“König”, as I understand it, should be pronounced as an “-ick”. So Koe - nick. Again, I’m from the south.
Any instrument which works on both the little and big ends of an egg is a threat to public order. Such a degenerate device will lead to an end of civilization as we know it.
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Und Donaudampfschiffahrtselektrizitätenhauptbetriebswerkbauunterbeamtengesellschaft usw.
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A soft terminal g ("-isch," roughly) is a Saxon thing. My mom, who’s from Dresden, pronounces my name that way, and it was pretty disconcerting the first time I visited Germany and everyone there outside of Saxony pronounced it with a hard g (or as a k in Berlin.)
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That sounds utterly vile. Somewhere in there is the opposite of a dry S.B.D.
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http://www.languagesurfer.com/2015/02/18/rhabarberbarbara-translation-a-german-tongue-twister/
I need a Rhabarberbarbarabarbarbarenbartbarbierbier.
FWIW, a lot of these really long words are quite contrived and generally exist just to be long words – Eierköpfer is what you would call it normally. This one seems perfectly reasonable though – it’s a floor sander rental company:
Escalator user instructions:
Specialist company in Christmas tree decoration:
What gets me is when I have to translate documents with lots of words like Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz (RkReÜAÜG), and I’m paid by the source word.
Incidentally, long German words are not that bad – the grammar is harder to learn, and it’s nothing compared to Finnish:
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… which puts us firmly in the realm of identity politics :-). I personally like the concept of German being a “pluricentric language”.
Anyway, the “Standard” German Language came to being as a written language unifying several dialects, and the unification never really extended to the names of vegetables or the finer points of pronunciation.
There’s Bühnendeutsch (Stage Language), a 19th century attempt at standardization of the German pronunciation. That attempt gained quite some traction, but never became truly universal, or codified in any laws.
In a word, there is no Standardbühnenaussprachendurchsetztungsgesetz (standard stage pronunciation enforcement law), there was not even a Standardbühnenaussprachenförderungsgesetzesvorschlag (proposal for a standard stage pronunciation promotion law).
“-isch” is considered a dialectal variation, common in some parts of Germany, so not “proper” speech.
“-ig” is the southern/Austrian variant (used in formal speech, not considered “sloppy” or “incorrect”).
“-ich” is the one considered standard in Germany and therefore usually taught to language learners (outside of Austria, at least), and by Austrian stage actors.
Some things are actually written as “-ich”, they are pronounced as such by Austrians, as well (outside the dialects, that is).
Both the “-ich” rule and the rolled r are part of Bühnendeutsch. The “-ich” is something I hear in many Germans (and in almost no Austrians), but the rolled tongue-tip r seems to be obsolete.
My favourite “pronunciation test word” in the German language is “Sonnenkönig” (The “Sun King”, Louis XIV of France).
In addition to the “-ig”, it also has the word-initial “S”, which is voiced in Germany but unvoiced in Austria. And furthermore, sloppy speakers from Germany nowadays tend to elide the “e”, leaving an excessively long “n” behind.
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I pronounced the S like English Z, doubled up the double n, and pronounced the -ig like -ich. It never occurred to me that initial S isn’t pronounced like English Z in some dialects.
I also like Eichhörnchen (squirrel) as a test word. I hear bequem (comfortable) is another good one, because some pronounce qu as in English qu and others pronounce it kv.
Nitpick: not “in some dialects”, but in “a variant of the standard language”. As in, high-prestige “standard” language spoken by educated people on formal occasions within a certain region.
I know “Oachkatzl”, the Bavarian dialect variant of “Eichhörnchen” as a test word, as it is hard to pronounce for everyone else, but I thought the basic sounds of “Eichhörnchen” were the same everywhere. Of course, the differences are pervasive, every single vowel is coloured slightly differently depending on where you’re from, so you can always tell.
As for English “qu”, I’ve never noticed that, where did you hear that?
Maybe they should try frightening the boiled eggs with cold water first?
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I knew a professor of German who insisted the qu as in English was correct, but this goes against what I’ve been taught
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