Yiddish phonology

There is significant phonological variation among the various dialects of the Yiddish language. The description that follows is of a modern Standard Yiddish that was devised during the early 20th century and is frequently encountered in pedagogical contexts. Its genesis is described in the article on Yiddish dialects.

Consonants

 * is not a separate phoneme but an allophone of when directly followed by  or.
 * The rhotic is realized by most speakers as a voiced uvular fricative ; some use an alveolar trill  or an alveolar flap.
 * The "plain" lateral is generally velarized.

As in the Slavic languages with which Yiddish was long in contact (Russian, Belarusian, Polish, and Ukrainian), but unlike German, voiceless stops have little to no aspiration; unlike many such languages, voiced stops are not devoiced in final position. Moreover, Yiddish has regressive voicing assimilation, so that, for example, זאָגט   ('says') is pronounced  and  הקדמה   ('foreword') is pronounced.

Vowels
The vowel phonemes of Standard Yiddish are:

In addition, the sonorant consonants and  can function as syllable nuclei:
 * אײזל  'donkey'
 * אָװנט  'evening'

and appear as syllable nuclei as well, but only as allophones of, after bilabial consonants and dorsal consonants, respectively.

The syllabic sonorants and are always unstressed. can be analyzed as the unstressed allophone of.

Comparison with German
In vocabulary of Germanic origin, the differences between Standard German and Standard Yiddish pronunciation are mainly in the vowels and diphthongs. Examples are the German long as in Vater ('father'), which corresponds to  in Yiddish  פֿאָטער  /ˈfɔtɛr/, and the German long  and long, which correspond to diphthongs in Yiddish ( and ). As in many Germanic languages, Yiddish lacks the German front rounded umlaut vowels and. They are replaced in Yiddish by and  respectively. Diphthongs have also undergone divergent developments in German and Yiddish. Where Standard German has merged the Middle High German diphthong ei and long vowel ī to ei (pronounced ), Standard Yiddish has maintained the distinction between them as and, respectively. The German (as in kaufen, 'buy') corresponds to the Yiddish  (in  קױפֿן  /koɪ̯fn/); lastly, the German, as in Deutsch 'German') corresponds to  in Yiddish (in  דײַטש /daɪ̯tʃ/). Another difference is that the vowel length distinctions of German do not exist in Standard Yiddish. Consonantal differences between German and Yiddish include the deaffrication of the German affricate  to  initially (as in פֿונט funt) and  medially or finally (as in עפּל /ɛpl/ and קאָפּ /kɔp/) in Yiddish, and the presence of final voiced obstruents in Standard Yiddish (but not Standard German).