Inland German consonant weakening

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The domestic German consonant weakening referred to Dialektologie in the High German dialects widespread lenition of consonants.

Characteristics

In the most pronounced form of the inland High German consonant weakening, all fortes are replaced by the corresponding lenes . As a result, words like unfortunately and conductor , travel and tear or geil and wedge fall together aloud, as long as they do not differ in the pronunciation of their vowels. Depending on the dialect, this lenization takes place to different degrees. For example, in the Upper Aargau varieties of Bern German, the internal German consonant weakening can only be found in the wording, while it does not occur in central and southern Bern German; In Swabian , K is initially not lenized before vowels, but in all other positions.

distribution

The inland German consonant weakening occurs particularly strongly in East Central German varieties. However, it is widespread across the entire High German language area, so that only the dialects on the edge of the High German language area are not affected by it. In the south-west, the inland German consonant weakening extends into High Alemannic , in the south-east it merges into the area of Central Bavarian quantity relationships, where other equalization processes have taken place between Fortes and Lenes.

In the standard German pronunciation there is no internal German consonant weakening. However, this was not always the case, because it appeared in the Meissen pronunciation , which was considered exemplary in the 17th and 18th centuries .

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