Phonetic features of Berlin ich-laut

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Ruud Harmsen

Posted: Tue Apr 29, 2008 12:32 am

Guest

In the song "Unbeschreiblich weiblich"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=is727R4oYO0
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nina_Hagen
it is easy to hear that the ich-laut Nina Hagen uses (e.g. in "Für
mich nicht, für dich nicht, ich hab' keine Plficht") is different from
that of standard German. She is from East Berlin, and I heard other
Berliners use this sound too.

I thought for a long time it was a plain [S], but now disagree. Could
someone with better phonetic skills than mine tell me what exactly it
is, how it is different, and where this sound is on an IPA-chart?

--
Ruud Harmsen
http://rudhar.com

Guest

Posted: Tue Apr 29, 2008 12:32 am

On Apr 29, 8:32 am, Ruud Harmsen <realemailons...@rudhar.com.invalid>
wrote:

Quote:

I have always thought Berliners would say "ick".

Guest

Posted: Tue Apr 29, 2008 2:52 am

On Apr 29, 1:27 pm, Ruud Harmsen <realemailons...@rudhar.com.invalid>
wrote:

Quote:

On Apr 29, 8:32 am, Ruud Harmsen <realemailons...@rudhar.com.invalid
wrote:
In the song "Unbeschreiblich weiblich"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=is727R4oYO0http://de.wikipedia.org/wik...
it is easy to hear that the ich-laut Nina Hagen uses (e.g. in "Für
mich nicht, für dich nicht, ich hab' keine Plficht") is different from
that of standard German. She is from East Berlin, and I heard other
Berliners use this sound too.

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 02:58:07 -0700 (PDT): Craoibhi...@gmail.com: in
sci.lang:

I have always thought Berliners would say "ick".

Ja, das auch. Aber wir reden hier nicht von Dialekt, sondern von
Standard-Deutsch mit einem berlinischen Akzent.

Ach so. Well, I think it's simply [S].

Ruud Harmsen

Posted: Tue Apr 29, 2008 5:27 am

Guest

Quote:

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 02:58:07 -0700 (PDT): Craoibhin66@gmail.com: in
sci.lang:

Quote:

I have always thought Berliners would say "ick".

Ja, das auch. Aber wir reden hier nicht von Dialekt, sondern von
Standard-Deutsch mit einem berlinischen Akzent.

--
Ruud Harmsen
http://rudhar.com

Joachim Pense

Posted: Wed Apr 30, 2008 1:10 am

Guest

Wolfgang Schwanke (in sci.lang):

Quote:

Ruud Harmsen <realemailonsite@rudhar.com.invalid> wrote in
news:iecd14tlgf11ptagmr4alkrafpoqtppi0l@4ax.com:

I thought for a long time it was a plain [S], but now disagree. Could
someone with better phonetic skills than mine tell me what exactly it
is, how it is different, and where this sound is on an IPA-chart?

To my ear it's a sound halfway between [C] and [S]. I don't know if
there's an IPA symbol for it. It occurs in dialect as well as in
standard German spoken with a slight Berlin accent; the song is an
example of the latter.

I wonder what the rule in the Berlin dialect is: "Ich" ends with a [k],
but "weiblich" with, as you describe it, something between [S] and [C].

BTW, [S] replacing standard [C] is common in west middle German dialects,
too, so they make jokes about Mainzers not being able to see the difference
between Kirche (church) and Kirsche (cherry) or Helmut Kohl
hypercorrecting "Geschichte" to "Gechichte".

Joachim

Trond Engen

Posted: Wed Apr 30, 2008 2:21 am

Guest

Joachim Pense skreiv:

Quote:

Wolfgang Schwanke (in sci.lang):

Ruud Harmsen <realemailonsite@rudhar.com.invalid> wrote in
news:iecd14tlgf11ptagmr4alkrafpoqtppi0l@4ax.com:

I thought for a long time it was a plain [S], but now disagree.
Could someone with better phonetic skills than mine tell me what
exactly it is, how it is different, and where this sound is on an
IPA-chart?

To my ear it's a sound halfway between [C] and [S]. I don't know if
there's an IPA symbol for it. It occurs in dialect as well as in
standard German spoken with a slight Berlin accent; the song is an
example of the latter.

I wonder what the rule in the Berlin dialect is: "Ich" ends with a
[k], but "weiblich" with, as you describe it, something between [S]
and [C].

Is it a rule? I'd place my bet on sociolinguistic replacement. Speakers
of Low German dialects gradually replace dialect words with words from
the national language, but the [C] is alien and difficult to reproduce.
By now, most of the lexicon is replaced but the pronouns are left. That
would be similar to the process in Norwegian, where the central pronouns
stay unchanged while other parts of the lexicon is replaced. I believe
we see that some words become signal words for positive local identity
and are kept, while others, a handful for each generation, become
associated with backwardness and are replaced. E.g. the word 'ikke'
"not" (from Danish/SE Norwegian) has or is soon to have replaced native
forms like 'ikkje' (~['iCe]), 'itte', 'ente' and 'itj' in much of the
country, but people pronounce it according to local phonology and
combine it with local versions of 'jeg' "I".

