Re: Announcement: New auxlang "Choton"

On Sat, 9 Oct 2004 17:13:27 -0400, Pascal A. Kramm <pkramm@...> wrote:
> On Sat, 9 Oct 2004 12:28:51 -0400, J. 'Mach' Wust <j_mach_wust@...> wrote:
> >He doesn't have to use the |ß|, irrespective of old or new spelling, since
> >he's one of the four million living proofs that you can perfectly write and
> >read German without any |ß|: He's Swiss.
>
> So they don't use any ß at all? How odd... O_o
Indeed. "Man sollte Bier stets in Massen geniessen" can have two
interpretations there.

It was that way before the most recent spelling reform and has stayed
the same afterwards.

And I only know of two pairs of words where |ß| vs |ss| can make a
difference; in other cases, the spelling unambiguously reflects a
given word (or only as ambiguously as the spelling used in Germany and
Austria). (One pair is exemplified in the sentence above; the other is
Busse/Buße, but they're harder to confuse based on the sense of a
sentence. Are there any other pairs?)

> >The rules for the usage of the |ß|,
> >BTW, have been simplified in the spelling reform.
>
> Nope, the exact opposite is true.
> Before: ss if the two s fall into different syllables (Mes-ser), else ß.
> After: You must now also see if the vowel before is long.
(or is a diphthong)

> If yes, you still have to use it.
This does not seem much of a hassle to me.

I believe one reason given for this change is that related words use
the same spelling: "Das Fass, die Fässer; das Maß, die Maße" - rather
than an ß changing to ss when you inflect the word. (Though this
doesn't work as well for words such as wissen - weiß - wusste where
the stem vowel changes from short to diphthong.)

I think the ß rules are one of the easiest parts of the spelling
reform to remember (and are the only part that I consistently apply,
since the rule was so easy to learn).

Cheers,
--
Philip Newton <philip.newton@...>
Watch the Reply-To!