On 5/29/2018 12:15 PM, Werner LEMBERG wrote:
Overlooked in this discussion is the fact that the revised
orthography of 1996 introduces for the first time a systematic
difference in pronunciation for the vowel preceding SS vs. ẞ (short
vs. long). As users of the old orthography age out, I would not be
surprised if the SS fallback were to become less acceptable over
time because it would be at odds with how the word is to be
pronounced. I'm also confidently expecting the use of ALL CAPS to
become (somewhat) more prevalent under the continued influence of
English usage.
It's not that simple.
* `ß' is never used in Switzerland; it's always `ss' (and `SS'). Even
ambiguous cases like `Masse' are always written like that. This
means that for Swiss users `ẞ' is even more alien than for most
German and Austrian users. In particular, there doesn't exist a
`unity SS' in Swiss German at all! For example, the word `Maße' if
capitalized to `MASSE' is hyphenated as `MA-SSE' in Germany and
Austria (since `SS' is treated in this case as a unity). However,
the word is hyphenated as `MAS-SE' in Switzerland, since `ss', as a
replacement for `ß', is *not* treated as a unity.
So the Swiss don't have that issue. What do they do for names?
* There are dialectic differences between northern and southern
Germany (and Austria). Example: `Geschoß' vs. `Geschoss', which
means exactly the same – and both orthographies are allowed. For
such cases, `GESCHOSS' is a much better uppercase version since it
covers both dialectic forms.
I don't see the claimed benefit; if you allow two different spellings in
lowercase to
track the phonetic difference, then that would rather seem to support my
argument
that there is now a tension in the orthography (for standard German)
that may well
resolve itself by greater use of the distinct uppercase form.
Users who will end up "resolving" this would be those who grew up only
with the
revised orthography. Older users are used to a different principle of
selecting
between SS and ß and that isn't tied to pronunciation of preceding vowel.
I very much dislike the approach that just for the sake of `simplistic
standardization for uppercase' the use if `ẞ' should be enforced in
German. It's not the job of a language to fit computer usage. It's
rather the job of computers to fit language usage.
Hmm, don't see anyone calling for that in this discussion.
A./
Werner
