German spelling reform
Stephen G. Esrati
It’s tough being a translator at the headquarters of the
European Union. Let’s look at a hypothetical discussion
about a ban on the sale of chanterelle mushrooms during the
month of January.
The Austrian would say "Jänner" while the German would say
"Januar." The German would say "Pfifferling" to the
Austrian’s "Eierschwammerl."
But they are both talking about the same chanterelle in
January.
There are dozens of words that are different in the two
languages, and the German-speaking areas of Europe have
about a dozen different words for "Potato."
And don’t kid yourself. This is serious stuff. When Austria
applied for admission to the European Union, it insisted
that 23 "Austrian" words be made usable in EU proceedings
and documents. Austria was admitted in 1995 (Scott 1667).
Thus, when a Briton now says "apricot," the official German
text will say "Aprikose (Marille)" with the Austrian word in
parentheses.
I have not been able to learn how this is done in spoken
translation.
The Third German Orthographic Conference was held in Vienna
in November 1994 by the German-speaking areas of
Europe--Austria, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg and Germany and
representatives of the German-speaking ethnic minorities in
the Netherlands, Belgium and Italy. The conference adopted
spelling and linguistic reforms that were to have come into
force this year throughout the Grerman-speaking areas. They
revised the rules set down by the second conference in 1901
in Berlin.
Parents went out and bought new schoolbooks for the opening
of schools in 1998. New stylebooks were printed for
newspapers and magazines. The principal German dictionary,
Duden, (Scott 1325) went into a new edition. And then a
father sued in the German state of Hesse, charging that the
spelling reform was in violation of the constitution. A
court sustained him and spelling reform was put on hold. The
case was argued before the German Constitutional Court
(supreme court) in May and the court upheld the reform on
July 14.
Suits were also filed in Austria, but that nation’s
Constitutional Court (supreme court) ruled in July that the
spelling reform was constitutional and is to come into force
in Austria on August 1. German reform begins the same day,
except in the state of Schleswig-Holstein, where it has been
put up for a vote at the next parliamentary election.
The result is that all German-speaking children start the
new spelling tomorrow, but those near the Danish border will
continue as before. If the referendum succeeds, the reform
will not apply to those children.
The reforms were needed badly, spurred by the
ever-increasing use of computers. The German letter "ß"
(which is a double-s) posed a problem. The Swiss haven’t
used it for years. In e-mail, the "ß" got changed into all
manner of strange symbols, and American typesetters often
converted it into a "B," changing the Nazi name for the
Third Reich from Großdeutsches Reich into "Grobdeutsches."
Swiss typewriters lacked the symbol and its typesetting
machines had to be specially programmed to convert German
wire-service stories to change the symbol to a double-s.
One of the outcomes of the Vienna conference would be to
curb use of "ß." It would also drop the diphthong "pf" and
substitute an "f."
This will eventually pose problems on place names. The city
of Cologne, for example, waited until well into the 20th
century before it changed its spelling from "Cölln" in old
German to "Köln" in the new. According to Martin Kotthaus,
first secretary of the German Embassy in Washington, "Place
names won’t be changed at all."
Chances are, however, that they will change, so that the
state of Rheinland-Pfalz will eventually become "Falz" and
Westphalia will lose its "ph" to become "Westfalen."
The reform of 1901 outlawed the use of "th" and replaced it
with "t." The proposed reform says that words with the sound
of an English "eye" should be spelled "ei," not "ai." That
would make "Kaiser" (emperor) into "Keiser." Double vowels
such as the double-o in "Boot" (boat) or double-a in "Aal"
(eel) would be dropped, changing the spelling to "Bot" and
"Al."
The dropping of the "pf" is possibly the most controversial
aspect of the reform. In most areas, people do not pronounce
the "p," but in parts of Bavaria, the "p" is sounded. The
change in spelling will make children misspell such words as
"Pferd" (horse) because they will still hear the "p" sound.
Once upon a time, this would have meant that German stamps
would have to call their smallest coins "Fennig," but that
is a moot point since German stamps no longer indicate the
kind of money.
Finally, the reform was to end use of "ph" in German (but
not foreign) words and also substituted "f."
So far, little has changed. But watch out for the next stamp
to honor the Boy Scouts, "Pfadfinder" in German. Will it
become "Fadfinder"?
One other reason for the need for reform was hyphenation,
more and more of which is now done by computers that
recognize not words but series of letters. The result in
English is such ghastly hyphenation of names, such as one
sees in reference to Sen. Alfonse D’Amato, whose name is
often hyphenated after the "A" in newspapers. The reform in
Germany has dozens of new rules about that.
--
Stephen G. Esrati
PO Box 20130
Shaker Heights, OH 44120
(216) 561-9393
!!DELETE THIS PART BEFORE MAILING!! @ilos.net PeterD
<35C1B324...@gwis.com>...
