Bernese German phonology

This article is about the phonology of Bernese German. It deals with current phonology and phonetics, including geographical variants. Like other High Alemannic varieties, it has a two-way contrast in plosives and fricatives that is not based on voicing, but on length. The absence of voice in plosives and fricatives is typical for all High German varieties, but many of them have no two-way contrast due to general lenition.

There is a distinctive length opposition in all vowels except [ə]. Unlike in standard German, there is no interdependence of vowel length and vowel quantity.

Bernese German has seven diphthong phonemes:

The number of phonetic diphthongs and triphthongs is significantly higher, since all monophthongs (except for short [i], [y], [u], [ə]) and all opening diphthongs may be followed by a [w] (from vocalized /l/), for instance /ˈʃtalː/ → [ˈʃtawː] ('stable'), /ˈʃtaːl/ → [ˈʃtaːw] ('steel'), /ˈkfyə̯l/ → [ˈkfyə̯w] ('feeling').

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