The pronunciation of orthographic in Standard Austrian German

A graphemic representation of vowel mutated a is first documented in Middle High German texts. As a consequence of a strict letter-to-letter pronunciation, graphemic <ä> was pronounced as [ɛ(ː)] in Early New High German and was subsequently prescribed in pronunciation dictionaries. Especially the pronunciation of long [ɛː] has become an issue of debate. Many scholars point out that [ɛː] had merged with [eː]. In the current investigation, it is tested whether speakers of Standard Austrian German merge the vowels orthographically represented as <ä, äh> and . An acoustic analysis of all <ä, äh> and of read and spontaneous speech of ten speakers was performed. No statistically significant differences were obtained, thus, a merger is assumed. The qualitative analysis proved some occasional realisations of [ɛː] in read speech. It is concluded that some speakers adhere to a prescriptive norm which is sporadically activated in formal contexts.