LATIN CAPITAL LETTER SHARP S officially recognized

Hello,

der Rat für deutsche Rechtschreibung which is responsible
for the further development of the official German ortho-
graphy has finally recognized LATIN CAPITAL LETTER SHARP S
as a possible upper-case equvalent for the LATIN SMALL
LETTER SHARP S.

The report announcing the change is dated 2016-12-08, but
the official rules have been updated only yesterday, so
the change is currently in the news (not very prominently,
though).

The pertinent section from the official 2107 rules reads thusly:
> § 25 E3
> Bei Schreibung mit Großbuchstaben schreibt man SS.
> Daneben ist auch die Verwendung des Großbuchstabens
> ẞ möglich. Beispiel: Straße – STRASSE –STRAẞE.

Which translates to:
> When writing all caps, you spell SS.
> Alternatively, it is possible to use the upper-case ẞ.
> Example: Straße – STRASSE –STRAẞE.

So, SS remains the primary upper-case equivalent of ß.
Yesterday’s note to the press says that the capital ẞ
is meant mainly for passports and similar official
documents, wich have to reproduce personal names faith-
fully in their respective spelling variants. E. g.,
Passports used to distinguish proper names such as
GROẞMANN and GROSSMAN; up to now, they usually have
spelled GROßMANN, with a small ß between the capitals,
which renders ugly, in most fonts.

Best wishes,
    Otto
Received on Fri Jun 30 2017 - 10:29:49 CDT