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Contains a typical spelling mistake you find suprisingly often in English text when using German words. Swapping 'ie' to 'ei'. In this case 'Weiner' (wrong, so

Contains a typical spelling mistake you find suprisingly often in English text when using German words. Swapping 'ie' to 'ei'. In this case 'Weiner' (wrong, someone who is crying) instead of 'Wiener' (correct, a type of sausage). One I've seen the other day is 'Kreigsmarine' instead of 'Kriegsmarine'. Anyone knows why this happens?

WalterBright 4y ago
> Anyone knows why this happens? Because ie is pronounced aye in English, and eeeee in German. And ei is pronounced eeeee in English, and aye in German.
- 6581 4y ago
  > Because ie is pronounced aye in English Grief? Tier? Thief?
  - WalterBright 4y ago
    English spelling always has exceptions, partly because so many words come from foreign languages. The word "thief", for example, comes from an Old German word.
    - thechao 4y ago
      Knight: pronounced similar to the Monty Python sketch. In fact a lot of "weird" English orthography is just dialectic drift after orthographic ossification.
    - wizofaus 4y ago
      List of ie words sorted by commonness (*): https://onelook.com/?w=*ie*&scwo=1&sswo=1&ssbp=1 https://onelook.com/?w=*ie*&scwo=1&sswo=1&ssbp=1 Not sure I'd be in a rush to say "aye" was the default pronunciation. At best it may be marginally the single most common one. (*) meaning the number of dictionaries the word is found in, not frequency of usage.
- a1369209993 4y ago
  > And ei is pronounced eeeee in English No it's not. English spelling is irregular enough that I'm sure something is pronounced that way, but all the examples I can think of are either like "d(ay)" ("dei", "eight", "weigh", "veil"), like "b(e i)t" ("reiterate", "deity", "being", "weird", "deceit"), like "(I)" ("either", "neither", "height"), like "p(i)n" ("foreign", "sovereign"), or like "wh(e)re" ("their", "heir"). Edit: "stein"/"skein" maybe? I'm not sure if those should be like "st(ee)r" or "st(ai)n". Edit: "seize", so there is in fact something that's pronounced that way. > Because ie is pronounced aye in English Neither is that: like "b(ee)": "wield", "thief", like "wh(y e)lk": "science", like "s(ee e)lk": "sapient", "salient", "orient", "sierra", "siesta". Actually, I can't think of any cases where "ie" is pronounced like "aye"(/"d(ay)"), either.
  - WalterBright 4y ago
    > I can't think of any cases Just going through the alphabet: die, lie, pie, tie, vie science, cried, denied, diet, quiet, electrified, fried, justified, qualified, relied, satisfied, society, terrified, variety
    - a1369209993 4y ago
      > die, lie, pie, tie, vie Those are all pronounced like "dye", not "day"/"aye". > science, diet, quiet, ... That has a "eh" (like "bet") between the "I" and the "n". > cried, denied, ... Again, that's "dye", not "day"/"aye". (Also I wasn't counting contractions of words ending in "-y" + a suffix, since that seemed clearly unrelated to the German loanword process, but that's more of YMMV thing.) Edit: wait, you were pronouncing "aye" like "I", weren't you? I assumed not since it makes more sense to use, well, "I" for that. Or even "eye". Bloody accents, and bloody six monophthongs and two offglides packed into five(-ish) letters. Although that doesn't cover "ee", and "science", "diet", "quiet", etc still aren't examples (the "I" is the pronunciation only of "i", with "e" producing a subsequent "t(e)ch" sound.
      - WalterBright 4y ago
        aye is pronounced as long i, as in "aye aye sir".
anonu 4y ago
ie and ei is a homophone?
- pohuing 4y ago
  No, listen to them on wikitionary: https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/Wiener https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/Wiener https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/Wein https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/Wein
- omnibrain 4y ago
  Not in German. "ie" means just a long "i", "Krieg" is pronounced "Kreeg". "ei" ist pronounced like "ay" in "aye aye captain". So "Teil" is "Tayl".
- haunter 4y ago
  Not in german
- alistairSH 4y ago
  No, they have distinct sounds. Eisenhower (US President). Ai-suhn-hau-ur VS Riesling (grape variety). Ree-sluhng But, the sounds of individual vowels in German are different than English. I think the below is correct (based on the 2 years of German I took in college 20+ years ago, so YMMV)… German short I = English short I German long I = English long E German short E = English short E German long E = a sound that English doesn't have
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
usrusr 4y ago
