lautsprachlich

Lautsprachlich is an adjective used in linguistics to refer to aspects of language that pertain to the spoken form of speech, as opposed to the written form. The term derives from laut, meaning sound or voice, and sprachlich, meaning language-related. It is often encountered in phrases like lautsprachliche Realisierung or lautsprachliche Form, indicating how a word or sound is produced in actual speech.

In practice, lautsprachlich describes phonetics, phonology, prosody, articulation, and the realisation of speech sounds. It contrasts with schriftsprachlich, which concerns orthography, spelling, and the conventional representation of language in writing. The distinction helps linguists discuss how a word is pronounced across dialects, social registers, or languages, which may differ from its orthographic form.

In applied contexts, lautsprachliche Transkription usually means transcribing speech sounds using phonetic notation (for example the International Phonetic Alphabet, IPA), while schriftsprachliche Transkription reflects the written representation. The term is common in descriptions of language history, dialectology, and phonology. Dialectal variation, phonotactics, and phonetic realization are often treated lautsprachlich, because these aspects depend on actual speech production rather than standardized spelling.

The concept is not a separate language but a dimension of analysis used to distinguish spoken language data from written language data. It is also used when reconstructing proto-languages, where researchers infer lautsprachliche features from comparative evidence.