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- Re the above notice, see
- FAC nomination (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Talk:%DF&diff=4323273&oldid=4322112),
- questioning of it (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Talk:%DF&diff=6767761&oldid=5474062),
- its final appearance (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Wikipedia:Featured_article_candidates&oldid=4440071#.DF_.28Contested_--_Jun_28.29) on FAC, and
- its removal (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Wikipedia:Featured_article_candidates&diff=4440112&oldid=4440071) from consideration as the result of what was no doubt an edit-conflict-related technical problem.
- I have restored it at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates#ß, and asked there
- Should the previous participants be notified that it has been resurrected?
- --Jerzy(t) 19:28, 2004 Nov 9 (UTC)
| Contents |
Various Topics
I'm sure that the ligature is of a medial "s" and a "z", not a final "s". This explains the name "Ess-tsett" (or "Ess-zett") and also the shape, since a Fraktur final "s" looks like a modern "s" while a Fraktur "z" looks like the right half of "ß". Of course this is only the origin; it is "ss" today. -- Toby 04:40 Mar 20, 2003 (UTC)
- If you can find a citation for this, please add it. - Montréalais
- As noted in the article, the HTML entity for ß is ß, an abbreviation of "s-z ligature". I don't know about you, but I find that suggestive. --Paul A 06:11 Mar 20, 2003 (UTC)
Even though it goes my way, I wouldn't trust the HTML names. I mean, they came up with ë for ë! Anyway, I'm going to see what The World's Writing Systems says. -- Toby 06:20 Mar 20, 2003 (UTC)
- And what's wrong with that? lysdexia 09:54, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)
- The problem with ë being the HTML notation for ë is that the "uml" is short for "umlaut", a word for a specific vowel transformation that occurs in German starting from A, O, and U, but not from E and I. Ë and Ï occur in other languages for purposes that have nothing to do with the umlaut transformation, but the handy (but sloppy) convention of using, e.g., "O with an umlaut" as a name for the character used to represent the sound that O transforms into as a result of umlaut has led to the even sloppier practice of calling any two-dots-on-top diacritical mark an umlaut. Ë is never really an E with an umlaut, but it can be an E with diaresis.
- So the ë notation is a recent exploitation of a common misconception, and it's all to plausible that ß is as well. Tho it seems clear ß is some kind of ligature, citing the notation ß as evidence of that, or as evidence of what the component letters of the ligature are or were, is unsound reasoning. --Jerzy(t) 19:28, 2004 Nov 9 (UTC)
This may be wrong, but in school we were taught to pronounce the letter (not the sound) as Ringel-S. If this practice is indeed correct (a native speaker or linguist should verify that), maybe a note on this page and a redirect would be in order. -- Kimiko 22:13 Apr 15, 2003 (UTC)
- The name Ringel-S was used in Dutch schools, but not in Germany. -- dnjansen 17:56 14 Jun 2003 (UTC)
- I object - Ringel-S (curly s) was used in German (Bavarian) schools around 80 years ago.
i am native speaker and i can say, that the way the letter "ß" is spelling (sz) is in use but wrong for the history of this letter. the ß was originally "ss" but written was it ſs (ligatur-s in html = ſ).
more ligatures: ff: ff (ff), fi: fi (fi), fl: fl (fl), ffi: ffi (ffi), ffl: ffl (ffl), ſt: ſt (ſt) und st: st (st)
(maybe the browsers can't show them all)
the ligatur-s was very special and it is a survivor (my English isn't very good, so i have to find the best words i know to write what i want to write) of the german Druckschrift (press font?) Fraktur and the old german Schreibschrift (writing font?) Sütterlin.
Fraktur ("gotische Schrift"):
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fraktur
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fraktur_(Schrift)
http://www.fraktur.com
http://www.fraktur.de
http://www.joern.de/tipsn98.htm
(there is a scanned document from the third
Reich. You can read there, that the nazis have
forbidden to use the font "Fraktur" in 1941,
because in their eyes it was a "jewish font")
--> 
http://www.ligaturix.de/fraktur.htm
http://www.typolexikon.de/f/fraktur.html
Sütterlin:
http://www.peter-doerling.de/Lese/Sutterlin.htm
http://www.peter-doerling.de/Englisch/Sutterlin.htm
http://www.phil.uni-sb.de/projekte/suetterlin/
http://www.fontworld.net/_de/suetterlin.html
greetings, fux (31.05.03)
- I am a native speaker as well, and fux is correct in that the letter is universally called "sz" (ess-tsett) in German, but this is incorrect as far as the origin of the letter is concerned, which indeed derives from "ſs". See long s; also, some of the information about Fraktur is already present on the Fraktur page. I have added a coupla notes to Ess-tsett to make the naming a bit more clear. -- djmutex 12:46 31 May 2003 (UTC)
- man lernt nie aus. :o) ["we never stop learning"] --fux
ss vs. sz
The german ligature ß can look quite different in different font-faces.
