Re: Allophone Problem

Hi!

Philip Newton  writes:
>...
> The short vowels have, to my knowledge, completely merged in standard
> German, and I haven't heard of people who keep e.g. "Sätze" and
> "setze" apart in the vowel sound.
I principally agree, but know an exception.  A friend of mine keeps
them apart.  But his 'primary L1' is not High German but a dialect
(Palatinian) and he learned High German mainly by reading books.
Well, I assume that still you'd consider him an L1 speaker of High
German, because exposure to High German did start at age 0, quite
inevitably in Germany.

But Standard High German may be a standard that virtually no-one
speaks consistently anyway.  Maybe it is a conlang. :-)
(Maybe a bit like Italian, if I understand the situation correctly.)
Nevertheless, most people speak something very, very close to
Standard High German.

**Henrik