German Linguistics Lectures

11.17 Palatal Fricatives

• Palatal fricatives are articulated further back in the mouth than palatal-alveolar sounds.
• The phoneme /j/ is voiced – i.e. your vocal cords vibrate on saying ja, Januar, or even brillant.
• The phoneme /ç/ doesn’t occur in English. It is the unvoiced sound to be found in words such as ich, mich, leicht, Früchte and also in Chemie.

11.18 Velar Fricatives

• Although often spelled “ch”, the phoneme /x/ is very different to /ç/.
• It is formed towards the back of the vocal tract in the soft palate and feels similar to clearing your throat.
• The phoneme /x/ is heard in words such as Loch, Buch and Lachen.

11.19 Glottal Fricatives

• The glottis is the gap between the vocal cords.
• The glottal sound /h/ is similar in German and English and is found in words such as Haus and Gehalt.
• It is different from the glottal stop that occurs before German vowels at the beginning of words or syllables – i.e. twice in the term ein Ei.