German orthography

German orthography is the orthography used in writing the German language, which is largely phonemic. However, it shows many instances of spellings that are historic or analogous to other spellings rather than phonemic. The pronunciation of almost every word can be derived from its spelling once the spelling rules are known, but the opposite is not generally the case.

Today, Standard High German orthography is regulated by the (Council for German Orthography), composed of representatives from most German-speaking countries.

Alphabet

File:Oesterreichische Schulschrift 1995, 2 - Schraegschrift.jpg

Austria's standardized cursive

File:Vereinfachte Ausgangsschrift.png

Vereinfachte Ausgangsschrift

The modern German alphabet consists of the twenty-six letters of the ISO basic Latin alphabet plus four special letters.

Basic alphabet

Letter		Name	Name (IPA)	Spelling Alphabet
A	a			Anton
B	b			Berta
C	c			Cäsar
D	d			Dora
E	e			Emil
F	f			Friedrich
G	g			Gustav
H	h			Heinrich
I	i			Ida
J	j	,Template:Efn Template:Efn	Template:Efn Template:Efn	Julius
K	k			Kaufmann,Template:Efn KonradTemplate:Efn
L	l			Ludwig
M	m			Martha
N	n			Nordpol
O	o			Otto
P	p			Paula
Q	q	,Template:Efn Template:Efn	Template:Efn Template:Efn	Quelle
R	r			Richard
S	s			Samuel,Template:Efn SiegfriedTemplate:Efn
T	t			Theodor
U	u			Ulrich
V	v			Viktor
W	w			Wilhelm
X	x			Xanthippe,Template:Efn XavierTemplate:Efn
Y	y		Template:Efn Template:Efn	Ypsilon
Z	z			Zacharias,Template:Efn ZürichTemplate:Efn

Special letters

German has four special letters; three are vowels accented with an umlaut sign (Template:Angbr) and one is derived from a ligature of Template:Angbr (long s) and Template:Angbr (Template:Angbr; called "ess-zed/zee" or "sharp s"). They have their own names separate from the letters they are based on.

Letter		Name	Name (IPA)	Spelling Alphabet
Ä	ä	Ä		Ärger
Ö	ö	Ö		Ökonom,Template:Efn ÖsterreichTemplate:Efn
Ü	ü	Ü		Übermut,Template:Efn ÜbelTemplate:Efn
ẞ	ß	,		Eszett,Template:Efn scharfes STemplate:Efn

• Capital ẞ was declared an official letter of the German alphabet on 29 June 2017. Previously represented as Template:Angbr.
• Historically, long s (ſ) was used as well, as in English and many other European languages.

While the Council for German Orthography considers Template:Angbr distinct letters,Template:Sfn disagreement on how to categorize and count them has led to a dispute over the exact number of letters the German alphabet has, the number ranging between 26 (considering special letters as variants of Template:Angbr) and 30 (counting all special letters separately).

Use of special letters

Umlaut diacritic usage

The accented letters Template:Angbr are used to indicate the presence of umlauts (fronting of back vowels). Before the introduction of the printing press, frontalization was indicated by placing an Template:Angbr after the back vowel to be modified, but German printers developed the space-saving typographical convention of replacing the full Template:Angbr with a small version placed above the vowel to be modified. In German Kurrent writing, the superscripted Template:Angbr was simplified to two vertical dashes (as the Kurrent Template:Angbr consists largely of two short vertical strokes), which have further been reduced to dots in both handwriting and German typesetting. Although the two dots of umlaut look like those in the diaeresis (trema), the two have different origins and functions.

When it is not possible to use the umlauts (for example, when using a restricted character set) the characters Template:Angbr should be transcribed as Template:Angbr respectively, following the earlier postvocalic-Template:Angbr convention; simply using the base vowel (e.g. Template:Angbr instead of Template:Angbr) would be wrong and misleading. However, such transcription should be avoided if possible, especially with names. Names often exist in different variants, such as and , and with such transcriptions in use one could not work out the correct spelling of the name.

Automatic back-transcribing is wrong not only for names. Consider, for example, ("the new book"). This should never be changed to , as the second Template:Angbr is completely separate from the Template:Angbr and does not even belong in the same syllable; () is (the root for "new") followed by Template:Angbr, an inflection. The word Template:Angbr does not exist in German.

Furthermore, in northern and western Germany, there are family names and place names in which Template:Angbr lengthens the preceding vowel (by acting as a ), as in the former Dutch orthography, such as , which is pronounced with a long Template:Angbr, not an Template:Angbr. Similar cases are and .

In proper names and ethnonyms, there may also appear a rare Template:Angbr and Template:Angbr, which are not letters with an umlaut, but a diaeresis, used as in French and English to distinguish what could be a digraph, for example, Template:Angbr in , Template:Angbr in , Template:Angbr in , Template:Angbr in and (although Hoëcker added the diaeresis himself), and Template:Angbr in . Occasionally, a diaeresis may be used in some well-known names, i.e.: (usually written as ).

