Conference thebay::joyoflex

1163.0. "German: the spellingandsyntaxcritique" by DRDAN::KALIKOW (DIGITAL=DEC; Reclaim the Name&Glory!) Thu Dec 28 1995 19:07

    From a recent issue of The Economist:
    
                                 No full stop
    
    Berlin
    
    It may, which is more than likely, have the world's attention escaped,
    but the German language -- a tricky one to write, because of its
    elaborate compoundwordbuildingsystem, profligate use of Capital Letters
    for Nouns, not to mention its archa�c use of diacritical marks such
    as the umlaut, nay its beta-like character for double-s -- is destined,
    none to soon, to be modernised, that being the decision this week
    reached by ministers from Germany's 16 L�nder (states), which,
    unanimously, strict rules on the obligatory use of commas have decided,
    so that these rules, now numbering 52, should be much reduced,
    specifically to nine.
    
    The ministers ducked the opportunity to Germanise foreign borrowings,
    so that Germans will not henceforth eat in a _Restorant,_ as some
    wanted, nor study _Filosofie._   That baroque double-s becomes an
    ordinary "ss" when preceded by a short vowel, as in the commonplace
    _dass._  Otherwise it stays, baroque as ever.  New rules on verb
    separation grant some small relief to writers stuck at their desks
    trying to reach the end of a caterpillar word:  instead of deciding to
    _sitzenbleiben_ (remain sitting), they will now _sitzen bleiben._  All
    told, it is a modest reform, as the national desire for consensus
    requires.  But capitals march proudly on:  as well as starting all
    nouns, they now start adjectives standing in for nouns.