Some suggest an origin in ſs, some in ſz. In fact, in the Middle Ages orthography was not stable, but soon this ligature got fixed...
Note, that in a lot of Fraktur fonts you will recognise ſz, also in the old german "Kurrentschrift", while most modern print fonts (though not all) derive the ß from ſs, as does modern handwriting.
Of course capitalisation is merely SS, though in the 70ies SZ was proposed (sz being a seldom letter combination in german, it could have made it easier uncapitalising words correctly).
Here (in Austria), ß is pronounced as "scharfes S", which translates to "sharp-S".
The form of ß can be derived from both ſs and ſz with equal legitimation: it is up to the creator of the font, which one he uses, while it is to note, that when using ſz, he has to use a z resembling old handwritings or Fraktur: with a loop under the base-line.
The today's most common font: Times New Roman derives ß indeed from ſs.
If you do not object, I will include the legitimate origin from ſz to the article as well.
Szabi Sept 2, 2003
- You are right that both ß forms are used today, although really modern typefaces (not older than 10 years) tend to prefer the "round" (ſs) variant.
- The actual origin was indeed a ſs ligature. In old Textur fonts ("Gothic") both letters were moved together so closely that the left half of the "s" overlapped with the stem of the "ſ". The result was that the visible part of the "s" looked like a Textur "z". This visual ambiguousness was the origin of the misinterpretation as "sz". (Reference: "Schriften erkennen" by Daniel Sauthoff, Gilmar Wendt, Hans Peter Willberg.)
- Over the centuries the awareness of this origin has been lost. So it's legitimate to say that today it's an ſs or an ſz ligature, depending on the typeface.
- BTW, the Times New Roman surely uses the ſz variant, at least in its upshape form. – Torsten Bronger 07:39, 17 Dec 2003 (UTC)
Tschichold
Is the Tschichold thesis undisputedly wrong? If so, it doesn't need to be treated at such length. If not, it cannot be "pointed out" that it's wrong. Markalexander100 02:58, 28 Jun 2004 (UTC)
Switzerland
Switzerland had abolished the use of "ß" in the 1930s already and uses "ss" in all cases. Still, most Swiss publishing houses use "ß" for books.
If they use ß in books, they can't use ss in all cases. When do they use ss? Markalexander100 03:03, 28 Jun 2004 (UTC)
(Since no-one seems to know better, I've done my best with the above two points). Markalexander100 03:20, 1 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Duden SS vs SZ
The article mention that Duden at some point recommended differing uses of SS and SZ to resolve ambiguity but the example seems to be meaningful only to German speakers. Can we have a better explanation of when to use which and also some information on whether this recommendation was actually adopted: when, how popular, still? — Hippietrail 14:53, 25 Oct 2004 (UTC)
- The two words "in Massen" and "in Maßen" would both be capitalized as "IN MASSEN", but they are opposites. All-caps text is rarely used, and the Swiss never had a problem with the ambiguity anyway. I've only ever seen the "SZ" spelling in a military context, but YMMV.
But I still don't get it - does one show that the previous vowel is short, and the other long? If so, which? Or is it that "SS" is the capitalization of "ss" and "SZ" is the capitalization of "ß"? — Hippietrail 08:57, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)
- In the example, SZ is used to represent the ß. Markalexander100 09:05, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)
- "in Massen": in (great) masses, capitalisation "IN MASSEN". "in Maßen": in (small, appropriate) amounts, capitalisation "IN MASZEN" if you want to be sure. However, it indeed is more of a theoretical discussion, and I would label the "SZ" capitalisation as "hyper correct".