Swiss keyboards and typewriters do not allow easy input of uppercase letters with umlauts (nor Template:Angbr) because their positions are taken by the most frequent French diacritics. Uppercase umlauts were dropped because they are less common than lowercase ones (especially in Switzerland). Geographical names in particular are supposed to be written with Template:Angbr plus Template:Angbr, except . The omission can cause some inconvenience, since the first letter of every noun is capitalized in German.

Unlike in Hungarian, the exact shape of the umlaut diacritics – especially when handwritten – is not important, because they are the only ones in the language (not counting the tittle on Template:Angbr and Template:Angbr). They will be understood whether they look like dots (Template:Angbr), acute accents (Template:Angbr) or vertical bars (Template:Angbr). A horizontal bar (macron, Template:Angbr), a breve (Template:Angbr), a tiny Template:Angbr or Template:Angbr, a tilde (Template:Angbr), and such variations are often used in stylized writing (e.g. logos). However, the breve – or the ring (Template:Angbr) – was traditionally used in some scripts to distinguish a Template:Vr from an Template:Vr. In rare cases, the Template:Vr was underlined. The breved Template:Vr was common in some Kurrent-derived handwritings; it was mandatory in Sütterlin.

Sharp s

File:Delikatess.JPG

German label "Delicacy / red cabbage." Left cap is with old orthography, right with new.

or (Template:Angbr) represents the “s” sound. In the current orthography, the letter is used only after long vowels and diphthongs. Prior to the German spelling reform of 1996, it was used additionally whenever the letter combination Template:Angbr occurred at the end of a syllable or word. It is not used in Switzerland and Liechtenstein.

As Template:Angbr derives from a ligature of lowercase letters, it is exclusively used in the middle or at the end of a word. The proper transcription when it cannot be used is Template:Vr (Template:Vr and Template:Vr in earlier times). This transcription can give rise to ambiguities, albeit rarely; one such case is "in moderation" vs. "en masse". In all-caps, Template:Angbr is replaced by Template:Vr or, optionally, by the [[capital ß|uppercase Template:Angbr]].Template:Sfn The uppercase Template:Vr was included in Unicode 5.1 as U+1E9E in 2008. Since 2010 its use is mandatory in official documentation in Germany when writing geographical names in all-caps. The option of using the uppercase Template:Vr in all-caps was officially added to the German orthography in 2017.

Sorting

There are three ways to deal with the umlauts in alphabetic sorting.

1. Treat them like their base characters, as if the umlaut were not present (DIN 5007-1, section 6.1.1.4.1). This is the preferred method for dictionaries, where umlauted words ( "feet") should appear near their origin words ( "foot"). In words which are the same except for one having an umlaut and one its base character (e.g. vs. ), the word with the base character gets precedence.
2. Decompose them (invisibly) to vowel plus Template:Angbr (DIN 5007-2, section 6.1.1.4.2). This is often preferred for personal and geographical names, wherein the characters are used unsystematically, as in German telephone directories ().
3. They are treated like extra letters either placed
   1. after their base letters (Austrian phone books have Template:Angbr between Template:Angbr and Template:Angbr etc.) or
   2. at the end of the alphabet (as in Swedish or in extended ASCII).

Microsoft Windows in German versions offers the choice between the first two variants in its internationalization settings.

A sort of combination of nos. 1 and 2 also exists, in use in a couple of lexica: The umlaut is sorted with the base character, but an Template:Angbr in proper names is sorted with the umlaut if it is actually spoken that way (with the umlaut getting immediate precedence). A possible sequence of names then would be in this order.

is sorted as though it were Template:Angbr. Occasionally it is treated as Template:Angbr, but this is generally considered incorrect. Words distinguished only by Template:Angbr vs. Template:Angbr are rare. The word with Template:Angbr gets precedence, and (story of a building; South German pronunciation) would be sorted before Geschoss (projectile).

Accents in French loanwords are always ignored in collation.

In rare contexts (e.g. in older indices) Template:Angbr (phonetic value equal to English Template:Angbr) and likewise Template:Angbr and Template:Angbr are treated as single letters, but the vocalic digraphs Template:Angbr (historically Template:Angbr), Template:Angbr and the historic Template:Angbr never are.

Personal names with special characters

German names containing umlauts (Template:Angbr) and/or Template:Angbr are spelled in the correct way in the non-machine-readable zone of the passport, but with Template:Angbr and/or Template:Angbr in the machine-readable zone, e.g. Template:Angbr becomes Template:Angbr, Template:Angbr becomes Template:Angbr, and Template:Angbr becomes Template:Angbr. The transcription mentioned above is generally used for aircraft tickets et cetera, but sometimes (like in US visas) simple vowels are used (). As a result, passport, visa, and aircraft ticket may display different spellings of the same name. The three possible spelling variants of the same name (e.g. ) in different documents sometimes lead to confusion, and the use of two different spellings within the same document may give persons unfamiliar with German orthography the impression that the document is a forgery.

