in a word, it changes to -ül and -ür. I had "Mülch" for breakfast and then I went to the "Kürche" to pray.
All the young Dudens carry the Newtons...Film studios developed the "Transatlantic accent" in the 1930's as an artificial dialect that blended US/UK pronounciation.
