Re: Uppercase ß

[Asmus Freytag (c) via Unicode]

On 5/29/2018 12:15 PM, Werner LEMBERG wrote:
>> Overlooked in this discussion is the fact that the revised
>> orthography of 1996 introduces for the first time a systematic
>> difference in pronunciation for the vowel preceding SS vs. ẞ (short
>> vs. long).  As users of the old orthography age out, I would not be
>> surprised if the SS fallback were to become less acceptable over
>> time because it would be at odds with how the word is to be
>> pronounced. I'm also confidently expecting the use of ALL CAPS to
>> become (somewhat) more prevalent under the continued influence of
>> English usage.
> It's not that simple.
>
> * `ß' is never used in Switzerland; it's always `ss' (and `SS').  Even
>    ambiguous cases like `Masse' are always written like that.  This
>    means that for Swiss users `ẞ' is even more alien than for most
>    German and Austrian users.  In particular, there doesn't exist a
>    `unity SS' in Swiss German at all!  For example, the word `Maße' if
>    capitalized to `MASSE' is hyphenated as `MA-SSE' in Germany and
>    Austria (since `SS' is treated in this case as a unity).  However,
>    the word is hyphenated as `MAS-SE' in Switzerland, since `ss', as a
>    replacement for `ß', is *not* treated as a unity.

So the Swiss don't have that issue. What do they do for names?

>
> * There are dialectic differences between northern and southern
>    Germany (and Austria).  Example: `Geschoß' vs. `Geschoss', which
>    means exactly the same – and both orthographies are allowed.  For
>    such cases, `GESCHOSS' is a much better uppercase version since it
>    covers both dialectic forms.
I don't see the claimed benefit; if you allow two different spellings in 
lowercase to
track the phonetic difference, then that would rather seem to support my 
argument
that there is now a tension in the orthography (for standard German) 
that may well
resolve itself by greater use of the distinct uppercase form.

Users who will end up "resolving" this would be those who grew up only 
with the
revised orthography. Older users are used to a different principle of 
selecting
between SS and ß and that isn't tied to pronunciation of preceding vowel.

>
> I very much dislike the approach that just for the sake of `simplistic
> standardization for uppercase' the use if `ẞ' should be enforced in
> German.  It's not the job of a language to fit computer usage.  It's
> rather the job of computers to fit language usage.
Hmm, don't see anyone calling for that in this discussion.

A./
>
>
>      Werner