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TheGerman orthography reform of 1996 (Reform der deutschen Rechtschreibung von 1996) was a change toGerman spelling and punctuation that was intended to simplify German orthography and thus to make it easier to learn,[1] without substantially changing the rules familiar to users of the language.
The reform was based on an international agreement signed in Vienna in July 1996 by four governments of theGerman-speaking countries (exceptLuxembourg) —Germany,Austria,Liechtenstein andSwitzerland. Luxembourg did not participate despite having German as one of its three official languages — it regards itself:
"as a non-Germanophone country not to be a contributory determinant upon the German system of spelling"[2]
though it did eventually adopt the reform.
The reformedorthography became obligatory in schools and in public administration. However, there was a campaign against the reform, and in the resulting public debate theFederal Constitutional Court of Germany was called upon to delineate the extent of reform. In 1998[3] the court stated that because there was no law governing orthography, outside of the school system people could spell as they liked, including the use of traditional spelling. In March 2006, theCouncil for German Orthography agreed unanimously toremove the most controversial changes from the reform — this was largely, though not completely, accepted by media organizations such as theFrankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung that had previously opposed the reform.[4]
The rules of the new spelling concern the following areas i.e. correspondence betweensounds and written letters (this includes rules for spellingloan words), capitalisation, joined and separate words, hyphenated spellings, punctuation, and hyphenation at the end of a line. Place names and family names were excluded from the reform.
The reform aimed to systematise the correspondence between sounds (phonemes) and letters (graphemes), and to strengthen the principle that derived forms should follow the spelling of the root form.
ß and ss: In reformed orthography the graphemeß (a modernised typographical rendering of howss[7]: 18, 21 appeared in traditionalGothic script; it is seldom used in Switzerland) is considered a separate letter that is to appear only after long vowels anddiphthongs. In general in German, long stressed vowels are followed by single consonants, and short stressed vowels by double consonants. In the traditional orthography,ß was written instead ofss if thes phoneme belonged to only onesyllable, thus in terminal position and before consonantsss was always written asß, without regard to the length of the preceding vowel. In the reformed orthography, a short stressed vowel is never followed byß. This brings it into line with the two-letter spelling of other final consonants (-ch, -ck, -dt, -ff, -ll, -mm, -nn, -rr, -tt, -tz). ThusFass[fas] –Fässer[ˈfɛsɐ] (previouslyFaß –Fässer), by analogy toBall[bal] –Bälle[ˈbɛlə]. This contrasts withMaß[maːs] –Maße[ˈmaːsə], analogous toTal[taːl] –Täler[ˈtɛːlɐ].
Nevertheless, the new German spelling is not fullyphonemic, and it is still necessary to know the plural of a noun in order to spell its singular correctly:Los[loːs] –Lose[ˈloːzə],Floß[floːs] –Flöße[ˈfløːsə] (it is howevermorphophonemic;[citation needed][clarification needed] cf. the usage of voiced versus voiceless plosives at word end).[citation needed]
Exempted from change are certain very common short-vowelled words which end in a single 's' (such asdas, es), echoing other undoubled final consonants in German (e.g.ab, im, an, hat, -ig). So the frequent error of confusing the conjunctiondass (previouslydaß) and the relative pronoundas has remained a trap:Ich hoffe, dass sie kommt. (I hope that she comes.)Das Haus, das dort steht. (The house that stands there.) Both are pronounced[das].
The so-calleds rule makes up over 90% of the words changed by the reform. Since a trailing-ss does not occur in the traditional orthography (which uses-ß instead), the-ss at the end of reformed words likedass andmuss (previouslymuß) is now the only quick and sure sign to indicate that the reformed spelling has been used, even if just partly, in texts (except those of Swiss origin). All other changes are encountered less frequently and not in every text.
Triple consonants preceding a vowel are no longer reduced (but hyphenation is often used in these instances anyway):
In particular, triple "s" now appears more often than all the other triple consonants together, while in the traditional orthography they never appear.
Doubled consonants appear after short vowels at the end of certain words, to conform with derived forms:
Vowel changes, especiallyä fore, are made to conform with derived forms or related words.
Additional minor changes aim to remove a number ofspecial cases or to allow alternative spellings
Severalloan words now allow spellings that are closer to the "German norm". In particular, the affixes-phon,phot-, and-graph can be spelled withf orph.
Capitalisation after a colon is now obligatory only if a full sentence or direct speech follows; otherwise a lower-case letter must go after a colon.
The polite capitalisation of theformal second-person pronouns (Sie,Ihnen, andIhr) was retained. The original 1996 reform also provided that thefamiliar second-person pronouns (du,dich,dir,dein,ihr,euch, andeuer) should not be capitalised, even in letters, but this was amended in the 2006 revision to permit their optional capitalisation in letters.
