
The capital sharp S in now part of the official German orthography - fanf2
https://typography.guru/journal/the-capital-sharp-s-in-now-part-of-the-official-german-orthography-r53/
======
faho
As a german, I see this as a step in the wrong direction.

The sharp S is a PITA to begin with, so I'd rather abolish it completely.

Now there's a whole bunch of complications coming from this - how do I type
this? To type lowercase "ß", I press the key above "p" (in the same position
as with qwerty) and "ü" (to the right of it), which will do "?" when pressed
together with shift. So do we move "?" somewhere else?

QWERTZ is already bad for e.g. programming with all its punctuation (typing
"]" means holding altgr and pressing 9), so that would make it even worse.

Personally I'd rather use composing since that would mean I could continue
ignoring "ß" like I already do (I use "ss" instead), only now I'll ignore both
forms.

Note also that a capital "ß" is barely useful to begin with - no word begins
with it, so the only reason to use it is to write a word in ALL CAPS.

~~~
bla2
As a German, I disagree with you. German's not English, even though you might
prefer if it was. Others don't. It's fine that it uses the letters it ended up
with historically. This change fixes an internal inconsistency, your reply
seems fairly irrelevant. It feels like replying to some bugfix in, say, Ruby
with something like "I never liked Ruby anyhow".

~~~
tptacek
How is using "ss" instead of ß in German any worse from using "th" instead of
þ in English?

~~~
pavlov
Annoyingly, English uses "th" for two rather different phonemes: þ ("thing")
and ð ("this").

Icelandic maintains this useful distinction. I feel like English spelling
would need at least half a dozen more letters to disambiguate. As it is,
English is actually a not great choice for a global language because it's so
unphonetic.

~~~
TulliusCicero
Every language has something dumb about it that makes it "not a great choice
for a global language". English spelling is a nightmare, but the grammar isn't
too bad, and most importantly, _it has no gendered nouns_.

~~~
mrkrab
What's so bad about gendered nouns? They are quite useful, especially when the
language allows you to omit the noun and leave only a pronoun, or maybe the
entire subject altogether.

~~~
_kst_
How are gendered nouns useful? (I'm referring specifically to assigning
genders to nouns that refer to objects that aren't intrinsically gendered.)

My native language is English, and I never have to remember whether a
"keyboard" or a "rock" is masculine or feminine. I've studied a few other
languages (French, German, Spanish) that do expect me to remember such things.

To be clear, I'm not trying to refute your statement that they're useful, just
asking how. I'm interested in learning about a different perspective.

~~~
faho
I'd imagine the use is that it sometimes makes pronouns more useful.

Substituting "he" and "she" for gendered articles:

"I have he keyboard and she rock. He is large and she is grey"

Without that, I'd have to repeat the "keyboard" and "rock".

The question of course is whether this is worth all that rote memorization
(since no language I know is fully logical here - german's "Das Mädchen" \-
girls are apparently of neutral gender - being a particularly egregious
example).

~~~
clhodapp
The thing about this, though, is that it only works if you get lucky and none
of your nouns share a gender. I feel like that undermines the argument at
least a bit.

~~~
vizeroth
I feel like I could come up with some examples if I had kept up with German
after high school. I remember it being difficult for a year or two, then it
seemed more helpful as we got into more complex language mechanics. In any
case, German felt more consistent than English, and most of the words just
felt right with one gender or another (and in speech you could usually get
away with something between "the" and "duh" if you weren't sure about
der/die/das).

~~~
clhodapp
They are generally going to sound good together because the word and the
pronoun co-evolved. If they didn't sound good together, either the pronoun or
the word would have changed. That isn't about the gender being right so much
as just the sound, though.

------
joubert
From Wikipedia
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ß](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ß)):

In German orthography, the grapheme ß, called Eszett (IPA: [ɛsˈtsɛt]) or
scharfes S (IPA: [ˈʃaɐ̯.fəs ˈʔɛs], [ˈʃaː.fəs ˈʔɛs]), in English "sharp S",
represents the [s] phoneme in Standard German, specifically when following
long vowels and diphthongs, while ss is used after short vowels. The name
Eszett represents the German pronunciation of the two letters S and Z.

