In the German alphabet, ß is a consonant letter that evolved as a ligature of "long
s and z" and "long s over round s". Like double "s", when speaking it is pronounced [s]. In
standard spelling, it is used only after long vowels and diphthongs, while ss is written
after short vowels. Its German name is Eszett or scharfes S. In English it is often called
sharp s. While the letter "ß" has been used in other
languages, today it is only used in German. However, it is not used in all German-speaking
countries, in particular not in Switzerland, Liechtenstein and Namibia. German speakers
in Germany, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Luxembourg and South Tyrol, Italy follow the standard
rules for ß.
History The earliest occurrence of ß is in the "Wolfdietrich
fragment", which was written around 1300 AD. In blackletter texts it was used as a ligature
of "long s and small z", more precisely called "z with lower loop". In some of the fonts
emerging in the fifteenth century, it was a ligature of "long s and round s". By the
time Antiqua for German texts began to be applied, the development of the language and
use of "ß" had changed again. There remains no clear clarification of the origin of the
letter "ß" to this day. Roman typeface
In the late 18th and early 19th century, when more and more German texts were printed in
Roman type, typesetters looked for a Roman counterpart for the blackletter ſz ligature,
which did not exist in Roman fonts. Printers experimented with various techniques, mostly
replacing blackletter ß in Roman type with either sz, ss, ſs, or some combination of
these. Although there are early examples in Roman type of a ſs-ligature that looks like
the letter ß, it was not commonly used as Eszett.
It was only with the First Orthographic Conference in Berlin in 1876 that printers and type foundries
started to look for a common letter form to represent the Eszett in Roman type. In 1879,
a proposal for various letter forms was published in the Journal für Buchdruckerkunst. A committee
of the Typographic Society of Leipzig chose the so-called Sulzbacher Form. In 1903 it
was proclaimed as the new standard for the Eszett in Roman type.
Since then, German printing set in Roman type has used the letter ß. The Sulzbacher Form,
however, did not find unanimous acceptance. It became the default form, but many type
designers preferred other forms. Some resemble a blackletter sz-ligature, others more a Roman
ſs-ligature. To the reader unfamiliar with German, the
ß's "s" origin may be obscure or nearly undetectable, particularly in the Sulzbacher Form. Long
s itself was frequently confused with "f," which led to its demise in English writing
around 1800. Unlike German, ß per se has apparently never been used in English. Rather,
various other forms are seen for ss in pre-modern literature and handwriting. A double long-s
[ſſ] is seen in places such as scans of the original Geneva Bible of 1560. Scans of
British census sheets of the 19th century may show a simple unligatured long-s short-s
or something that looks to the modern eye as a long-ascendered p. Where the latter case
is seen, the pre-modern English handwritten p differs from its ſs generally both by the
p's shorter ascender as well as the p's bowl being drawn with a space left at the bottom
versus the s of the ſs being drawn in more completely at the bottom.
Adelung's and Heyse's rules Johann Christoph Adelung and Johann Christian
August Heyse were two German lexicographers who tried to establish consistent rules on
the application of the letter s. In Austria Heyse's rule of 1829 prevailed
from 1879 until the second orthographic conference of 1901, where it was decided to prefer Adelung's
rule over Heyse's. The German orthography reform of 1996 reintroduced Heyse's variant,
yet without the long s. In order to display its elements correctly,
the ligatures of the Fraktur typesetting are not shown. Therefore the modern Antiqua-ß
was used for the Latin orthography since the 20th century.
Heyse's argument: Given that "ss" may appear at the end of a word, before a fugue and "s"
being a common initial letter for words, "sss" is likely to appear in a large number of cases
together). Critics point out that a triple "s" in words like "Missstand" feature less
readability than spelling it "Mißstand". Even though the second word of a compound
does not start with "s", "ß" should be used to improve the readability of the fugue, which
suggests the unrelated word "Messer", and "Meßingenieur" over "Messingenieur", which
suggests the unrelated word "Messing"). This problem of Adelung's rule was solved
by Heyse who distinguished between the long s and the round s. Only the round s could
finish a word, therefore called terminal s. The round s also indicates the fugue in compounds.
Instead of "Missstand" and "Messergebnis" one wrote "Miſsſtand" and "Meſsergebnis".
