German sharp S uppercase mapping

[Asmus Freytag]

(stuck in my outbox for a bit)
On 11/27/2024 5:12 AM, Daniel Buncic via Unicode wrote:
> Am 27.11.2024 um 13:25 schrieb Otto Stolz via Unicode:
>> So, the wording of the sentence has been reversed, but the example
>> is given in the same order as in the previous version.
>
> I will stop discussing the interpretation of this sentence now, but 
> this is interesting: In the pdf version on the website of the 
> orthography council 
> (https://www.rechtschreibrat.com/DOX/RfdR_Amtliches-Regelwerk_2024.pdf, 
> p. 48) it is “STRAẞE – STRASSE”.  On the website of the IDS (Institute 
> for the German language), which is supposed to have just an HTML 
> version of the same text, it is “STRASSE – STRAẞE”. Obviously some 
> kind of copy-paste error.
>
> Best wishes,
>
> Daniel

Stepping back, it is clear that there has been  a lengthy transition 
here. Up to some point in the past, the use of capital sharp S was 
limited to environments which had an extended typeface support and some 
control over selecting glyphs whether manually or with some mechanism 
other than invoked by a character code.

That is trivially true, because at some point, no character encoding 
existed for the capital form (nor was it part of manual keyboards). 
Nevertheless, it was used to some degree, as has been documented, even 
though it wasn't feasible to suggest or mandate its use in standard or 
default capitalization.

Later, the character was encoded and became supported in fonts and 
keyboards. Initially, the reaction of the rule makers was to allow it as 
an alternative to SS.

Since then, the support has become more widespread. It now appears that 
this is leading to a shift towards a stance from the "descriptive" rule 
makers that acknowledges the fact that the use of this character is no 
longer fundamentally limited.

The attached image, if it comes through, shows the latest use that I 
happened to catch a few days ago.

Rather than getting hung up on details of parsing one particular part of 
one sentence, it would be more useful from Unicode's perspective if 
someone (Daniel?) could sum up in a short document base on this 
discussion where Unicode is behind the curve and to make sure the 
support in CLDR is up to actual current practice and not what it was 10 
or 15 years ago.

As part of this, the clarification of the difference between stable 
identifier-safe casing and up-to-date text processing needs to be 
addressed. The problem report should explain the distinction and, if 
possible, list places in the text that need to be fixed, but fully 
worked out language isn't a requirement (I'm sure the properties groups 
and the editorial WG will have their own ideas on wording).

However, any perceived shortcomings in existing CLDR support should be 
noted.

A./

PS: one downside of the "SS" fallback is that it tends to interfere with 
the use of "ss" over "ß" in indicating the length of the preceding 
vowel. This is a consequence of the reform taken 30 years ago, which has 
been in use long enough to introduce the expectation for many readers 
that "SS" follows a short vowel, something that makes the use of capital 
sharp s more natural.

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