It originates as the sz digraph as used in Old High German and Middle High
German orthography, represented as a ligature of long s and tailed z in
blackletter typography (ſʒ), which became conflated with the ligature for long
s and round s (ſs) used in Roman type.

The grapheme has an intermediate position between letter and ligature. It
behaves as a ligature in that it has no separate position in the alphabet. In
alphabetical order it is treated as the equivalent of ⟨ss⟩ (not ⟨sz⟩). It also
has no traditional capital form (although some type designers have introduced
forms of "capital ß" de facto). It behaves like a letter in that its use is
prescribed by orthographical rules and conveys phonological information (use
of ß indicates that the preceding vowel is long).

~~~
simon_o
This seems to be a poorly writen article for various reasons:

> The grapheme has an intermediate position between letter and ligature.

It might have been a ligature in the past, but it is definitely not a ligature
today. A ligature is a purely typographical device that is completely
interchangeable with the non-ligature variant. This is not the case with ß.

> It behaves as a ligature in that it has no separate position in the
> alphabet.

Not having a separate position is not sufficient evidence that it is a
ligature. ä, ö, ü also don't have separate positions when ordering stuff.

> It also has no traditional capital form (although some type designers have
> introduced forms of "capital ß" de facto).

It had the same traditional from for almost 130 years. Yes, there are a few
stylistic variations on the traditional forms, as well as some early
experiments trying something completely different which have never been widely
adopted.

> It behaves like a letter [...]

It is a letter, just like w is a letter, not a vv ligature.

------
weinzierl
Most commenters seem to be under the impression that German orthography gained
a new letter, or that uppercase sharp S will be the norm. This is not the
case. From the original article:

> The change doesn’t mean that everyone now has to use a Capital Sharp S. The
> previous spelling of replacing ß with SS in uppercase texts remains the
> default for the time being.

The Council for German Orthography sanctioned the use of the uppercase ß. They
just accepted the fact that it exits and is used. No more, no less.

That being said, I find it a bit ironic that at first Unicode had to bend over
backwards to allow the strange surjective mapping that only German requires,
only to later resolve to problem the easy way with the introduction of a new
character. I mean it's probably the right thing to do, because both things are
used in German, but on the other hand it introduces a lot of complications
just for one very specific special case.

~~~
detaro
It's a bit more important than that, since ẞ didn't "exist" in official use
before (if you have a name with ß, the spelling on your ID card can now use ẞ,
instead of SS where its unclear if it is ss or ß, now it becomes valid in
schools, ...), but yes, it's only an accepted variant now.

------
pluma
The article and comments are a bit misleading. The actual official document is
a bit clearer:

> E3: Bei Schreibung mit Großbuchstaben schreibt man SS. Daneben ist auch die
> Verwendung des Großbuchstabens ẞ möglich. Beispiel: Straße – STRASSE –
> STRAẞE.

[http://www.rechtschreibrat.com/DOX/rfdr_Regeln_2017.pdf](http://www.rechtschreibrat.com/DOX/rfdr_Regeln_2017.pdf)
(page numbered 29, page 27 of the PDF)

Roughly translated:

> When writing in uppercase one writes SS. Additionally the use of the
> uppercase ẞ is also possible. Example: Straße – STRASSE – STRAẞE.

In other words, it's an officially blessed variant spelling. The new standard
actually defines several variant spellings for cases that have been debated
since the last reform, e.g. Delfin ("new") vs Delphin ("old"). It's a lot more
forgiving, standardizing a lot of existing usage rather than making up
arbitrary rules.

It's far more descriptive than the previous spelling reform some fellow
Germans still like to bitch and moan about. The reason the capital sharp S is
singled out as being newsworthy is mostly that it's one of the few additions;
almost everything else is just establishing widespread non-standard variants
as permissible.

