German Linguistics Lectures

11.14 Labio-dental Fricatives

• Labio-dental sounds involve the lips and teeth, creating a slight hiss.
• The phoneme /v/ is voiced – your vocal cords vibrate on saying Wein, Wagen or Klavier.
• The phoneme /f/ is unvoiced. You don’t use your vocal cords to say fein, Affe - and vier.

11.15 Alveolar Fricatives

• Alveolar sounds have the tip of the tongue just behind the top teeth.
• The phoneme /z/ is voiced – i.e. your vocal cords vibrate when saying so, lesen or singen.
• The phoneme /s/ is unvoiced - i.e. you don’t use your vocal cords to say heiß, muss or Szene.
• Note the different ways in which these very different phonemes are spelled in German!

11.16 Palatal-alveolar Fricatives

• Palatal-alveolar sounds find the whole of the tongue close to or touching the hard palate.
• The phoneme /ʒ/ is voiced – i.e. your vocal cords vibrate when saying Genie (or the French loan word Etage).
• The phoneme /ʃ/ is unvoiced, i.e. you don’t use your vocal cords to say schön, Asche or Schnee.