The pronunciation of German ch as velar or palatal from 1784 to 1841

Abstract

Throughout most of the eighteenth-century, grammarians believed that ch in German words like Macht ‘power’ and Licht ‘light’ had only one place of articulation. In the final quarter of that century three studies discovered that ch in such words represented two places of articulation corresponding to what modern-day linguists call ‘velar’ and ‘palatal’ (Mäzke 1776; Hemmer 1776; Fränklin 1778). The present article concentrates on the years following those three works. While the most widespread claim was that ch represented only one place of articulation, a number of scholars continued in the tradition of Mäzke, Hemmer, and Fränklin by recognizing that ch had more than one place of articulation. The purpose of this article is to document those innovative studies and to assess their understanding of the phonetics and phonology of German ch.