ß

The ß ? Eszett (IPA {{IPA|/?s?ts?t/}}) in German or scharfes S (sharp S) if spelled out ? is a letter used only in the German alphabet. It alternates with ss under certain conditions, and it is replaced by ss when there is no ß available. ß is nearly unique among the letter of Latin alphabet in that it has no upper case form since it never occurs initially (one of the few other examples is kra, used in Greenlandic).

Usage

In today's German orthography, ?ß? is used to denote a voiceless ?s? (IPA sound {{IPA|}}) at the beginning of a syllable (e.g. ?Stra-ße? (= street)) or after a long vowel if other words of the family have it (e.g., es fließt (?it flows?) because of flie-ßen (?to flow?)) whereas ?ss? is used if the s sound belongs to two syllables (e.g., ge-flos-sen (?floated?, past participle)) or after a short vowel if other words of the family use a double s (e.g., es floss (?it floated?)).

Related Topics:
Orthography - IPA

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Older usages and spelling reform

Before the German spelling reform of 1996, there was an additional rule that ?ss? could only be used if bridging two syllables and must otherwise be replaced by ?ß?, even if it follows a short vowel. As a result, floss was formerly spelled floß.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The spelling reform also affected certain place names, e.g. "Rußland" (Russia) became "Russland" and "Preßburg" (Bratislava) became "Pressburg".

Related Topics:
Russia - Bratislava

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Switzerland and Liechtenstein

Switzerland and Liechtenstein gradually abolished the use of "ß" since the 1930s. This change coincided with the increased use of typewriters; Swiss machines contained accented French letters (ç, à, é, è) as well as German umlauts (ü, ä, ö), and consequently had no key to spare for ß. In 1974, the Neue Zürcher Zeitung was the last Swiss newspaper to give up the ß. Today, ss is always used instead of ß in schools, correspondence or newspapers, a convention that was confirmed by the German spelling reform of 1996. However, major Swiss publishing houses for books use ß since they address the entire German speaking market.

Related Topics:
Switzerland - Liechtenstein - 1930s - Typewriters - Neue Zürcher Zeitung - German spelling reform of 1996 - Publishing house

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Replacement and all-upper-case

If no ß is available, ss is used instead. This ss may be hyphenated (e.g. Stras-se 'street'; compare Stra-ße).

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

If entire words are capitalized, SS is supposed to be used if the rules are followed (e.g. STRASSE). Excepted are legal documents, where capitalized names may retain an ß to prevent ambiguity, e.g., HANS STRAßER. In practice, however, the ß is increasingly being retained in all-capitals writing even outside legal contexts.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

In the old orthography, the Duden encouraged the use of SZ in cases where SS would produce an ambiguous result, as with "IN MASZEN" (in limited amounts; "Maß"=measure) vs. "IN MASSEN" (in massive amounts; "Masse"=mass). The number of such cases was so small that this rule was more confusing than helpful, thus it has been dropped. Only in the German military the capitalization SZ is still in occasional use, even when there's no ambiguity - e.g. boxes inscribed "SCHIESZGERÄT" (shooting material) can still be found here and there. sz is also still used for ß in military teletype operation within Germany.

Related Topics:
Duden - Teletype

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

There have been repeated attempts to introduce an upper case ß. One of the best known examples is the Eastern German 1957 Duden. A recent proposal to the Unicode Consortium for capital double s by Andreas Stötzner was rejected in 2004, on the basis that capital ß is a typographical issue, and therefore not suitable for character encoding.

Related Topics:
Eastern German - 1957 - Duden - Unicode Consortium - 2004

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~