On: What character was removed from the alphabet? (2020)

[dunham]

I always thought of it as a ligature for "et" (like ffi is a ligature for ffi) rather than a letter. But I suppose the sz ligature (ß) eventually became a letter, so there is precedent.

[dragonwriter → dunham]

æ (æsc/ash) was a letter in English, too, but, like &, stopped being one even though it continued to be used (as a ligature).

[lolinder → dunham]

The difference is that ß is actually used to spell words. & has never been used as part of a word, it only ever st&s alone.

[mbg721 → dunham]

Spanish also treats multiple-letters as letters in their own right, doesn't it? And Dutch with ij.

[thenewwazoo → mbg721]

Not really, depending on who you ask. In the 90s, the RAE declared that ‘ll’ and ‘ch’ were no longer letters, but they’re still taught as letters in many places. ‘rr’ was never a letter in its own right, but many people consider it to be, as a kind of parallel to ‘ll’ and ‘ch’.

[mbg721 → thenewwazoo]

That's good info to learn beyond the strips of letters at the tops of classrooms, thanks!

[tmtvl → mbg721]

Treating ij as a single letter in Dutch makes no sense, unless one also treats au, ei*, eu, ou, and ui as single letters. And possibly sch as well.

* especially ei as it's the same sound: eis (demand) and ijs (ice) are homonyms.

[sp332 → dunham]

ß is a ligature for ss, right? ſs

[dunham → sp332]

It's called es-zett (S Z), and I believe it originally was a joined long s and a z, like ſ𝔷. (There doesn't appear to be a fraktur long s in unicode, but I include the fraktur z to show where the shape comes from.) I believe these days it is typically written as "ss" when the ß character is not available.

Edit: The name points to sz, but it's possible that it replaced both ss and sz. I'm not an expert.