Likely because the German ie is not at all pronounced like in pie, but some English ei like in reimbursed aren't that far off. Roughly as close as the German Ei (noun) comes to the English ie in piej off, but not that far off. So it's kind of symmetric. Makes me wonder if there are any English words where we Germans are prone to do that flip?
- codethief 4y ago
  But "ie" in English sometimes also is pronounced like "piece"? :) Ah, the woes of English pronunciation… https://www.learnenglish.de/pronunciation/pronunciationpoem.html https://www.learnenglish.de/pronunciation/pronunciationpoem....
  - usrusr 4y ago
    True, English pronunciation and trying to explain something, that rarely ends well
st_goliath 4y ago
A German speaker would pronounce the letter 'i' as an English speaker would pronounce 'e'. Many German words contain an "elongated i" which is written as 'ie', but still sounds like 'e' in English, just a little drawn out and more pronounced. In contrast, English has words like 'weird' which has an 'ei' construct in it but a pronunciation somewhat similar to what 'i' would sound like in German. Funny enough, in German 'ei' would be read like an English speaker would pronounce the letter 'i'. So with the pronunciations more or less swapped, I guess, for an English speaker who heard the pronunciation of words like "Wiener", the spelling of the 'i' before the 'e' might feel counterintuitive, and they might, intentionally or not, "correct" it while typing.
joostdevries 4y ago
I think Americans pronounce names like Weinstein as 'winesteen'. So perhaps the pronunciation of the latter syllable makes German origin diphthongs confusing.
- hunter2_ 4y ago
  We do know how to pronounce Einstein though!
  - codeflo 4y ago
    I’m sure you personally do, but I’ve noticed that many English speakers pronounce it without the “sh” sound in the middle.
    - hunter2_ 4y ago
      Good point, in fact I retract my statement because of it. I was only thinking of the vowels.
RajT88 4y ago
Because English is a terrible, thrown-together, inconsistent language, and nobody even using English words can keep completely straight what words are spelled "ie" or "ei". There's a rhyme they teach children who are learning to read, "I before E except after C". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_before_E_except_after_C https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_before_E_except_after_C No matter what extra verses they add, there's still plenty of exceptions. English spelling is not consistent no matter how many rules you add to it.
- ajmurmann 4y ago
  German solved this by refactoring the spelling. My spelling grades went from Ds and Es to Bs over night. In hindsight is the most German thing to not only have centrally standardized spelling but to bring order to it. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_orthography_reform_of_1996 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_orthography_reform_of...
- adolph 4y ago
  English is the JavaScript of languages. As a result everything will be written in it eventually. https://blog.codinghorror.com/the-principle-of-least-power/ https://blog.codinghorror.com/the-principle-of-least-power/ Edit: also the relationship between pronunciation, spelling and meaning is less architectural and more archeological as English developed in the nexus of at least two divergent language groups and reflects pragmatic choices and new development that lead to the appearance of inconsistency from the outside.
- hogepiyo 4y ago
  Isn't inconsistency just a natural facet of any language that developed organically over time? We aren't talking about a programming language here. I don't see how it's any different to gendered articles in German not really having much of a logical basis to them or kanji readings in Japanese just being something you learn on a case by case basis. I'm only talking about languages I have personal experience with; I'm sure there are others that could be commented on.
ajmurmann 4y ago
As so many pronunciation issues for native English speakers in other languages this goes back to the great vowel shift or the great vowel movement as I like to call it. I essence because of fashion English speakers decided to swap how vowels are pronounced and it's now out of sync with how other languages pronounce the same letters. Must be one of the most costly fashion trends in human history. It's also hard to understand to me why this isn't the first thing you learn in any foreign language class in English speaking countries. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Vowel_Shift https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Vowel_Shift

WalterBright 4y ago

> Anyone knows why this happens? Because ie is pronounced aye in English, and eeeee in German. And ei is pronounced eeeee in English, and aye in German.