Back then a special ligature for Heyse's rule was introduced: ſs. Amongst the common ligatures
of "ff", "ft", "ſſ" and "ſt", "ſs" and "ſʒ" were two different characters in the
Fraktur typesetting if applying Heyse's rule. Alternative representations in Antiqua
There have been four typographical forms of the Antiqua ß. Currently, most Antiqua ß
are shaped according to the second or the fourth form. The first and third form are
seldom found. letter combination ſs
ligature of ſ and s ligature of ſ and a kind of blackletter z
that looks similar to an "ʒ" or a "3", though it might rather be described as a "Z with
a hook" The Sulzbacher Form
Current usage in German Since the German spelling reform of 1996,
both ß and ss are used to represent between two vowels as follows:
ß is used after diphthongs ß is used after long vowels
ss is used after short vowels Thus it helps to distinguish words like Buße
'penance, fine' and Busse 'buses'. It is also consistent with the general rule of German
spelling that a doubled consonant letter serves to mark the preceding vowel as short.
Note that in words where the stem changes, some forms may have an ß but others an ss,
for instance sie beißen vs. sie bissen. The same rules apply at the end of a word
or syllable, but are complicated by the fact that single s is also pronounced in those
positions. Thus, words like groß require ß, while others, like Gras use a single s.
The correct spelling is not predictable out of context, but is usually made clear by related
forms, e.g., Größe and grasen, where the medial consonants are pronounced and respectively.
Many dialects of German however have an even longer vowel, or an audibly less sharp s,
in cases single s is used. Usage before the spelling reform of 1996
Before the 1996 spelling reform, ß was always used at the end of a word or word-component,
or before a consonant, even when the preceding vowel was short. For example, Fuß has a long
vowel, pronounced , and so was unaffected by the spelling reform; but Kuß has a short
vowel, pronounced , and was reformed to Kuss. Other pre-1996 examples included Eßunlust,
and wäßrig, but Wasser. The spelling reform affected some German-language
forms of foreign place names, such as Rußland, now Russland, and Preßburg, now Pressburg.
The orthography of personal names and of names for locations within Germany proper, Austria
and Switzerland were not affected by the reform of 1996, however; these names often use irregular
spellings that are otherwise impermissible under German spelling rules, not only in the
matter of the ß but also in many other respects. The pre-1996 orthography encouraged the use
of SZ in place of ß in words with all letters capitalized where a usual SS would produce
an ambiguous result. One possible ambiguity was between IN MASZEN and IN MASSEN. Such
cases were rare enough that this rule was officially abandoned. The German military
still occasionally uses the capitalized SZ, even without any possible ambiguity, as SCHIESZGERÄT.
Architectural drawings may also use SZ in capitalizations because capital letters and
both Maß and Masse are frequently used. Military teleprinter operation within Germany still
uses sz for ß. Substitution and all caps
If no ß is available, ss or sz is used instead. This applies especially to all caps or small
caps texts because ß does not have a generally accepted majuscule form. Excepted are all
caps names in legal documents; they may retain an ß to prevent ambiguity, e.g., HANS STRAßER.
This ss that replaces an ß had to be hyphenated as a single letter before the 1996 reform.
For instance STRA-SSE; compare Stra-ße. After the reform, it was hyphenated like other double
consonants: STRAS-SE. Switzerland and Liechtenstein
In Switzerland, ss usually replaces every ß. This is officially sanctioned by the German
orthography rules, which state in §25 E2: In der Schweiz kann man immer „ss“ schreiben.
Liechtenstein follows the same practice. In Switzerland, ß has been gradually abolished
since the 1930s, when most cantons decided not to teach it anymore and the Swiss postal
service stopped using it in place names. The Neue Zürcher Zeitung was the last Swiss newspaper
to give up ß, in 1974. Today, Swiss publishing houses use ß only for books that address
the entire German-speaking market. Upper case
ß is nearly unique among the letters of Latin alphabet in that it had no traditional upper
case form. This is because it never occurs initially, and traditional German printing
in blackletter never used all-caps. However, there have been repeated attempts
to introduce an upper case ß. Such letterforms can be found in some older German books and
some modern signage and product design. Since 4 April 2008, Unicode 5.1.0 has included it
as U+1E9E LATIN CAPITAL LETTER SHARP S. Graphically similar letters
Lowercase beta "ß" should not be confused with the unrelated
lower-case Greek letter "β", a homoglyph, which the so-called Sulzbacher form closely
resembles, particularly to the eyes of non-German or non-Greek readers. Any typeset material
should use the ß; where that letter is unavailable, the substitution of "ß" to "ss" is correct,
and clearly preferable to the use of Greek "β".
