The German Orthographic Conference of 1901 (the Berlin II Orthographic Conference; German : Zweite Orthographische Konferenz or II. Orthographische Konferenz) took place in Berlin from 17 until 19 June 1901. The results of the conference became official in the German Empire in 1902. [1] [2] [3] The standardized German spelling that resulted from the conference was largely based on the Prussian school spelling, but also on the Orthographic Conference of 1876.
The conference results removed numerous existing variant forms. Soon after the conference, its results were criticized by people[ who? ] who believed there should be further changes.[ clarification needed ]
The spelling was used in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, apart from the replacement of ß with ss in Switzerland in later years. The Erziehungsrat des Kantons Zürich stopped the teaching of ß in schools in 1935 with the Canton of Zürich being the first to do so, and the Neue Zürcher Zeitung as the last Swiss newspaper stopped using ß in 1974. However, some Swiss book publishers still use ß. [4] [5]
It was not until 95 years later that German spelling was changed again with the German spelling reform of 1996.
The IETF language tags have registered de-1901
for "Traditional German orthography". [6]
German is a West Germanic language in the Indo-European language family, mainly spoken in Western and Central Europe. It is the most widely spoken and official or co-official language in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, and the Italian province of South Tyrol. It is also an official language of Luxembourg and Belgium, as well as a recognized national language in Namibia. There further exist notable German-speaking communities in France (Alsace), the Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia, Denmark, Romania and Hungary (Sopron).
In historical and comparative linguistics, Low Franconian is a linguistic category used to classify a number of historical and contemporary West Germanic varieties closely related to, and including, the Dutch language. Most dialects and languages included within this category are spoken in the Netherlands, northern Belgium (Flanders), in the Nord department of France, in western Germany, as well as in Suriname, South Africa and Namibia.
Standard High German (SHG), less precisely Standard German or High German, is the umbrella term for the standardized varieties of the German language, which are used in formal contexts and for communication between different dialect areas. German is a pluricentric Dachsprache with currently three codified specific national varieties: German Standard German, Austrian Standard German and Swiss Standard German.
In German orthography, the letter ß, called Eszett or scharfes S, represents the phoneme in Standard German when following long vowels and diphthongs. The letter-name Eszett combines the names of the letters of ⟨s⟩ and ⟨z⟩ in German. The character's Unicode names in English are sharp s and eszett. The Eszett letter is used only in German, and can be typographically replaced with the double-s digraph ⟨ss⟩, if the ß-character is unavailable. In the 20th century, the ß-character was replaced with ss in the spelling of Swiss Standard German, while remaining Standard German spelling in other varieties of the German language.
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Old High German is the earliest stage of the German language, conventionally identified as the period from around 500/750 to 1050. Rather than representing a single supra-regional form of German, Old High German encompasses the numerous West Germanic dialects that had undergone the set of consonantal changes called the Second Sound Shift.
East Low German is a group of Low German dialects spoken in north-eastern Germany as well as by minorities in northern Poland. Together with West Low German dialects, it forms a dialect continuum of the Low German language. Before 1945, the dialect was spoken along the entire then-German-settled Baltic Coast from Mecklenburg, through Pomerania, West Prussia into certain villages of the East Prussian Klaipėda Region.
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New High German is the term used for the most recent period in the history of the German language, starting in the 17th century. It is a loan translation of the German Neuhochdeutsch. The most important characteristic of the period is the development of a standard written German, followed by the standardisation of the spoken language. For this reason, the term New High German is also used as a synonym for modern Standard German.
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Swiss Standard German, or Swiss High German, referred to by the Swiss as Schriftdeutsch, or German: Hochdeutsch, is the written form of one of four official languages in Switzerland, besides French, Italian, and Romansh. It is a variety of Standard German, used in the German-speaking part of Switzerland and in Liechtenstein. It is mainly written, and rather less often spoken.
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