Phonological Characteristics
- Missingsch phonology tends to be closely related, if not identical, to that of the corresponding Low Saxon varieties. Noteworthy among these in the Northern Low Saxon area are the following:
- Long /aː/ is pronounced semi-rounded as in most Low Saxon varieties; e.g. Abend ~ (Standard ) 'evening', Straßenbahn (Standard ) 'tramway', 'streetcar'.
- Short vowels are lengthened before sonorants, without any other change of articulation; e.g. Ball 'ball', Kind 'child', auch 'also', Land 'land', 'country'.
- There is a noticeable degree of nasalisation before syllable-final nasal consonants; Kind 'child', Köm 'caraway schnapps', lang 'long'.
- /d/ is assimilated to preceding /n/; e.g. Kinder = Kinner 'children', anders = anners 'different'.
- In original Missingsch, as in most Low Saxon varieties, syllable-initial /s/ followed by /p/ or /t/ does not take on a /ʃ/ sound; e.g. Straße (Standard, Low Saxon Straat ) 'street', Sprache (Standard, Low Saxon Spraak ) 'language'.
- What are affricate consonants in other German dialects tend to be fricative in Missingsch; e.g. Zeit 'time', Pferd 'horse' (cf. Standard Zeit, Pferd ).
- Aspiration of voiceless stops and affricates is limited to the syllable with main stress; e.g. Pocke (Standard ) 'pock', pikant (Standard ) 'spicy', Peter (Standard ) 'Peter', Papa (Standard or ) 'dad'. (Unaspirated variants tend to be heard and spelled as voiced by the average North German, hence the spelling Pogge, Peder and Pabba.)
- Syllable-final /r/ is realized as a vowel and merges with certain preceding vowels; e.g. fertig ~ 'ready’', ‘completed’, warten ~ 'to wait', Korb ~ 'basket', Körper 'body'
- Preceding a syllable-final velar consonant, /l/ tends to change into a high vowel; e.g. Milch (Standard ) 'milk', Balken (Standard ) 'beam', solch (Standard ) 'such', welk (Standard ) 'withered', Erfolg (Standard ) 'success'. (Similar cases of assimilation of /l/ can be observed in Bavarian German).
- Final /ɡ/ is always pronounced as a fricative, and the preceding vowel is usually short; e.g. richtig (southern ) 'correct', Tag (southern ) 'day', Berg 'mountain', 'hill', Zug ~ (southern ) 'train', 'draught', weg (southern ) 'away', but Weg (southern ) 'way' (cf. Low Saxon: richtig 'correct', Dag 'day', Barg 'mountain', 'hill', Tog 'train', 'draught', weg 'away', but Weg 'way’'vs Weeg’ ~ 'ways'). To express this orthographically, many people spell these richtich, Tach, Berch, Zuch, wech and Weech respectively (in Low Saxon richtich, Dach, Barch, Toch, wech, Wech and Weeg ~ Weech respectively).
- In original Missingsch, syllable-initial /r/ is apical (, as in Italian and as in original Low Saxon). Uvular /r/ (, as in Standard French, Danish and Modern Hebrew) became acceptable with advanced Germanisation. (The same happened to Low Saxon in some communities.)
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