Even before the introduction of the capital Template:Angbr, it was recommended to use the minuscule Template:Angbr as a capital letter in family names in documents (e.g. , today's spelling: ).

German naming law accepts umlauts and/or Template:Angbr in family names as a reason for an official name change. Even a spelling change, e.g. from to or from to is regarded as a name change.

Features of German spelling

Capitalization

A typical feature of German spelling is the general capitalization of nouns and of most nominalized words. In addition, capital letters are used: at the beginning of sentences (may be used after a colon, when the part of a sentence after the colon can be treated as a sentence); in the formal pronoun 'you' and the determiner 'your' (optionally in other second-person pronouns in letters); in adjectives at the beginning of proper names (e.g. 'the Pacific Ocean'); in adjectives with the suffix '-er' from geographical names (e.g. ); in adjectives with the suffix '-sch' from proper names if written with the apostrophe before the suffix (e.g. 'Ohm's law', also written ).

Compound words

Compound words, including nouns, are usually written together, e.g. ( + ; 'house door'), ( + ; 'table lamp'), ( + + ; 'cold water tap/faucet). This can lead to long words: the longest word in regular use, ('legal protection insurance companies'), consists of 39 letters.

Hyphen in compound words

Compounds involving letters, abbreviations, or numbers (written in figures, even with added suffixes) are hyphenated: 'A major', 'US embassy', 'with 10 percent', 'group of ten'. The hyphen is used when adding suffixes to letters: 'nth'. It is used in substantivated compounds such as 'alternative' (literally 'either-or'); in phrase-word compounds such as 'equinox', 'postponing' (substantivation of 'to postpone'); in compounds of words containing hyphen with other words: 'A major scale'; in coordinated adjectives: 'German-English dictionary'. Compound adjectives meaning colours are written with a hyphen if they mean two colours: 'red and brown', but without a hyphen if they mean an intermediate colour: 'reddish brown' (from the spelling reform of 1996 to the 2024 revision of the orthographic rules, both variants could be used in both meanings). Optionally the hyphen can be used to emphasize individual components, to clarify the meaning of complicated compounds, to avoid misunderstandings or when three identical letters occur together (in practice, in this case it is mostly used when writing nouns with triple vowels, e.g. 'elephant seal').

The hyphen is used in compounds where the second part or both parts are proper names, e.g. 'the photographer Hansen', 'Lüdenscheid, the city of millers', double-barrelled surnames such as ; geographical names such as . Double given names are variously written as . Some compound geographical names are written as one word (e.g. 'North Korea') or as two words (e.g. geographical names beginning with or ). The hyphen is not used when compounds with a proper name in the second part are used as common nouns, e.g. 'crybaby'; also in the name of the fountain . The hyphen is used in words derived from proper names with hyphen, from proper names of more than one word, or from more than one proper name (optional in derivations with the suffix from geographical names from more than one word). Optionally the hyphen can be used in compounds where the first part is a proper name. Compounds of the type "geographical name+specification" are written with a hyphen or as two words: or .

Vowel length

Even though vowel length is phonemic in German, it is not consistently represented. However, there are different ways of identifying long vowels:

• A vowel in an open syllable (a free vowel) is long, for instance in ('to give'), ('to say'). The rule is unreliable in given names, cf. .
• It is rare to see a bare Template:Vr used to indicate a long vowel . It occurs mainly in loanwords, e.g. 'crisis', but also in some native German words, e.g. 'we', 'give (imperative)'. Mostly, the long vowel is represented in writing by the digraph Template:Vr, for instance in ('love'), ('here'). This use is a historical spelling based on the Middle High German diphthong which was monophthongized in Early New High German. It has been generalized to words that etymologically never had that diphthong, for instance ('much'), ('peace') (Middle High German , ). Occasionally – typically in word-final position – this digraph represents as in the plural noun ('knees') (cf. singular ). In the words (viertel) ('quarter'), ('fourteen'), ('forty'), Template:Vr represents a short vowel, cf. ('four'). In Fraktur, where capital Template:Vr and Template:Vr are identical or near-identical $\mathfrak{𝔍}$, the combinations Ie and Je are confusable; hence Template:Vr is not used at the start of a word, for example ('hedgehog'), ('Irishman').
• A silent Template:Vr indicates the vowel length in certain cases. That Template:Vr derives from an old in some words, for instance ('to see') ('ten'), but in other words it has no etymological justification, for instance ('to go') or ('to mill'). Occasionally a digraph can be redundantly followed by Template:Vr, either due to analogy, such as ('sees', from ) or etymology, such as ('cattle', MHG ), ('rough', pre-1996 spelling, now written , MHG ).
• The letters Template:Vr are doubled in a few words that have long vowels, for instance ('seed'), ('sea'/'lake'), ('moor').
• A doubled consonant after a vowel indicates that the vowel is short, while a single consonant often indicates the vowel is long, e.g. ('comb') has a short vowel , while ('came') has a long vowel . Two consonants are not doubled: Template:Vr, which is replaced by Template:Vr (until the spelling reform of 1996, however, Template:Vr was divided across a line break as Template:Vr), and Template:Vr, which is replaced by Template:Vr. In loanwords, Template:Vr (which may correspond with Template:Vr in the original spelling) and Template:Vr can occur.
• For different consonants and for sounds represented by more than one letter (Template:Vr and Template:Vr) after a vowel, no clear rule can be given, because they can appear after long vowels, yet are not redoubled if belonging to the same stem, e.g. 'moon', 'hand'. On a stem boundary, reduplication usually takes place, e.g., 'takes'; however, in fixed, no longer productive derivatives, this too can be lost, e.g., 'business' despite 'to get something done'.
• Template:Vr indicates that the preceding vowel is long, e.g. 'street' vs. a short vowel in 'mass' or 'host'/'lot'. In addition to that, texts written before the 1996 spelling reform also use Template:Vr at the ends of words and before consonants, e.g. 'wet' and 'had to' (after the reform spelled and ), so vowel length in these positions could not be detected by the Template:Vr, cf. 'measure' and 'was based' (both unaffected by the reform).

