Re: Uppercase ß

[Otto Stolz via Unicode]

Hello,
am 2018-05-29 um 10:15 Uhr hat Hans Åberg geschrieben:
> Duden used one in 1957, but stated in 1984 that there is no uppercase version [1].

There used to bee two differnt orthographic dictionaries,
both called “Duden”:
► The Duden from Leipzig (DDR) had a captal “ß”, on the cover page
   of its 1957 edition.
► The Duden from Mannheim (FRG) never has featured a captal “ß”, IIRC.

> So it would be interesting with a reference to an official version.

Neither Duden has been anything like an “official version” – never ever.
Until 1996, the only official German orthography was somewhat loosely
defined by a common decision of the Ministers of Education of the FRG,
with an additional remark saying: “In case of doubt, the spelling of the
latest edition of the Duden (i. e. the Mannheim version) will take
effect.”

Nowadays, the official version of the orthographic rules
can be found in:
<http://www.rechtschreibrat.com/regeln-und-woerterverzeichnis/>;
the Uppercase-ß rule, particularily, is discussed in
<http://www.rechtschreibrat.com/DOX/rfdr_Regeln_2016_redigiert_2018.pdf>,
under §25(E3); the latest version of the rule reads thusly:
> E3: Bei Schreibung mit Großbuchstaben schreibt man SS.
> Daneben ist auch die Verwendung des Großbuchstabens ẞ 
> möglich. 
which means:
   When writing in all-caps, you write SS.
   Alternatively, the capital ẞ may be used.

So, the normal upper-case equivalent of German sharp-S
still is the double-S. The recently introduced capital sharp-S
is an optional alternative, but not the normal way of
uppercasing the sharp-S.

Best wishes,
    Otto Stolz