Störlaute

Störlaute is a term used in phonetics and linguistics to describe extraneous or disturbing sounds that accompany or disrupt the articulation of a phoneme. The name, literally “disturbing sounds,” emphasizes that these noises are not part of the intended speech sound but interfere with its transmission or perception. Störlaute are typically analyzed separately from the target sound and from suprasegmental features such as intonation.

The phenomenon can take several forms. Common manifestations include frication or turbulence that exceeds normal consonant noise, unintended aspiration, glottal noise such as irregular voicing or creaky voice, and spurious bursts during transitions between consonants. In rapid or casual speech, dialectal variation, or under fatigue, such disturbances may become more frequent or pronounced. Störlaute can also arise from coarticulation effects that produce additional acoustic energy in unexpected frequency bands.

Impact and relevance vary by context. In speech perception research, störlaute help explain occasional misidentifications of phonemes and the robustness of listener adaptation to distorted input. In forensic phonetics, they can serve as distinguishing cues in speaker analysis. In speech technology, reducing or modeling störlaute improves the naturalness and intelligibility of synthesized or automated speech.

See also: phonetic noise, speech perception, coarticulation, voicing and aspiration, epenthesis.