The Freiburg monosyllabic test has a word inventory based on the word frequency in written sources from the 19th century, the distribution of which is not even between the test lists. The median distributions of word frequency ranking in contemporary language of nine test lists deviate significantly from the overall median of all 400 monosyllables. Lists 1, 6, 9, 10, and 17 include significantly more very rarely used words; lists 2, 3, 5, and 15, include significantly more very frequently used words. Compared with the word frequency in the contemporary spoken German language, about 45 % of the test words are practically no longer used. Due to this high proportion of extremely rarely or no longer used words, the word inventory is no longer representative of the contemporary German language-neither for the written, nor for the spoken language. Highly educated persons with a large vocabulary are thereby favored. The reference values for normal-hearing persons should therefore be reevaluated.
Keywords: Hearing tests; Language; Questionnaires; Speech audiometry; Speech discrimination tests.