The reform aimed to make the capitalisation of nouns uniform and clarify the criteria for this. In the original 1996 reform, this included the capitalisation of some nouns in compound verbs where the nouns had largely lost their capitalisation when becoming a part of the compound verb, for instance changingeislaufen toEis laufen ("ice running" = to ice-skate) andkopfstehen toKopf stehen (to stand on one's head). However, this was reversed in the 2006 revision, restoring verbs likeeislaufen andkopfstehen.
As before,compound nouns are generally joined into one word, but several other compounds are now separated.
Nouns and verbs are generally separated (but see above):
Multiple infinitive verbs used withfinite verbs are separated:
Other constructions now admit alternative forms:
There are some subtle changes in the meaning when the new forms collide with some pre-existing forms:
Spelling reform had been discussed for a long time and was still controversial in the late 1960s.[10]
In 1980, theInternationaler Arbeitskreis für Orthographie (International Working Group for Orthography) was formed, with linguists fromEast Germany,West Germany,Austria, andSwitzerland taking part.
The initial proposals of this working group were further discussed at twoconferences inVienna, Austria, in 1986 and 1990, to which the Austrian government had invited representatives from every region where German is spoken. In the closing remarks from the first of these meetings, capitalisation reform was put off to a future "second phase" of German language reform attempts, since no consensus had been reached.
In 1987, the ministers of education of the federal states (Bundesländer) inWest Germany assigned theLeibniz Institute for the German Language inMannheim, Germany, and theSociety for the German Language inWiesbaden, Germany, with the task of coming up with a new system of rules. In 1988, these two organisations presented an incomplete but very wide-ranging set of proposed new rules, for example, the phraseDer Kaiserißt den Aal im Boot ("The Emperor eats the eel in the boat") would be writtenDer keiser isst den al im bot. However, these proposals were quickly rejected by the general public, and then they were withdrawn by the ministers of education as unacceptable. At the same time, similar groups were formed in Switzerland, Austria, and East Germany.
In 1992, the International Working Group published a proposed global reform to German spelling entitledDeutsche Rechtschreibung – Vorschläge zu ihrer Neuregelung (German Spelling: Proposals for its New Regulation). In 1993, the German ministers of education invited 43 groups to present their opinions on the document, with hearings held in the unified Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. On the basis of these hearings, the working group backed off from the notion of eliminating the capitalisation of all nouns. It also preserved the orthographical distinction between the inconvenient homophonesdas ("the", or "that",relative pronoun) anddaß ("that",conjunction, as in "She said that you came"), which introduce different types ofsubordinate clause.
At a third conference inVienna in 1994, the results were recommended to the respective governments for acceptance. The German ministers of education decided to implement the new rules on 1 August 1998, with a transitional period lasting until the 2004–2005 school year.
On 1 July 1996, all of the German states (Bundesländer), and the countries ofAustria,Switzerland, andLiechtenstein, as well as some other countries with German-speaking minorities (but notably notLuxembourg) agreed to introduce the new spelling by 1 August 1998. A few GermanBundesländer introduced the new rules starting from the 1996–97 school year.
The reforms did not attract much attention from the general public until after the international declaration of intent was signed. Animated arguments arose about the correctness of the decision, with schoolteachers being the first to be faced with the implementation of the new rules. At theFrankfurt Book Fair (the largest in Germany) in 1996,Friedrich Denk [de], a teacher fromBavaria, obtained signatures from hundreds of authors and scientists demanding the cancellation of the reform. Among the leading opponents wereGünter Grass,Siegfried Lenz,Martin Walser,Hans Magnus Enzensberger, andWalter Kempowski. The protest gained further nationwide significance through initiatives such asWir Lehrer gegen die Rechtschreibreform [de] (We Teachers Against the Spelling Reform), which was headed by the teacher and activistManfred Riebe.
In May 1997, the "Society for German Spelling and Language Cultivation – initiative against the spelling reform" (Verein für deutsche Rechtschreibung und Sprachpflege [de] e.V. (VRS) – Initiative gegen die Rechtschreibreform) was founded in opposition to the German spelling reform.
The issue was taken up in the courts, with different decisions in different German states, so that theFederal Constitutional Court of Germany was called upon to make a ruling. In May 1998, a group of 550 language and literature professors, led byTheodor Ickler [de],Helmut Jochems,Horst Haider Munske [de] andPeter Eisenberg [de], two of the reformers,Harald Weinrich of theCollège de France,Jean-Marie Zemb of theAcadémie des Sciences Morales et Politiques, and others, in a resolution requested the reversal of the reform by the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany.[11]
On 14 July 1998, after one hearing on 12 May 1998, and involving only one teachers' organisation, the Federal Constitutional Court declared that the introduction of the spelling reform by the ministers of education was lawful.[12]
In the German state ofSchleswig-Holstein, a majority of voters in a referendum on 27 September 1998 called for a return to traditional spellings. However, the minister-president of the state,Heide Simonis, found a way to reverse the results of the referendum via a parliamentary vote in 1999.