Double or triple consonants

Even though German does not have phonemic consonant length, there are many instances of doubled or even tripled consonants in the spelling. A single consonant following a checked vowel is doubled if another vowel follows, for instance 'always', 'let'. These consonants are analyzed as ambisyllabic because they constitute not only the syllable onset of the second syllable but also the syllable coda of the first syllable, which must not be empty because the syllable nucleus is a checked vowel.

By analogy, if a word has one form with a doubled consonant, all forms of that word are written with a doubled consonant, even if they do not fulfill the conditions for consonant doubling; for instance, 'to run' → 'he runs'; 'kisses' → 'kiss'.

Doubled consonants can occur in composite words when the first part ends in the same consonant the second part starts with, e.g. in the word ('sheepskin', composed of 'sheep' and 'skin, fur, pelt').

Composite words can also have tripled letters. While this is usually a sign that the consonant is actually spoken long, it does not affect the pronunciation per se: the Template:Vr in ('oxygen bottle', composed of 'oxygen' and 'bottle') is exactly as long as the ff in . According to the spelling before 1996, the three consonants would be shortened before vowels, but retained before consonants and in hyphenation, so the word ('navigation, shipping', composed of 'ship' and 'drive, trip, tour') was then written , whereas already had a triple Template:Vr. With the aforementioned change in Template:Vr spelling, even a new source of triple consonants Template:Vr, which in pre-1996 spelling could not occur as it was rendered Template:Vr, was introduced, e.g. ('compulsory round' in certain card games, composed of 'must' and 'game').

Typical letters

• Template:Vr: This digraph represents the diphthong . The spelling goes back to the Middle High German pronunciation of that diphthong, which was . The spelling Template:Vr is found in only a very few native words (such as 'string', 'orphan') but is commonly used to romanize in foreign loans from languages such as Chinese.
• Template:Vr: This digraph represents the diphthong , which goes back to the Middle High German monophthong Template:IPAblink represented by Template:Vr. When the sound is created by umlaut of Template:Vr (from MHG Template:IPAblink), it is spelled Template:Vr.
• Template:Vr: This letter alternates with Template:Vr. For more information, see above.
• Template:Vr: At the beginning of a word or syllable, these digraphs are pronounced . In the Middle Ages, the sibilant that was inherited from Proto-Germanic Template:IPAslink was pronounced as an alveolo-palatal consonant Template:IPAblink or Template:IPAblink unlike the voiceless alveolar sibilant Template:IPAslink that had developed in the High German consonant shift. In the Late Middle Ages, certain instances of Template:IPAblink merged with Template:IPAslink, but others developed into Template:IPAblink. The change to Template:IPAblink was represented in certain spellings such as 'snow', 'cherry' (Middle High German , ). The digraphs Template:Vr, however, remained unaltered.
• Template:Vr: The letter Template:Vr occurs only in a few native words and then, it represents Template:IPAslink. That goes back to the 12th and 13th century, when prevocalic Template:IPAslink was voiced to Template:IPAblink. The voicing was lost again in the late Middle Ages, but the Template:Vr still remains in certain words such as in (cf. Scandinavian fugl or English fowl) 'bird' (hence, Template:Vr is sometimes called ), 'much'. For further information, see Pronunciation of v in German.
• Template:Vr: The letter Template:Vr represents the sound Template:IPAslink. In the 17th century, the former sound Template:IPAblink became Template:IPAblink, but the spelling remained the same. An analogous sound change had happened in late-antique Latin.
• Template:Vr: The letter Template:Vr represents the sound Template:IPAslink. The sound, a product of the High German consonant shift, has been written with Template:Vr since Old High German in the 8th century.

