German Quiz for Owlet: Ich-Laut oder Ach-Laut?

[muckefuck]

Which of the following words contain the Ich-Laut (a voiceless palatal fricative, IPA [ç]) and which contain the Ach-laut (a voiceless velar fricative, IPA [x])?

1. gebrochen "broken"
2. Eulchen "Owlet"
3. die Furcht "fear"
4. die Fracht "cargo"
5. der Chaot/die Chaotin "spazz, slob"
6. chemisch "chemical"
7. der Fenchel "fennel"
8. die Küche "kitchen"
9. feuchtkalt "clammy"
10. die Chefin/der Chef "boss"

Also, a correction: In a comment to the earlier post, I mistakenly said that initial /ç/ in certain words (e.g. chinesisch "Chinese) was characteristic of the South and /k/ was a northern feature. Actually, the distribution is the other way around.

Comments

[niemandsrose.livejournal.com]

(Your word-list reminds me of the vocab exercises where you'd have to use all 10 new vocab words in a little story. This particular word-list begs a story.)

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

Nur zu! You could write it in English and leave the translation to me.

[snowy-owlet.livejournal.com]

1,2,6 (but only the 2nd one),7,8,9

(is 5 at all related to "chaos"?)

I seriously need to just break down and take a class.

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

I take it you're listing only the words with Ich-Laut? You're right on 2, 7, 8, and 9, but you missed 3 and 6. The only two with Ach-Laut are 1 and 4. Let's have a closer look at the tricky ones.

1. gebrochen Remember, it's the quality of the preceding vowel that's important. That vowel is /o:/ (a back vowel), so the <ch> is backed as well--[x].

3. Furcht Consonants are almost always followed by Ich-Laut. Offhand, I can't think of a single instance of /rx/.

5. Chaot You're right, this is a derivative of das Chaos "chaos". I've only ever heard this with /k/, never /ç/ (and certainly not [x]).

6. chemisch The second <ch> is neither Ich-Laut or Ach-Laut; it's part of the trigraph <sch> which nearly always represents [ʃ]. (The only exceptions that come to mind are nouns ending in <s> followed by the diminutive suffix -chen, e.g. das Gläschen "small glass, 'wee drink'". This would be normatively pronounced ['glɛ:sçən], but you'd be understood if you said ['glɛ:ʃən].) die Chemie shows the same variation as China, so both /ç/ and /k/ would be acceptable in chemisch.

10. Chefin Another trick question: This is a recent borrowing from French and is pronounced as if spelled *Scheffin, i.e. ['ʃɛfɪn].

[pne.livejournal.com]

Offhand, I can't think of a single instance of /rx/.

Heh... I was thinking that I've heard "Furcht" with /rx/ - but that was with a regional accent that most likely had no [ç] at all.

[wolflady26.livejournal.com]

It worries me that I understand the German better than the English which precedes it! O.O

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

It shouldn't. The English is jargon-laden; the German is neutral-to-colloquial.