Quote:

BTW, [S] replacing standard [C] is common in west middle German
dialects, too, so they make jokes about Mainzers not being able to
see the difference between Kirche (church) and Kirsche (cherry) or
Helmut Kohl hypercorrecting "Geschichte" to "Gechichte".

So it is in young Norwegian, but I'm on my way to expand on that elsewhere.

--
Trond Engen
- Nordplattdeutscher

Guest

Posted: Wed Apr 30, 2008 4:08 am

On Apr 29, 11:10 pm, "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote:

Quote:

On Apr 29, 3:32 pm, Craoibhi...@gmail.com wrote:

On Apr 29, 7:27 pm, "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote:

On Apr 29, 11:54 am, Ruud Harmsen <realemailons...@rudhar.com.invalid
wrote:

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 17:43:56 +0200: Ruud Harmsen
realemailons...@rudhar.com.invalid>: in sci.lang:

In the song "Unbeschreiblich weiblich"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=is727R4oYO0

Meine Landsmännin

Is that a joke, or is there really no *Landsfrau when needed?

No joke. Go learn some German sometimes.

Why would I ever need to produce such a word?

Why would you ever need to produce such a word as "fellow
countrywoman"? Because in normal communication, you might sometimes
need to refer to a female person who happens to be of the same
nationality as you.

Quote:

Go learn some English. The last word in your sentence makes no sense.

Come on, you have discredited yourself long ago as an authority on
correct English.

Guest

Posted: Wed Apr 30, 2008 4:10 am

On Apr 30, 4:13 am, Wolfgang Schwanke <s...@sig.nature> wrote:

Quote:

Craoibhi...@gmail.com wrote innews:decd45f0-c6a0-4de0-b5a3-20145c899e4e@d45g2000hsc.googlegroups.com:

I have always thought Berliners would say "ick".

Misunderstanding. The Berlin word for standard German "ich" is of
course "ick" (from Low German). But occurances of [C] in other words do
not become [k], rather a mix of [C] and [S] as Ruud describes it. This
is true even for the word "ich" in standard German when spoken with a
slight regional Berlin/Brandenburg accent.

It is probably the sound that is written in Polish as s-with-an-acute-
accent before consonants and in the end of a word, or as si before
vowels.

Peter T. Daniels

Posted: Wed Apr 30, 2008 6:18 am

Guest

On Apr 30, 10:08 am, Craoibhi...@gmail.com wrote:

Quote:

On Apr 29, 11:10 pm, "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote:

On Apr 29, 3:32 pm, Craoibhi...@gmail.com wrote:

On Apr 29, 7:27 pm, "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote:

On Apr 29, 11:54 am, Ruud Harmsen <realemailons...@rudhar.com.invalid
wrote:

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 17:43:56 +0200: Ruud Harmsen
realemailons...@rudhar.com.invalid>: in sci.lang:

In the song "Unbeschreiblich weiblich"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=is727R4oYO0

Meine Landsmännin

Is that a joke, or is there really no *Landsfrau when needed?

No joke. Go learn some German sometimes.

Why would I ever need to produce such a word?

Why would you ever need to produce such a word as "fellow
countrywoman"? Because in normal communication, you might sometimes
need to refer to a female person who happens to be of the same
nationality as you.

Why might I have to refer to such a person? And why would I feel the
need to identify her sex?

Quote:

Go learn some English. The last word in your sentence makes no sense.

Come on, you have discredited yourself long ago as an authority on
correct English.-

I'm not talking about "correct." I'm talking about interpretable.

Trond Engen

Posted: Wed Apr 30, 2008 7:13 am

Guest

Wolfgang Schwanke skreiv:

Quote:

Then there is the phenomenon of "Türkendeutsch" which replaces all
[C] with plain [S]. This is distinct from Berlin dialect and occurs
all over Germany, but the two modes of speech can overlap here and
there. Sometimes Germans emulate it for coolness effect. It's a
recent phenomenon, and should not be confused with "traditional"
Berlin dialect which Nina speaks.

[C] is replaced by [S] in the speech of young people in different parts
of Norway. There are several tendencies that are working together.

One is the finishing of a "satemization" process that has been going on
for centuries. First /k/ was palatalized before /e/, /i/, /y/, /ø/ and
/æ/. This process led to fricativization (affricatization in some
dialects, similar to Eng. 'ch'). Starting with my generation (and
reportedly in southwestern Norway), and in spite of ridicule from the
older and wiser, the formerly childish substitution of [S] for [C]
became increasingly prevalent.

A second is our counterpart of 'türkerdeutsch', the language of young
people of mainly Pakistani descent in the Oslo area. For a couple of
decades now, allegedly following the adoption of skateboards and hip hop
culture, both phonetics and vocabulary have been spreading and have had
the coolness effect you report from German.

A third would probably be the replacement of affricates as mentioned
above. I'm not sure if I've heard it, though. It's not a large area
anyway, and the change may be masked by other tendencies.