Foreign words

For technical terms, the foreign spelling is often retained such as Template:Vr or Template:Vr in the word (physics) of Greek origin. For some common affixes however, like or , it is allowed to use or instead. Both and are correct, but the mixed variants or are not.

For other foreign words, both the foreign spelling and a revised German spelling are correct such as / or / , though in the latter case the revised one does not usually occur.

For some words for which the Germanized form was common even before the reform of 1996, the foreign version is no longer allowed. A notable example is the word "photograph", which may no longer be spelled as . Other examples are (telephone) which was already Germanized as some decades ago or (office) which got replaced by the Germanized version even earlier.

Except for the common sequences (), ( or ) and (), the letter Template:Vr appears only in loanwords or in proper nouns. In many loanwords, including most words of Latin origin, the letter Template:Vr pronounced () has been replaced by Template:Vr. Alternatively, German words which come from Latin words with Template:Vr before Template:Vr are usually pronounced with () and spelled with Template:Vr. However, certain older spellings occasionally remain, mostly for decorative reasons, such as instead of .

The letter Template:Vr in German appears only in the sequence Template:Vr () except for loanwords such as or (the latter is also written ).

The letter Template:Vr (, ) occurs almost exclusively in loanwords such as (xylophone) and names, e.g. and . Native German words now pronounced with a sound are usually written using Template:Vr or Template:Vr, as with (fox). Some exceptions occur such as (witch), (mermaid), (axe) and .

The letter Template:Vr (, ) occurs almost exclusively in loanwords, especially words of Greek origin, but some such words (such as ) have become so common that they are no longer perceived as foreign. It used to be more common in earlier centuries, and traces of this earlier usage persist in proper names. It is used either as an alternative letter for Template:Vr, for instance in / (a common family name that occurs also in the spellings / ), or especially in the Southwest, as a representation of that goes back to an old IJ (digraph), for instance in or (an Alemannic variant of the name ). Another notable exception is ("Bavaria") and derived words like ("Bavarian"); this actually used to be spelt with an Template:Vr until the King of Bavaria introduced the Template:Vr as a sign of his philhellenism (his son would become King of Greece later).

The Latin and Ancient Greek diphthongs Template:Angbr and Template:Angbr are normally rendered as Template:Angbr and Template:Angbr in German, whereas English usually uses a simple Template:Angbr (but see List of English words that may be spelled with a ligature): 'present tense' (Latin ), 'federation' (Latin ).

The etymological spelling Template:Angbr for the sounds before vowels is used in many words of Latin origin, mostly ending in Template:Angbr, but also Template:Angbr, etc. Latin Template:Angbr in feminine nouns is typically simplified to Template:Angbr in German; in related words, both Template:Angbr and Template:Angbr are allowed: 'power' (from Latin ), 'potential' (noun), 'potential' (adj.). Latin Template:Angbr in neuter plural nouns may be retained, but is also Germanized orthographically and morphologically to Template:Angbr: 'ingredient', plural ; 'expectorant', plural or .

In loan words from the French language, spelling and accents are usually preserved. For instance, café in the sense of "coffeehouse" is always written in German; accentless Cafe would be considered erroneous, and the word cannot be written , which means "coffee". ( is normally pronounced ; is mostly pronounced in Germany but in Austria.) Thus, German typewriters and computer keyboards offer two dead keys: one for the acute and grave accents and one for circumflex. Other letters occur less often such as Template:Vr in loan words from French or Portuguese, and Template:Vr in loan words from Spanish.

A number of loanwords from French are spelled in a partially adapted way: (quarantine), (communiqué), (overture) from French . In Switzerland, where French is one of the official languages, people are less prone to use adapted and especially partially adapted spellings of loanwords from French and more often use original spellings, e.g. .

In one curious instance, the word ('ski') is pronounced as if it were all over the German-speaking areas (reflecting its pronunciation in its source language Norwegian), but only written that way in Austria.

Grapheme-to-phoneme correspondences

This section lists German letters and letter combinations, and how to pronounce them transliterated into the International Phonetic Alphabet. This is the pronunciation of Standard German. Note that the pronunciation of standard German varies slightly from region to region. In fact, it is possible to tell where most German speakers come from by their accent in standard German (not to be confused with the different German dialects).

Foreign words are usually pronounced approximately as they are in the original language.

Consonants

Double consonants are pronounced as single consonants, except in compound words.