While the new German dictionaries were published in July and August 1996, the critics of the language reform perceived themselves to be justified. They began to demand the reversal of the change at the federal level. However, the ministers of education continued to refuse to accede to their demands. The editors of theDuden dictionaries also agreed that many of the problems in the traditional spelling system were due to the "arcane rules" that had been fabricated to explain the system, thus lending their support to the new spelling system, which they said was and is more logical.
One of the public critics of the spelling reform wasJosef Kraus [de], president of theDeutscher Lehrerverband [de] (German Association of Teachers).
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In 1997, an international committee was formed to handle any cases of doubt that might arise under the new rules. In 2004, the Germanfederal minister of education and research,Edelgard Bulmahn, announced that this committee was to be given wide-ranging powers to make decisions about German spelling. Only in cases of extreme changes, such as the proposed capitalisation change, would the committee require the consent of the states' ministers of education. This move was strongly criticised.
Simultaneously, the committee released its fourth report on spelling reforms, reviewing the points of the reform in detail. However, this report was rejected by theConference of Ministers of Education in March 2004. The ministers also demanded that the committee work together with theGerman Academy for Language and Poetry in its future deliberations. The academy had been strongly critical of the reform from the beginning. The ministers also made changes to the composition of the international committee.[citation needed]
In July 2004, the ministers decided to introduce some changes to the reform, making both the traditional and the new spellings acceptable. They also formed aCouncil for German Orthography, "38 experts from five countries", representing linguists, publishers, writers, journalists, teachers and parents. Taking the place of the existing international committee, the Council agreed unanimously to implement the uncontroversial parts of the reform, while allowing compromises on other changes: "writing compounds separately or as a single word, [on] the use of lower and upper case, punctuation and syllabification".[13] This modified reform came into effect by 1 August 2006.
The spelling change is based on the international agreement of 1 July 1996, signed on behalf of Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. The signatories for Germany were the president of theConference of Ministers of Education,Karl-Heinz Reck, and the parliamentary secretary of the Federal Ministry of the Interior, Eduard Lintner. There have been noBundestag (parliamentary) decisions on the reforms. Instead, as mentioned above, theGerman Supreme Court ruled that the reform in the public schools could be decided by the ministers of education. Thus, as of 1 August 2005, the traditional spelling system was to be considered incorrect in the schools, except that two of the German states,Bavaria andNorth Rhine-Westphalia, had both officially rejected the reform. Since 2006, the new rules have become compulsory in Bavarian and North Rhine-Westphalian public schools as well. It is presumed that from the schools the writing reforms will spread to the German-speaking public.
As of 2004[update], most German printed media used spelling rules that to a large extent comply with the reforms. These included most newspapers and periodicals, and the German press agenciesDeutsche Presse Agentur (DPA) andReuters. Still, some newspapers, includingDie Zeit, theNeue Zürcher Zeitung, theFrankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, and theSüddeutsche Zeitung, created their own in-house orthography rules, while most other newspapers used approximately the rules set out by the DPA. These in-house orthographies thus occupy a continuum between "old spelling with new rules forß" and an (almost) full acceptance of the new rules.
Schoolbooks and children's books generally follow the new spellings, while the text of novels is presented as the authors prefer. Classic works of literature are typically printed without any changes, unless they are editions specifically intended for use in schools.[citation needed]
Since dictionaries adopted the new spellings early on, there is no currently in-print, standard reference work available for traditional spellings. However,Theodor Ickler [de], a Professor of German at theUniversity of Erlangen, has produced a new dictionary that aims to meet the demands of simplification without the need to impose any new spellings.[clarification needed] It has not been reprinted since 2004. The commerce in used copies of the olderDuden dictionaries has dwindled. As of the 2004 edition, the Duden dictionary includes the most recent changes proposed by the ministers of education.[citation needed]
TheIETF language tags registeredde-1996 in 2005 for text following the reform.[14]
InSwitzerland andLiechtenstein, the reform had a less noticeable effect, as the letter "ß", which was a prominent part of the reform, wasnot in use anyway.[15][16]
SCHLUSSBEMERKUNG Grundsätzlich bleibt den zuständigen Stellen das Recht vorbehalten, selbst über die Schreibung geographischer Namen zu entscheiden. Es wird aber dringend empfohlen, die neue Rechtschreibung anzuwenden. ...Ergänzender Hinweis Um möglichen Missverständnissen hinsichtlich der obengenannten Empfehlung vorzubeugen, gibt der StAGN nachstehenden ergänzenden Hinweis: Die Empfehlung des StAGN bedeutetnicht, dass alle bereits bestehenden geographischen Namen von den jeweils dafür zuständigen Institutionen (Staat, Länder, Gemeinden, Ämter) der neuen Rechtschreibung angepasst werdenmüssen, sondern dass dasamtliche Regelwerk nur dann verbindlich ist, wennneue geographische Namen geschaffen werden oder wenn die dafür zuständige Institutionen es für zweckmäßig erachten,die Schreibweise bestehender geographischer Namen zu ändern. [emphasis in original]
Due to the nature of the topic, most books and papers regarding the German spelling reform appeared in the German language. The following list includes authors who are responsible for the definition of the imposed changes.