6581 4y ago
> Because ie is pronounced aye in English Grief? Tier? Thief?
- WalterBright 4y ago
  English spelling always has exceptions, partly because so many words come from foreign languages. The word "thief", for example, comes from an Old German word.
  - thechao 4y ago
    Knight: pronounced similar to the Monty Python sketch. In fact a lot of "weird" English orthography is just dialectic drift after orthographic ossification.
  - wizofaus 4y ago
    List of ie words sorted by commonness (*): https://onelook.com/?w=*ie*&scwo=1&sswo=1&ssbp=1 https://onelook.com/?w=*ie*&scwo=1&sswo=1&ssbp=1 Not sure I'd be in a rush to say "aye" was the default pronunciation. At best it may be marginally the single most common one. (*) meaning the number of dictionaries the word is found in, not frequency of usage.
a1369209993 4y ago
> And ei is pronounced eeeee in English No it's not. English spelling is irregular enough that I'm sure something is pronounced that way, but all the examples I can think of are either like "d(ay)" ("dei", "eight", "weigh", "veil"), like "b(e i)t" ("reiterate", "deity", "being", "weird", "deceit"), like "(I)" ("either", "neither", "height"), like "p(i)n" ("foreign", "sovereign"), or like "wh(e)re" ("their", "heir"). Edit: "stein"/"skein" maybe? I'm not sure if those should be like "st(ee)r" or "st(ai)n". Edit: "seize", so there is in fact something that's pronounced that way. > Because ie is pronounced aye in English Neither is that: like "b(ee)": "wield", "thief", like "wh(y e)lk": "science", like "s(ee e)lk": "sapient", "salient", "orient", "sierra", "siesta". Actually, I can't think of any cases where "ie" is pronounced like "aye"(/"d(ay)"), either.
- WalterBright 4y ago
  > I can't think of any cases Just going through the alphabet: die, lie, pie, tie, vie science, cried, denied, diet, quiet, electrified, fried, justified, qualified, relied, satisfied, society, terrified, variety
  - a1369209993 4y ago
    > die, lie, pie, tie, vie Those are all pronounced like "dye", not "day"/"aye". > science, diet, quiet, ... That has a "eh" (like "bet") between the "I" and the "n". > cried, denied, ... Again, that's "dye", not "day"/"aye". (Also I wasn't counting contractions of words ending in "-y" + a suffix, since that seemed clearly unrelated to the German loanword process, but that's more of YMMV thing.) Edit: wait, you were pronouncing "aye" like "I", weren't you? I assumed not since it makes more sense to use, well, "I" for that. Or even "eye". Bloody accents, and bloody six monophthongs and two offglides packed into five(-ish) letters. Although that doesn't cover "ee", and "science", "diet", "quiet", etc still aren't examples (the "I" is the pronunciation only of "i", with "e" producing a subsequent "t(e)ch" sound.
    - WalterBright 4y ago
      aye is pronounced as long i, as in "aye aye sir".

anonu 4y ago

ie and ei is a homophone?

pohuing 4y ago
No, listen to them on wikitionary: https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/Wiener https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/Wiener https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/Wein https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/Wein
omnibrain 4y ago
Not in German. "ie" means just a long "i", "Krieg" is pronounced "Kreeg". "ei" ist pronounced like "ay" in "aye aye captain". So "Teil" is "Tayl".
haunter 4y ago
Not in german
alistairSH 4y ago
No, they have distinct sounds. Eisenhower (US President). Ai-suhn-hau-ur VS Riesling (grape variety). Ree-sluhng But, the sounds of individual vowels in German are different than English. I think the below is correct (based on the 2 years of German I took in college 20+ years ago, so YMMV)… German short I = English short I German long I = English long E German short E = English short E German long E = a sound that English doesn't have