The differences between "ß" and "β" in most typefaces are:
β reaches below the line while ß does not. β connects the vertical part on the left
with the end of the horizontal near the bottom; ß does not.
β is often slightly slanted to the right even in upright fonts, while ß is exactly
vertical. However, the reverse substitution of using
German "ß" as a surrogate for Greek "β" once was common when describing beta test
versions of application programs for older operating systems, whose character encodings,
most notably Latin-1 and Windows-1252, did not support easy use of Greek letters. Also,
the original IBM DOS code page, CP437 conflates the two characters, assigning them the same
codepoint and a glyph that minimizes their differences.
Uppercase B Non-German speakers unfamiliar with German
orthography may also confuse ß with B, which is also incorrect. This effect is used for
comic value in the film National Lampoon's European Vacation, where Clark Griswold reads
a sign for Dipplestraße as Dipplestrabe. Keyboards
In Germany and Austria, the letter ß is present on computer and typewriter keyboards, normally
to the right on the upper row. In other countries, the letter is not marked on the keyboard,
but a combination of other keys can produce it. Often, the letter is input using a modifier
and the s key. The details of the keyboard layout depend on the input language and operating
system. OS X
Option+s on US, US-Extended, and UK keyboards Microsoft Windows
Alt+0223 or Alt+225 or Ctrl+s or Ctrl+Alt+s, on some keyboards such as US-International
also AltGr+s X-based systems
AltGr+s or Compose, s, s GNU Emacs
C-x 8 " s GNOME
AltGr+s or Ctrl-Shift-DF or Ctrl-Shift-U, df
AmigaOS Alt+S for all keymaps on native Amiga keyboards.
Plan 9 Alt or Compose, s, s.
RISC OS Alt+s or AltGr+s
Android Alt+s
The Vim and GNU Screen digraph is ss. Other languages
'ß' is used by some in romanizing the Sumerian language, to mean 'sh'. Some Sumerian scholars
use 'sz' or '$' instead. It was also in use for Latin during the Medieval
and Renaissance time, until the 18th century. E.g.: clarißimus - clarissimus - the brightest;
eße - ĕsse - to be; amavißet - amavisset and so on.
'ß' was used to mean 'š' in a German-influenced spelling system for the Lithuanian language
which was used in Lithuania Minor in East Prussia: the page section Prussian Lithuanians#Personal
names has some examples of Prussian Lithuanian surnames containing 'ß'.
Miscellaneous
In alphabetizing German words, the collation rules say to treat ß as a double "s". Thus,
Ruß < Russe < rußen < Russland. In word processing contexts, ß is sometimes
associated with the umlaut, for a purely practical reason: both ß and the umlauted ä, ö, ü
are not in ASCII. Thus they tend to cause the same kinds of problems in all sorts of
legacy digital text processing applications. Historically, the development of ß is not
related to the umlaut, and they are not associated outside of character encoding contexts.
ß is sometimes used in German writing to indicate a pronunciation of where would otherwise
be usual. The novels NeuLand and OstWind by Luise Endlich, for example, use an initial
ẞ to approximate the local dialect in Frankfurt; thus ẞind ẞie?.
The HTML entity for ß is ß. Its codepoint in the ISO 8859 character encoding versions
1, 2, 3, 4, 9, 10, 13, 14, 15, 16 and identically in Unicode is 223, or DF in hexadecimal. In
TeX and LaTeX, \ss produces ß. A German language support package for LaTeX exists in which
ß is produced by "s. Also, ß is widely not considered part of
the standard alphabet. If asked how many letters in the alphabet, most Germans would answer
26 instead of 30. Sometimes even 29 may be heard, if it is forgotten that the dots of
ä are an old e placed over the vowel, but ß is still remembered as a ligation of sz
or ss. See also
Capital ß Greek letter β
Long s Sz
Ȥ de:Heysesche s-Schreibung
de:Adelungsche s-Schreibung References
External links James Mosley: Eszett or ß - January 31, 2008
on typefoundry.blogspot.com Mark Jamra: The Eszett