Re: German+Hungarian question

Hi!

Ingmar Roerdinkholder <ingmar.roerdinkholder@...> writes:
> I thought that in the new, much hated German Rechtschreibung Ringeles
> "ß" also had to be written "ss".
Ringeles?  Is that the Dutch term for it?  I seem to vaguely remember
so.

Anyway, no, it's only consistently <ß> after long vowel (and
diphthong) and <ss> after short vowel now.  So <ß> is still in use
except in Switzerland where it also wasn't used before (dunno why).
By the old rule, <ß> was additionally always used in the ending
consonant cluster of syllables:

   old     new     pronunciation  syllables
   naß     nass    [nas]
   paßt    passt   [p_hast]       /'p_hast/
   paßte   passte  ['p_hast@]     /'p_has.t@/
   passe   passe   ['p_has@]      /'p_ha.s@/
   Maß     Maß     [ma:s]
   Maße    Maße    ['ma:s@]
   Masse   Masse   ['mas@]

I don't particularly like the new rule since the previous rule
accounted for dialectal differences, too.  E.g.

   old     new
   Spaß    Spaß  -> people have obviously assumed it is [Spa:s] while
                    in fact in some dialects (e.g. mine) it is [Spas]
                    and would have to be written *'Spass' in the new
                    spelling in some dialects.  So the new spelling
                    is wrong in my dialect.

BTW the plural is:
   Späße   Späße -> consistently long in the dialects in question and
                    in standard language: ['SpE:s@]

Anyway, this disliking is not very logical :-), since most dialects
are a bit off the standard anyway...  E.g. I pronounce 'kriegst'
(standard: [kRi:kst]) as [kRIst], which would have to be written
*'krist' or even *'krißt'.  Oh, errrm, *'krisst', of course. :-)

([kRICst] is also quite common, BTW.)

**Henrik