I heard the son of our prime minister on TV this weekend. His speech was
natural and unaffected but still a new and (seemingly, to me)
idiosyncratic blend of the old Western Oslo features (our RP) of his
neighbourhood and family, some general Eastern Norwegian features
finding their way as dialects are evening out, and the new [S]. (I
mentioned my observation in the Norwegian language group and have been
holding this reply waiting for a report from someone closer to the
action, but there aren't any yet.)

--
Trond Engen
- live from the phonetic battleground

Joachim Pense

Posted: Wed Apr 30, 2008 7:29 am

Guest

Trond Engen wrote:

Quote:

Joachim Pense skreiv:

Wolfgang Schwanke (in sci.lang):

Ruud Harmsen <realemailonsite@rudhar.com.invalid> wrote in
news:iecd14tlgf11ptagmr4alkrafpoqtppi0l@4ax.com:

I thought for a long time it was a plain [S], but now disagree.
Could someone with better phonetic skills than mine tell me what
exactly it is, how it is different, and where this sound is on an
IPA-chart?

To my ear it's a sound halfway between [C] and [S]. I don't know if
there's an IPA symbol for it. It occurs in dialect as well as in
standard German spoken with a slight Berlin accent; the song is an
example of the latter.

I wonder what the rule in the Berlin dialect is: "Ich" ends with a
[k], but "weiblich" with, as you describe it, something between [S]
and [C].

Is it a rule? I'd place my bet on sociolinguistic replacement. Speakers
of Low German dialects gradually replace dialect words with words from
the national language, but the [C] is alien and difficult to reproduce.

I don't think you're right, as "weiblik" doesn't sound a bit Berliner to my
ears.

Joachim

Andrew Woode

Posted: Wed Apr 30, 2008 7:54 am

Guest

On 30 Apr, 14:09, Ruud Harmsen <realemailons...@rudhar.com.invalid>
wrote:

Quote:

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 12:32:00 -0700 (PDT): Craoibhi...@gmail.com: in
sci.lang:

On Apr 29, 7:27 pm, "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote:
On Apr 29, 11:54 am, Ruud Harmsen <realemailons...@rudhar.com.invalid
wrote:

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 17:43:56 +0200: Ruud Harmsen
realemailons...@rudhar.com.invalid>: in sci.lang:

In the song "Unbeschreiblich weiblich"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=is727R4oYO0

Meine Landsmännin

Is that a joke, or is there really no *Landsfrau when needed?

No joke. Go learn some German sometimes.

I have the audicity to translate from German for money, and I had to
look it up too. Nobody (except native speakers) can know everything by
heart. Fortunately there was that warning light to tell me I couldn't
be sure and had to look it up.

While Landsmännin is unquestionably the traditional form, it does seem

to make some native speakers uncomfortable; I remember an announcer on
German television during the Calgary Winter Olympics (1988) using
'Landsmännin' and then 'correcting' himself to 'Landsfrau' as a better
form - though I think the implication was that he disliked the
current convention, rather than being ignorant of it.

(Googling German pages produces a lot of relevant results for
'Landsfrau', so there are obviously plenty of people who feel the same
way).

Ruud Harmsen

Posted: Wed Apr 30, 2008 8:03 am

Guest

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 23:33:39 GMT: "Heidi Graw" <hgraw@telus.net>: in
sci.lang:

Quote:

She may be using the harsher "sh" sound on purpose because it
sounds more aggressive than the soft "ch" sound. Consider it
musical and artistical expression, rather than a dialect or an accent.
It's an aggressive and angry song for which the use of the "sh" sound
is more appropriate. The "sh" sound also does not take away from
the meaning of the words. Whether ich or ish, we know what she
means.

Could be that that explains it. On the other hand, I think have heard
other Berliners (not JFK!) use it too, also in normal conversation.

--
Ruud Harmsen
http://rudhar.com

Ruud Harmsen

Posted: Wed Apr 30, 2008 8:09 am

Guest

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 12:32:00 -0700 (PDT): Craoibhin66@gmail.com: in
sci.lang:

Quote:

On Apr 29, 7:27 pm, "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@verizon.net> wrote:
On Apr 29, 11:54 am, Ruud Harmsen <realemailons...@rudhar.com.invalid
wrote:

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 17:43:56 +0200: Ruud Harmsen
realemailons...@rudhar.com.invalid>: in sci.lang:

In the song "Unbeschreiblich weiblich"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=is727R4oYO0

Meine Landsmännin

Is that a joke, or is there really no *Landsfrau when needed?

No joke. Go learn some German sometimes.

I have the audicity to translate from German for money, and I had to
look it up too. Nobody (except native speakers) can know everything by
heart. Fortunately there was that warning light to tell me I couldn't
be sure and had to look it up.

--
Ruud Harmsen
http://rudhar.com

Ruud Harmsen

Posted: Wed Apr 30, 2008 8:13 am

Guest

30 Apr 2008 01:10:39 GMT: Wolfgang Schwanke <see@sig.nature>: in
sci.lang:

Quote:

To my ear it's a sound halfway between [C] and [S].

I was waiting for someone to mention this, but nobody does, so I'll do
it myself: could it be that sounds that occurs in Polish, and it
written as an s with an acute accent?

--
Ruud Harmsen
http://rudhar.com

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