Editing Homophone (section)

===German===
There are many homophones in present-day standard German. As in other languages, however, there exists regional and/or individual variation in certain groups of words or in single words, so that the number of homophones varies accordingly. Regional variation is especially common in words that exhibit the long vowels ''ä'' and ''e''. According to the well-known dictionary [[Duden]], these vowels should be distinguished as /ɛ:/ and /e:/, but this is not always the case, so that words like ''Ähre'' (ear of corn) and ''Ehre'' (honor) may or may not be homophones.
Individual variation is shown by a pair like ''Gäste'' (guests) – ''Geste'' (gesture), the latter of which varies between /ˈɡe:stə/ and /ˈɡɛstə/ and by a pair like ''Stiel'' (handle, stalk) – ''Stil'' (style), the latter of which varies between /ʃtiːl/ and /stiːl/.

Besides websites that offer extensive lists of German homophones,<ref>See, e.g. {{cite web |title=Homophone und homonyme im deutschen Homophone |lang=de |website=yumpu.com |url=https://www.yumpu.com/de/document/view/6941949/homophone-und-homonyme-im-deutschen-homophone- |access-date=2020-03-15 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210308171812/https://www.yumpu.com/de/document/view/6941949/homophone-und-homonyme-im-deutschen-homophone- |archive-date=2021-03-08}}</ref> there are others which provide numerous sentences with various types of homophones.<ref>See [[Fausto Cercignani]], {{cite web |url=http://sites.unimi.it/austheod/FC_DEUTSCHE_HOMOPHONE.htm |title=Beispielsätze mit deutschen Homophonen |lang=de |trans-title=Example sentences with German homophones |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200529060045/https://sites.unimi.it/austheod/FC_DEUTSCHE_HOMOPHONE.htm |archive-date=2020-05-29}}</ref> In the German language homophones occur in more than 200&nbsp;instances. Of these, a few are triples like
* ''Waagen'' (weighing scales) – ''Wagen'' (cart) – ''wagen'' (to dare)
* ''Waise'' (orphan) – ''Weise'' (way, manner) – ''weise'' (wise)
Most are couples like ''lehren'' (to teach) – ''leeren'' (to empty).