------
lvh
While the glyph is still missing from many fonts, Unicode 5.1 designated a
code point for it:

U+1E9E ẞ LATIN CAPITAL LETTER SHARP S

------
aristidb
I for one find this GROẞARTIG. Maybe not using umlauts or writing nouns in
lower case is more efficient, but sometimes it feels good to have something
like this.

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zzleeper
Interestingly, this is the opposite as what happened in Spanish [1]

We had two extra letters, CH and LL that were just ligatures, so we dropped
them and everyone is better off.

[1] [http://www.rae.es/consultas/exclusion-de-ch-y-ll-del-
abeceda...](http://www.rae.es/consultas/exclusion-de-ch-y-ll-del-abecedario)

~~~
filmor
As other's have written already, ß is not simply a ligature. Since the
orthography reform in the nineties it universally indicates that the preceding
vowel is lengthened, dropping it would lead to a large amount of homophones.
An example is Maße (measures) vs Masse (mass).

~~~
4ad
What a non-issue.

------
Pxtl
So when will we see it in string.toUpper()?

------
Grue3
I don't like it, it looks too much like B. At least lower-case version stands
out among its lower-case peers, but the big one is the same size as B.

------
cmurf
Were words using ß ever spelled with sz? The ß is pronounced as sz (in German)
and I think it's a ligature of old German shrift s which is a line when found
in the middle of a word, and z. So again, were words like strasse, spelled as
strasze and hence the ß? And then later it became ss as the sharp s?

Edit: OK nevermind. Other comments and wikipedia discuss this.

------
beders
"straße".toUpperCase() is still "STRASSE", though.

Wondering how any current i18n system will get out of this mess ;)

~~~
bitwize
Hopefully this will motivate a libpango replacement written in Rust. :)

~~~
tempodox
The Rust Evangelism Strikeforce is already gathering :)

------
Tepix
So, I've read a few articles now but I'm left wondering: How do I enter the
new character "ẞ" on a german keyboard? Pressing the key for "ß" \+ shift
obviously doesn't work (it yields a questionmark).

(I used cut + paste to get the ẞ into this post)

------
JepZ
And how do I type thiß capital sharp S?

The Unicode input seems a little complicated :-/

CTRL + SHIFT + u1E9E = ẞ

~~~
yellowapple
On a Unix-like system with X11 and a compose key, I believe Compose + S + S
should work (away from my computer, so can't test).

~~~
ams6110
Do tell, which key is this "Compose"?

~~~
MagnumOpus
Depending on your keyboard layout, the key might be the "AltGr" key, or have
an Apple logo, an MS logo or a penguin on it.

~~~
JepZ
Thanks for the hint. While neither of those keys seems to be the compose key
on my linux, SHIFT + ALTGR + S workẞ here.

------
the8472
And it has been in unicode since 2008.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_%E1%BA%9E](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_%E1%BA%9E)

------
rini17
ParselsprachebenutzerInnen feiern! ẞssssßs sss!

------
BurningFrog
So ß is finally out of β-test!

------
mkesper
First of all, it's not a 'sharp' s, as one can see compairing 'Maße' and
'Masse'. I doubt this will be used in practice. Many people nowadays are
confused by last orthography rules and even write 'Straße' wrongly with
double-s.

~~~
dEnigma
Well, it is commonly called "scharfes S" (sharp S), at least in Austria -- and
I'm pretty sure in Germany too. I certainly plan to use it in practice, and
have already started telling my friends and relatives about it. The
substitution with "SS" always rubbed me the wrong way, since it should be
"SZ". The capital "ẞ" solves that problem for me, and I no longer have more
letters in the uppercase version of certain words, which is nice.

------
virtualritz
What a typographic disaster.

Making an uppercase version of a lowercase ligature was bad idea from the get
go.

I suggest to type designers who want to add this symbol to do an SZ or SS
ligature.

Caveat: I studied typography in another life.