Grapheme(s)		Phoneme(s)	Notes
b	otherwise	or
	syllable final
c	otherwise		Used in some loanwords and proper names. In many cases, Template:Angbr or Template:Angbr have replaced an etymological Template:Angbr. In proper names, the letter Template:Angbr before Template:Angbr may be pronounced either (e. g. ) or (e. g. Cölbe).
	before Template:Angbr
ch	after Template:Angbr		In Austro-Bavarian, especially in Austria, may always be substituted by . Word-initial Template:Angbr is used only in loanwords. In words of Ancient Greek origin, word-initial Template:Angbr is pronounced before Template:Angbr (with rare exceptions : , where both and are possible); normally before Template:Angbr (but in Southern Germany and Austria); before Template:Angbr. In the word and in geographical names such as Chemnitz or Chur, Template:Angbr is (Chur is also sometimes pronounced with ).
	after other vowels or consonants
	word-initially in words of Ancient Greek origin	or
	the suffix -
	In loanwords and foreign proper names	,
chs	within a morpheme (e.g. "badger")
	across a morpheme boundary (e.g. "roof (gen.)")	or
ck			Follows short vowels
d	otherwise	or
	syllable final
dsch		or	Used in loanwords and transliterations only. Words borrowed from English can alternatively retain the original Template:Angbr or Template:Angbr. Many speakers pronounce Template:Angbr as (= ⟨tsch⟩), because is not native to German.
dt			It is used in the word , in morpheme bounds (e.g. ), and in some proper names.
f
g	otherwise	or	before Template:Angbr in loanwords from French (as in )
	syllable final
	when part of word-final -Template:Angbr	or (Southern Germany)
h	before a vowel
	when lengthening a vowel	silent
j			in loanwords from French, e.g. , from French .
k
l
m
n
ng	usually
	Across morpheme boundaries	or
nk
p
pf			For some speakers morpheme initially.
ph			Used in words of Ancient Greek origin.
qu		or (in a few regions)
r	Standard German	before vowels, in other cases	e.g. Fahrt . r is always used to note down this allophone without distinguishing the vowel or consonant.
	(Austro-Bavarian)	before vowels, otherwise
	(Swiss Standard German)	in all cases
rh		same as r	Used in words of Ancient Greek origin and in some proper names.
s	before vowel (except after obstruents)	or
	before consonants, after obstruents, or when final
	before Template:Angbr at the beginning of a word or syllable
sch	otherwise
	when part of the Template:Linktext diminutive of a word ending on Template:Angbr, (e.g. "little mouse")
ss
ß
t			Silent at the end of loanwords from French (although spelling may be otherwise Germanized: )
th			Used in words of Ancient Greek origin and in some proper names.
ti	otherwise
	in -Template:Angbr		Used in words of Latin origin.
tsch
tz			follows short vowels
tzsch			Used in some proper names.
v	otherwise
	in foreign borrowings not at the end of a word
w
x
y			Only in some loanwords, e. g. Yeti , otherwise look at chart below
z
zsch			Used in some proper names.

Vowels

Monophthongs

	front				central		back
	unrounded		rounded
	short	long	short	long	short	long	short	long
close	(Template:IPAblink)	Template:IPAblink Template:Angbr	(Template:IPAblink)	Template:IPAblink Template:Angbr			(Template:IPAblink)	Template:IPAblink Template:Angbr
near-close	Template:IPAblink Template:Angbr		Template:IPAblink Template:Angbr				Template:IPAblink Template:Angbr
close-mid	(Template:IPAblink)	Template:IPAblink Template:Angbr	(Template:IPAblink)	Template:IPAblink Template:Angbr			(Template:IPAblink)	Template:IPAblink Template:Angbr
open-mid	Template:IPAblink Template:Angbr	Template:IPAblink Template:Angbr	Template:IPAblink Template:Angbr		Template:IPAblink Template:Angbr		Template:IPAblink Template:Angbr
near-open					Template:IPAblink -Template:Angbr
open					Template:IPAblink Template:Angbr	Template:IPAblink Template:Angbr

Diphthongs

	front		back
	unrounded	rounded
close		Template:Angbr
open	Template:Angbr		Template:Angbr

Short vowels

Consonants are often doubled in writing to indicate the preceding vowel is to be pronounced as a short vowel, mostly when the vowel is stressed. Only consonants written by single letters can be doubled; compare Template:Gloss to Template:Gloss, not *. Hence, short and long vowels before the digraph Template:Angbr are not distinguished in writing: Template:Gloss, Template:Gloss.

Most one-syllable words that end in a single consonant are pronounced with long vowels, but there are some exceptions such as , and . The suffixes -, - and the word endings -, -, -, - contain short unstressed vowels, but duplicate the final consonants in the plurals: Template:Gloss — Template:Gloss, Template:Gloss — Template:Gloss.

• Template:Angbr: as in Template:Gloss
• Template:Angbr: as in Template:Gloss
• Template:Angbr: as in Template:Gloss;
• Template:Angbr: as in Template:Gloss
• Template:Angbr: as in Template:Gloss
• Template:Angbr: as in Template:Gloss
• Template:Angbr: as in Template:Gloss
• Template:Angbr: as in Template:Gloss
• Template:Angbr: as in Template:Gloss

Unstressed short vowels

The Template:Angbr in the ending - is often silent, as in Template:Gloss. The ending - is often pronounced , but in some regions, it is or . The Template:Angbr in the endings - (, e.g. , Template:Gloss) and - ( in the dative case of adjectives, e.g. from Template:Gloss) is pronounced as a schwa.