- According to the current orthography, it isn't hypercorrect, but wrong. J. 'mach' wust 13:01, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)
- hypercorrection is a special kind of wrong :) Joestynes 09:53, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Parallel between W & ß; Does ß sound like ss?
An editor removed
- (cf. the letter W, which represents a ligature, too: "double u").
summarizing that decision by
- W represents a sound which is different from uu or vv. ß does not (is always ss).
The reasoning may reflect a widespread belief of at least native speakers of English (and perhaps those of all "phonetically"-written languages) that their language is far more phonetic than is the true case. For instance the concept "voiced", which describes the difference between the phonemes of F and V, is not a commonplace one, supporting people in thinking that TH is a single phoneme despite thinking using it unvoiced and that using it voiced. I once listened, slack-jawed, as a native speaker of Arabic insisted that there is a difference of meaning and spelling but not of pronunciation, between "shoe" and "chew" (pronounced schuh and tschuh, in case any German-speakers are struggling here). So i await the opinion of a phonologist (or perhaps a classical singer, tho their expertise may be mostly about vowels): is "sharp ess" just a metaphor, or does the difference in the preceding vowel induce a difference in the sound of the vowel. (I am proud that i can hear the difference between the K sounds in key and king; still i don't think my lack of certainty about there being a difference the S sounds in mice and miss proves those S sounds are identical.) --Jerzy(t) 19:28, 2004 Nov 9 (UTC)
- As I understand it, the letter s in German can have two pronunciations - sometimes as [s] (voiceless) and sometimes as [z] (voiced) - similarly in English the word "house" has the [s] pronunciation, but the word "houses" has the [z] pronounciation (twice!). The ß (and ss) in German is always voiceless, and is identical in its pronunciation to the voiceless pronunciation of the letter s. (sorry if this answer is a bit late for the original questioner) rossb 13:07, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)
- The distinction between the two German s-sounds doesn't need to be a distinction in voice. In southern German, the "voiced" /z/ is as voiceless as "voiceless" /s/, but still distinct. Therefore, the distinction is often described as a fortis-lenis distinction, that is, weak s vs. strong or sharp s. I believe this is why the name sharp s is used. There's no distinction, however, between the sound spelled with ss and the sound spelled with ß, both represent the fortis /s/. J. 'mach' wust 14:04, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)
scharfes S
'increasingly more common' than Eszett? I doubt (and removed) that. scharfes S feels vaguely southern (and slightly irritating) to mee. 217.184.47.108
"225"
I got the information on how to type ß on microsoft computers from http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/00df/index.htm. J. 'mach' wust 03:07, 21 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Error?
Tschichold's claim is based on a picture drawn by himself that shows how ſ and s melt together in blackletter, and on a reference to the ſs-ligature in antiqua. A historical specimen of the former has never been found, and the latter is true, but pointless.
I could be mistaken, but it sounds like the "former" and "latter" are mixed up.
- "Former" is intended to refer to ſ and s melt together in blackletter and "latter" to ſs-ligature in antiqua. Anything wrong? -- j. 'mach' wust ˈtʰɔ̝ːk͡x 13:05, 22 May 2005 (UTC)
How would be written words like Faszination or Puszta in Fraktur typefaces?
Since (nowadays) "ß" is generally considered a ligature of "s" and "z" (or, maybe better, of "ſ" and "z"), how would one write German loanwords such as Faszination or Puszta in Fraktur typefaces (still sometimes used)? "ſz"? "sz"? "ß"? It's worth noting that in traditional Fraktur both "ss" and "sz" ligature were (probably) all transcribed with a "ß": e.g. Straße, daß (now dass), Pußta and so on. 84.222.53.45 18:22, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)
- The Duden does not mention Hungarian sz, but it says that Polish sz is always transcribed ſz and provides the example Lukaſzewſki (the Polish ending ſki being another example). I guess that the Hungarian sz is analogous to this one. In the Latin word Faszination, however, I believe the normal rules are applied, that s at the end of a syllable is transcribed with the short (or 'round') s, since this is not a sz digraph, but just an accidental joining of the two letters. So I'd say the transcriptions would be Puſzta, but Faszination. -- j. 'mach' wust ˈtʰɔ̝ːk͡x 14:43, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)
- Hmm... interesting. But how would this "ſz" look like? similar to a "ß" in Fraktur? or different?84.222.53.45 18:22, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)