~~~
pluma
It's not a ligature. It's not even a variant anymore. Yes, in orthography it's
defined in contrast to "ss" but it is not acceptable to substitute "ss" for
"ß" in names. Mesner, Messner, Meßner and Meszner are different names.

Typography is not just about making pretty shapes that work nice alongside
each other.

------
Tomte
Again, an unelected body decides on my mother tongue (the orthography reform
of 1996 was the same, but more catastrophic).

The Rechtschreibrat is tasked with codifying existing changes to the language,
not inventing something new.

Capital ß does not exist and never did. Before a few years ago when Unicode
accepted it and a handful of designers played with it, there was exactly one
documented occurence in hundreds of years of the language: the title page of
one singular run of an orthography book in the GDR. The runs before and after
that had SS.

I think there should have been an uprising (violent, if necessary) in 1996,
but the ship has sailed. Very few people care about their language. Heck, most
people get the simplest parts of orthography wrong and imitate English
patterns (even the famous contatenative property is dying, people are just
writing constituent words serially, with space in between).

Never forgive, never forget.

~~~
dcposch
> I think there should have been an uprising (violent, if necessary) in 1996,
> but the ship has sailed.

Lol you want a popular revolution over the Rechtschriebereform?

Strong contender for First World Problem hall of fame here.

~~~
Tomte
You're a prime example of what I've talked about: people without any love for
or sense of their language (whichever one in your case).

~~~
kupiakos
You say that as if it's an inherently bad thing. Different people have
different passions, and assuming one's own interests are "more important"
seems kind of ridiculous to me. Most people simply use their language to
communicate, and nothing more.

~~~
Tomte
Mother tongue isn't a hobby you choose. It's part of your identity and a core
of your being.

That's why we consider the Turks eradicating the Kurdish language a human
rights violation, but don't say the same thing when, say, a swimming pool
closes.

~~~
int_19h
> Mother tongue isn't a hobby you choose. It's part of your identity and a
> core of your being.

How much it is a part of one's identity and a "core of one's being" is up to
every specific person to decide, not for you to impose.

------
champagnepapi
ASK HN: Why is this at the top of HN?

~~~
roywiggins
Because it was up voted.

HN likes linguistic things, and typographical things, and Unicode things, and
this is all three. And the weird .toUpper behavior required by ß->SS is an old
example of string-handling pitfalls that non-German programmers probably
remember (and obviously German ones know about the issue!)

------
microcolonel
Languages with priesthoods make me chuckle.

~~~
noarchy
>Languages with priesthoods make me chuckle.

You'll likely be downvoted by the way you made your point, but there is a
point to be made here. Native English-speakers, for instance, probably
couldn't fathom there being an official body that makes decisions like this
about the language. It just so happens that some of these official bodies make
a point to stave off the influence of English on their respective languages
(for better or worse - I won't argue either here).

~~~
emodendroket
Right, we don't have an academy of English. Instead we have several competing
organizations publishing dictionaries and style guides to the same purpose.

------
quink
Arguments against:

ß is a ligature, one of ss. ﬄ is a ligature, but that doesn't mean FFL should
have one too.

Just get rid of it. Switzerland did and they're managing just fine.

Capitalisation in Unicode for German locales is just a headache, and this
really doesn't help.

How would one enter it on a keyboard?

Argument for:

ss is pretty much the same shape as SS, and Dutch has ĳ and Ĳ.

It's just an optional ruling, anyone can do whatever they want and as with the
new orthography, they did. Prescriptive linguistics is useless anyway,
especially over the past two decades in German-speaking regions.

~~~
legulere
It started out as a ligature of ſ and ʒ, forms of s and z that don't exist
anymore today in German. And it became a letter like æ did. Also this happened
at a time where z was pronounced differently from how it is pronounced today.

~~~
quink
> It started out as a ligature of ſ and ʒ

I know that, but again prescriptive linguistics vs. descriptive and
descriptive definitely says ss.

~~~
legulere
Ss is horrible because double consonants signify short preceding vocals in
German. Yet ß is preceded by long vocals. If you want to replace it, then just
with s.