<SNIPped -- please read previous message for full article)
> The reforms were needed badly, spurred by the ever-increasing use of
computers. The German letter "ß" (which is a double-s) posed a problem. The
Swiss haven’t used it for years. In e-mail, the "ß" got changed into all
manner of strange symbols, and American typesetters often converted it into
a "B," changing the Nazi name for the Third Reich from Großdeutsches Reich
into "Grobdeutsches." Swiss typewriters lacked the symbol and its
typesetting machines had to be specially programmed to convert German
wire-service stories to change the symbol to a double-s.
What a fascinating article (defintely ;-0 !), Stephen. As a German
collector, I've wondered if the new spelling will affect us, but I'm not
overly concerned.
Just a small point: isn't the "ß" (If you read that character correctly,
you'll know it's the "B") properly called "sz"? That's what I learned in
Hessen in 1980.
The argument against retaining the "ß" and the umlauted vowels that is
based on e-mail/computer use is somewhat spurious because it is simply a
matter of typing in the appropriate value on the numeric keypad. For those
who don't know how do do this, here's how: In Windows, hold down the Alt
key and type in the 4-digit number on the numeric keypad (not on the
regular keyboard). The DOS values are different, and I don't have them
handy. If you want them, e-mail me.
"ä" (a-umlaut) is Alt-0228
"ė" (e-umlaut) is Alt-0235
"ļ" (i-umlaut) is Alt-0239
"ö" (o-umlaut) is Alt-0246
"ü" (u-umlaut) is Alt-0252
"ß" ("sz", "ss", "B") is Alt-0223
As for the "Pf" (as in "Pfennig"), both letters are easily available in the
European alphabets, and silent letters are common in most languages --
though I've heard the "P" both sounded (short/blended in to "f", as in
"P.ferd").
Once a person learns to pronounce "ai" and "ei" as "eye" (an "ie" as "aye")
it isn't a big problem.
Double vowels shouldn't be a problem either. Again, they are common in
most languages, and changing them to single vowels could change the meaning
of a sentence significantly. I can't recall any examples right now, but
I'm certain there will be some (humourous?) ones.
I think they went too far with all the above 'reforms', though it will make
for a more phonetic language. Come to think of it, "phonetic" isn't even
spelled phonetically! :-)
--
***ATTENTION: To E-mail me, you must edit the return address to read
pdolman@ etc.
--
Peter Dolman
Consultant/Technologist
col...@compuserve.com
ste...@gwis.com wrote:
> By Stephen G. Esrati
> It’s tough being a translator at the headquarters of the
> European Union. Let’s look at a hypothetical discussion
> about a ban on the sale of chanterelle mushrooms during the
> month of January.
The beta character is ess-zed, and should really have been translated to sz
rather than ss <g>. Meanwhile the changes only affect "legal" German - and
will have little short term affect on everyone else (oops -- *you* will have
to know "official german" and be *very very careful* about "Das Ukraine")
The single most egregious change is from "ketchup" (which is Sanskrit in
origin) to "ketschup" which certainly *sounds* slovenly ...
Dave
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Arwel Parry
<ste...@gwis.com> writes
This got a mention on BBC Radio 4's "Today" programme this morning, in
quite an interesting discussion. One of the examples of spelling
confusion they gave was whether a ship journey ("schiffahrt") should
have two "f"s or three, but in English we have the same sort of problem
in deciding how many "s"s to put in Inverness-shire! The conclusion was
we could never have a similar spelling reform in English a) because
there's no agreed authority to promulgate it, and b) we have far too
many words which sound the same but are spelt differently and mean
different things, or else are spelt the same and pronounced differently
in different parts of the English-speaking world. I suppose written
English might eventually end up like written Chinese, being understood
everywhere the language is used, but not being pronounced the same...
>The proposed reform says that words with the sound
>of an English "eye" should be spelled "ei," not "ai." That
>would make "Kaiser" (emperor) into "Keiser." Double vowels
>such as the double-o in "Boot" (boat) or double-a in "Aal"
>(eel) would be dropped, changing the spelling to "Bot" and
>"Al."
But if they drop the "oo" in "boot", how will people know whether to
pronounce a word as "bote" or "bot"?!
--
Arwel Parry
http://www.cartref.demon.co.uk/
Gene Rohling
>
> In article <35C1B324...@gwis.com>, Stephen G. Esrati
> <ste...@gwis.com> writes
>
> This got a mention on BBC Radio 4's "Today" programme this morning, in
> quite an interesting discussion. One of the examples of spelling
> confusion they gave was whether a ship journey ("schiffahrt") should
Interesting info .... thanks .... my grandfather wrote and spoke
hochDeutsch <sp?> .... high german .... the old german typeface made it
extremely difficult to even read the language ... keep us posted!
Gene Rohling
http://home.earthlink.net/~rohling/stamps
Soggy3
Brian
Stephen G. Esrati
Soggy3 wrote:
> What a Katastrophe!
> Brian
Under the reform, I beleieve that is spelled "Katastrofe."