• Template:Angbr: as in Template:Gloss or mute, making the following sound syllabic as in Template:Gloss;
• Template:Angbr or , as in Template:Gloss, in Template:Gloss and derivatives

Long vowels

In the following cases, the vowel letter always represents a long vowel:

• being the final letter (except for Template:Angbr)
• in the stressed open syllable as in "car"
• doubled as in "boat"
• followed by silent letter Template:Angbr as in "pain", "go"

Also, the vowel letter usually represents a long vowel:

• being only followed by a single consonant as in "offered", which is continuously valid in the compound words including "embassy".

The German definite article is pronounced with long vowels in the forms , but with short vowels in the forms and .

A vowel before two or more different consonants is usually pronounced short, but there are some words where it is pronounced long, e.g. "moon".

Long vowels are generally pronounced with greater tenseness than short vowels.

The long vowels map as follows:

• Template:Angbr: as in Bahn 'railway'
• Template:Angbr: or as in regelmäßig 'regularly'
• Template:Angbr: as in Meer 'sea'
• Template:Angbr: as in wir 'we'
• Template:Angbr: as in riesig 'huge'
• Template:Angbr: as in Sohn 'son'
• Template:Angbr: as in Österreich 'Austria'
• Template:Angbr: as in Kuh 'cow'
• Template:Angbr: as in über 'above/about'
• Template:Angbr: (chiefly foreign, extremely rare) as in psychisch 'psychical'

Diphthongs

• Template:Angbr: as in 'loud'
• Template:Angbr: as in 'Germany'
• Template:Angbr: as in 'side'

Shortened long vowels

A pre-stress long vowel shortens, mostly in the unstressed position:

• Template:Angbr:
• Template:Angbr:
• Template:Angbr:
• Template:Angbr:
• Template:Angbr:
• Template:Angbr:

A vowel bearing secondary stress may also shorten, as in Template:Gloss . Phonemically, they are typically analysed as allophones of the long (thus etc.) and are mostly restricted to loanwords.

Unusual spellings in proper names

In some German proper names, unusual spellings occur, e. g. Template:Angbr : Duisburg ; Template:Angbr : Treptow .

Punctuation

The period (full stop) is used at the end of sentences, for abbreviations, and for ordinal numbers, such as for (the first). It is omitted before a full stop at the end of a sentence.

The comma is used between for enumerations (but the serial comma is not used), before adversative conjunctions, after vocative phrases, for clarifying words such as appositions, before and after infinitive and participle constructions, and between clauses in a sentence. A comma may link two independent clauses without a conjunction. The comma is not used before the direct speech; in this case, the colon is used. Using the comma in infinitive phrases was optional before 2024, when the revision of the orthographic rules made it mandatory.

The exclamation mark and the question mark are used for exclamative and interrogative sentences. It is not preceded by a space, in contrast with languages like French. The exclamation mark may be used for addressing people in letters.

The semicolon is used for divisions of a sentence greater than that with the comma.

The colon is used before direct speech and quotes, after a generalizing word before enumerations (but not when the words are inserted), before explanations and generalizations, and after words in questionnaires, timetables, etc. (e.g. ).

The em dash is used for marking a sharp transition from one thought to another one, between remarks of a dialogue (as a quotation dash), between keywords in a review, between commands, for contrasting, for marking unexpected changes, for marking an unfinished direct speech, and sometimes instead of parentheses in parenthetical constructions.

The ellipsis is used for unfinished thoughts and incomplete citations.

The parentheses are used for parenthetical information.

The square brackets are used instead of parentheses inside parentheses and for editor's words inside quotations.

The quotation marks are written as »…« or „…“. They are used for direct speech, quotes, names of books, periodicals, films, etc., and for words in unusual meaning. Quotation inside a quotation is written in single quotation marks: ›…‹ or ‚…‘. If a quotation is followed by a period or a comma, it is placed outside the quotation marks.

The apostrophe is used for contracted forms (such as for ) except forms with omitted final Template:Angbr (was sometimes used in this case in the past) and preposition+article contractions. It is also used for genitive of proper names ending in Template:Angbr, but not if preceded by the definite article.

History of German orthography

Middle Ages

The oldest known German texts date back to the 8th century. They were written mainly in monasteries in different local dialects of Old High German. In these texts, Template:Angbr along with combinations such as Template:Angbr was chosen to transcribe the sounds and , which is ultimately the origin of the modern German letters Template:Angbr and Template:Angbr (an old Template:Angbr ligature). After the Carolingian Renaissance, however, during the reigns of the Ottonian and Salian dynasties in the 10th century and 11th century, German was rarely written, the literary language being almost exclusively Latin.

Notker the German is a notable exception in his period: not only are his German compositions of high stylistic value, but his orthography is also the first to follow a strictly coherent system.

