Interesting! I lived in Munich from 1990-1995. So these changes happened after
I left. I took a lot of German classes at the Volkshochschule. Surprisingly,
I learned a lot about English grammar. The various parts of speech are a lot
easier to identify in German and that knowledge helped me to understand English
better.
I basically "flunked" in the speech laboratory. In order to say a German vowel
correctly, the tongue moves to a position within the mouth and never moves.
To say an English vowel correctly, the tongue must always move. This difference
between "never" and "always" was too great for me to overcome.
I did have one small victory. The German word for squirrel is Eichhörnchen.
I am not sure of the spelling, but the Bavarian word is Ohrkatzelschworf.
That contains phonemes that don't exist in High German. I can say this word,
and a guy from Hamburg has no chance. My English trained agile tongue can
come very close to what a native Bavarian would say.
I guess we are off topic right now. But the discussion about how to map
the Sharp S to the English keyboard is relevant. Thanks!