Ongoing Dispersion of Austrian Standard German Front Vowels: A Sociolinguistic Study

In Austrian Standard German (ASG), the vowels in the words Beeren and Bären are usually regarded to be merged. Some acoustic studies on ASG also suggest a merger between the vowels as in Miete and Mitte and even between the BEEREN/BÄREN merger and the MIETE vowel. This paper re-investigates these mergers from a sociolinguistic viewpoint and shows that older speakers tend to merge the vowels more than younger speakers. This points towards an ongoing dispersion (or 'unmerger') and we argue that this is a result of accommodation toward Standard German as it is pronounced in Germany.