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Old High German
Family: Germanic
Region: Central Europe
Time: 8th-11th century C.E.
Consonants
| Labial | Dental | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Labialized velar | |
| Voiceless stop | p | t | k | kʷ | ||
| Voiced stop | b | d | g | |||
| Voiceless fricative | f | θ | s | ç | x | |
| Voiced fricative | v | ð | z | |||
| Voiceless affricate | pf | ts | kx | |||
| Nasal | m | n | ŋ | |||
| Lateral | l | |||||
| Trill | r | |||||
| Approximant | w | j |
Vowels
| Front | Central | Back | |
| Close | i iː y yː | u uː | |
| Mid | e eː | o oː | |
| Open | a aː |
Diphthongs
in the different dialects and periods can occur:
/ei/
/ia, ie/ /io/
/iu/ /ou/ /ua, uo/
Notes
/e:/ only before /r, h, w/.
/o:/ only before dental, liquida, /h/ and in older forms of southern dialects (> /uo/). /y, y:/ only in late Old High German.
Bibliography
Braune, Wilhelm. 1987. Althochdeutsche Grammatik. 14. Aufl. bearb. von Hans Eggers. Tübingen: Niemeyer.
König, Werner. 2001. dtv-Atlas Deutsche Sprache, 13. durchgesehene Auflage. München: dtv. Penzl, Herbert. 1971. Lautsystem und Lautwandel in den althochdeutschen Dialekten, München: Hueber.
Simmler, Franz. 20002. Phonetik und Phonologie, Graphetik und Graphemik des Althochdeutschen, in: Besch/Betten/Reichmann/Sonderegger (Hrsg.), Sprachgeschichte. Ein Handbuch zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und ihrer Erforschung, 2. Teilband, Berlin/New York: de Gruyter. 1155- 1170.
Author
Elena Di Venosa