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

usrusr 4y ago

Likely because the German ie is not at all pronounced like in pie, but some English ei like in reimbursed aren't that far off. Roughly as close as the German Ei (noun) comes to the English ie in piej off, but not that far off. So it's kind of symmetric. Makes me wonder if there are any English words where we Germans are prone to do that flip?

codethief 4y ago
But "ie" in English sometimes also is pronounced like "piece"? :) Ah, the woes of English pronunciation… https://www.learnenglish.de/pronunciation/pronunciationpoem.html https://www.learnenglish.de/pronunciation/pronunciationpoem....
- usrusr 4y ago
  True, English pronunciation and trying to explain something, that rarely ends well

st_goliath 4y ago

A German speaker would pronounce the letter 'i' as an English speaker would pronounce 'e'. Many German words contain an "elongated i" which is written as 'ie', but still sounds like 'e' in English, just a little drawn out and more pronounced. In contrast, English has words like 'weird' which has an 'ei' construct in it but a pronunciation somewhat similar to what 'i' would sound like in German. Funny enough, in German 'ei' would be read like an English speaker would pronounce the letter 'i'. So with the pronunciations more or less swapped, I guess, for an English speaker who heard the pronunciation of words like "Wiener", the spelling of the 'i' before the 'e' might feel counterintuitive, and they might, intentionally or not, "correct" it while typing.

joostdevries 4y ago

I think Americans pronounce names like Weinstein as 'winesteen'. So perhaps the pronunciation of the latter syllable makes German origin diphthongs confusing.

hunter2_ 4y ago
We do know how to pronounce Einstein though!
- codeflo 4y ago
  I’m sure you personally do, but I’ve noticed that many English speakers pronounce it without the “sh” sound in the middle.
  - hunter2_ 4y ago
    Good point, in fact I retract my statement because of it. I was only thinking of the vowels.

RajT88 4y ago

Because English is a terrible, thrown-together, inconsistent language, and nobody even using English words can keep completely straight what words are spelled "ie" or "ei". There's a rhyme they teach children who are learning to read, "I before E except after C". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_before_E_except_after_C https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_before_E_except_after_C No matter what extra verses they add, there's still plenty of exceptions. English spelling is not consistent no matter how many rules you add to it.

ajmurmann 4y ago
German solved this by refactoring the spelling. My spelling grades went from Ds and Es to Bs over night. In hindsight is the most German thing to not only have centrally standardized spelling but to bring order to it. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_orthography_reform_of_1996 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_orthography_reform_of...
adolph 4y ago
English is the JavaScript of languages. As a result everything will be written in it eventually. https://blog.codinghorror.com/the-principle-of-least-power/ https://blog.codinghorror.com/the-principle-of-least-power/ Edit: also the relationship between pronunciation, spelling and meaning is less architectural and more archeological as English developed in the nexus of at least two divergent language groups and reflects pragmatic choices and new development that lead to the appearance of inconsistency from the outside.
hogepiyo 4y ago
Isn't inconsistency just a natural facet of any language that developed organically over time? We aren't talking about a programming language here. I don't see how it's any different to gendered articles in German not really having much of a logical basis to them or kanji readings in Japanese just being something you learn on a case by case basis. I'm only talking about languages I have personal experience with; I'm sure there are others that could be commented on.

ajmurmann 4y ago

As so many pronunciation issues for native English speakers in other languages this goes back to the great vowel shift or the great vowel movement as I like to call it. I essence because of fashion English speakers decided to swap how vowels are pronounced and it's now out of sync with how other languages pronounce the same letters. Must be one of the most costly fashion trends in human history. It's also hard to understand to me why this isn't the first thing you learn in any foreign language class in English speaking countries. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Vowel_Shift https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Vowel_Shift