Significant production of German texts only resumed during the reign of the Hohenstaufen dynasty (in the High Middle Ages). Around the year 1200, there was a tendency towards a standardized Middle High German language and spelling for the first time, based on the Franconian-Swabian language of the Hohenstaufen court. However, that language was used only in the epic poetry and minnesang lyric of the knight culture. These early tendencies of standardization ceased in the interregnum after the death of the last Hohenstaufen king in 1254. Certain features of today's German orthography still date back to Middle High German: the use of the trigraph Template:Angbr for and the occasional use of Template:Angbr for because around the 12th and 13th century, the prevocalic was voiced.

In the following centuries, the only variety that showed a marked tendency to be used across regions was the Middle Low German of the Hanseatic League, based on the variety of Lübeck and used in many areas of northern Germany and indeed northern Europe in general.

Early modern period

By the 16th century, a new interregional standard developed on the basis of the East Central German and Austro-Bavarian varieties. This was influenced by several factors:

• Under the Habsburg dynasty, there was a strong tendency to a common language in the chancellery.
• Since Eastern Central Germany had been colonized only during the High and Late Middle Ages in the course of the by people from different regions of Germany, the varieties spoken were compromises of different dialects.
• Eastern Central Germany was culturally very important, being home to the universities of Erfurt and Leipzig and especially with the Luther Bible translation, which was considered exemplary.
• The invention of printing led to an increased production of books, and the printers were interested in using a common language to sell their books in an area as wide as possible.

Mid-16th century Counter-Reformation reintroduced Catholicism to Austria and Bavaria, prompting a rejection of the Lutheran language. Instead, a specific southern interregional language was used, based on the language of the Habsburg chancellery.

In northern Germany, the Lutheran East Central German replaced the Low German written language until the mid-17th century. In the early 18th century, the Lutheran standard was also introduced in the southern states and countries, Austria, Bavaria and Switzerland, due to the influence of northern German writers, grammarians such as Johann Christoph Gottsched or language cultivation societies such as the Fruitbearing Society.

19th century and early 20th century

Template:Multiple image Though, by the mid-18th century, one norm was generally established, there was no institutionalized standardization. Only with the introduction of compulsory education in late 18th and early 19th century was the spelling further standardized, though at first independently in each state because of the political fragmentation of Germany. Only the foundation of the German Empire in 1871 allowed for further standardization.

In 1876, the Prussian government instituted the Template:Interlanguage link multi to achieve a standardization for the entire German Empire. However, its results were rejected, notably by Prime Minister of Prussia Otto von Bismarck.

In 1880, Gymnasium director Konrad Duden published the ('Complete Orthographic Dictionary of the German Language'), known simply as the "Duden". In the same year, the Duden was declared to be authoritative in Prussia. Since Prussia was, by far, the largest state in the German Empire, its regulations also influenced spelling elsewhere, for instance, in 1894, when Switzerland recognized the Duden.

In 1901, the interior minister of the German Empire instituted the Second Orthographic Conference. It declared the Duden to be authoritative, with a few innovations. In 1902, its results were approved by the governments of the German Empire, Austria and Switzerland.

In 1944, the Nazi German government planned a reform of the orthography, but because of World War II, it was never implemented.

After 1902, German spelling was essentially decided de facto by the editors of the Duden dictionaries. After World War II, this tradition was followed with two different centers: Mannheim in West Germany and Leipzig in East Germany. By the early 1950s, a few other publishing houses had begun to attack the Duden monopoly in the West by putting out their own dictionaries, which did not always hold to the "official" spellings prescribed by Duden. In response, the Ministers of Culture of the federal states in West Germany officially declared the Duden spellings to be binding as of November 1955.

The Duden editors used their power cautiously because they considered their primary task to be the documentation of usage, not the creation of rules. At the same time, however, they found themselves forced to make finer and finer distinctions in the production of German spelling rules, and each new print run introduced a few reformed spellings.

German spelling reform of 1996

German spelling and punctuation was changed in 1996 () with the intent to simplify German orthography, and thus to make the language easier to learn, without substantially changing the rules familiar to users of the language. The rules of the new spelling concern correspondence between sounds and written letters (including rules for spelling loan words), capitalization, joined and separate words, hyphenated spellings, punctuation, and hyphenation at the end of a line. Place names and family names were excluded from the reform.

The reform was adopted initially by Germany, Austria, Liechtenstein and Switzerland, and later by Luxembourg as well.

The new orthography is mandatory only in schools. A 1998 decision of the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany confirmed that there is no law on the spelling people use in daily life, so they can use the old or the new spelling. While the reform is not very popular in opinion polls, it has been adopted by all major dictionaries and the majority of publishing houses.

See also

• Antiqua-Fraktur dispute
• Binnen-I, a convention for gender-neutral language in German
• Dutch orthography
• English orthography
• German braille
• German phonology
• Non-English usage of quotation marks
• Otto Basler
• Spelling
• Punctuation
• Silent letter#German