AW: Eszett

Georg Ochsner g.ochsner at revolistic.com
Sun Jul 12 09:44:45 CEST 2009


> -----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
> Von: idna-update-bounces at alvestrand.no [mailto:idna-update-
> bounces at alvestrand.no] Im Auftrag von Shawn Steele
> Gesendet: Samstag, 11. Juli 2009 23:58
 
> > What do you mean by 99% linguistically equivalent? In the new German
> > orthography, the difference between ß and ss is a very clear phonetic
> > difference (long preceeding vowel for ß, short preceeding vowel for
> > ss).
> 
> I agree completely that eszett is a letter and that the "new
> orthography" give clear and concise rules for when ss and ß are supposed
> to be used in German, in Germany since 1996.
> 
> In practice, how is fussball.de pronounced?  Of course that site likely
> picked ss instead of the correct spelling because ASCII didn't allow
> eszett.  I think most Germans would recognize ss instead of ß as a
> widely recognized alternate spelling of words using eszett.

Yes of course, Germans and others somehow HAD to learn how to deal with 7
bit ASCII software designed for English. But today single bits don't matter
anymore and IDN is about the opposite, i.e. giving back the CHOICE of using
(all) their native characters!


> * Eszett has a long history of alternately being spelled with ss.  You
> even used to see "strasse" on some German street signs (yes, spelling
> reform has caused signs to be reprinted)

The reform has not at all changed the spelling of the word "Straße". Where
it is spelled with lowercase "ss" it is simply an error. Pupils learn this
in school at the age of 6.


> * The IDN standard is, I believe, International.  A swiss user can type
> fussball.com and a german user type fußball.com.  Are we really taking
> the stand that the same word, in the same language, should go to a
> different place just because someone might confuse masse with maße?  We

This is not the point. We are talking about a standard here. But how people
in different countries use it, should not and cannot be influenced by us.
The registries told us, they can deal with a VALID ß, and the users will
deal with it as well. Nobody of this group can tell how the German language
(or others) will change in the next decades. Maybe the ß will even be used
more often, because it saves letters in areas with limited space like SMS
messages. (Young people in Switzerland now start to use ß because of that
reason, I heard). And who says at all, that every single domain must be
spelled right or must be a recognizable word at all? If someone wants to
register füßbäll.com why shouldn't he...?

Please leave the choice of usage to the users (registries, registrants and
surfers)! We will see how it develops. The ß is part of the German alphabet
and many German words are only spelled correctly with ß. And so are
thousands of German surnames.

And let me add a personal impression. Some of the people arguing against the
ß, seem to do this mainly, because ß is or used to be a ligature, why they
see it as an impure letter. This kind of "typesetting ideological" arguments
should not count for a standard that focuses on the modern use of language.


> * Assuming that I want a german domain name, am I truely going to limit
> myself to the ß spelling?  I cannot imagine, whether I was masse.de or
> maße.de, not registering both names.  If nothing else, I may have swiss
> customers.
> 
> * If everyone is going to "bundle" the names anyway, then why break 2003
> just to force them to bundle.  Sure, the registrars may not prebundle
> the names, but as a user I certainly would.

Leave it to the users again. For sure NOT "everyone" is going to bundle. We
had this discussion so many times... Remember that this argument applies to
virtually all newly added characters in 2003, because there have been
substitutions before (ä, ö and ü = "ae", "oe" and "ue"). The registries can
give the possibilities for bundling or grandfathering.


> * What happens to the existing ss names that should be spelled ß?  What
> happens when someone else beats fussball.de to fußball.de?  Are we going
> to force the registrars to pre-bundle or block those URLs?

Registries know about this and will solve it. Look these days at the
grandfathering registration in Mexico for example.

 
Best
Georg

- native German speaker -



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