The German orthography reform of 1996 (Rechtschreibreform) was an attempt to simplify the spelling of the German language and thus to make it easier to learn, without substantially changing the rules familiar to all living users of the language.
The reform was based on an international agreement signed in Vienna in July 1996 by the governments of the German-speaking countries of Germany, Austria, Liechtenstein and Switzerland. Luxembourg, in which German is one of the three official languages, regarded itself "as a non-German-speaking country not to be a contributory determinant upon the German system of spelling" (statement of Othon Neuen, spokesman for the Luxembourg Ministry of Education).
The reformed orthography became obligatory in schools and in public administration. However, there was a campaign against the reform and in the resulting public debate the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany was called upon to delineate the extent of reform. In 1998[1] the court stated that because there was no law governing orthography, outside the schools people could spell as they liked, including the use of traditional spelling. In March 2006, the Council for German Orthography agreed unanimously to remove the most controversial changes from the reform; this was accepted by media organizations such as the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung that had previously opposed the reform.[2]
Contents |
The rules of the new spelling concern the following areas:
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 grapheme ß (a modernised typographical rendering of how a double s appeared in traditional Gothic script; it is seldom used in Switzerland) is considered a separate letter that is to appear only after long vowels and diphthongs. In general in German, long stressed vowels are followed by single consonants, and short stressed vowels by double consonants. In the traditional orthography, "ß" is written instead of "ss" if the s phoneme belongs to only one syllable, thus in terminal position and before consonants "ss" is always written as "ß", without regard to the length of the preceding vowel. In the reformed orthography, a short stressed vowel is never followed by "ß". This brings it into line with the two-letter spelling of other final consonants (-ch, -ck, -dt, -ff, -ll, -mm, -nn, -rr, -tt, -tz). Thus Fass [fas] – Fässer [ˈfɛsɐ], by analogy to Ball [bal] – Bälle [ˈbɛlə]; cf the old spelling: Faß – Fässer, in contrast to Maß [maːs] – Maße [ˈmaːsə] like Tal [tal] – Täler [ˈtɛlɐ].
Nevertheless, the new German spelling is not fully phonetic, 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].
Exempted from change are certain very common short-vowelled words which end in a single 's' (such as das, es), echoing other undoubled final consonants in German (e.g. ab, im, an, hat, -ig). So the frequent error of confusing the conjunction dass (previously "daß") and the relative pronoun das has remained a trap: Ich hoffe, dass sie kommt. / Das Haus, das dort steht. (I hope that she comes. / The house that stands there.)
The so-called s rule makes up over 90% of the words changed by the reform. Since a trailing -ss does not occur in the traditional orthography (being replaced by "ß") the -ss at the end of words like dass and muss is now the only quick and sure sign (unless the text is of Swiss origin) to indicate that the reformed spelling has been used (at least partly). 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, especially ä for e, are made to conform with derived or otherwise close forms
Additional minor changes aim to remove a number of special cases or to allow alternative spellings
Several loan words now allow spellings that are closer to the German norm. In particular, the affixes -phon, -phot, and -graph can be spelled with f for ph.
The reform aims to make the capitalisation of nouns uniform, and clarifies the criteria for this.
Examples such as Eis laufen are thought by some to be grammatically incorrect, the reason being laufen (literally to go, to walk, to run) is an intransitive verb and cannot take a direct object, thus engendering some harsh criticism of the spelling reform. However, this is not true: in this word, Eis is a verb modifier, not a direct object in any way; that is, it is an attachment to the verb stem which changes or specifies the meaning of the verb.
Capitalisation after a colon is now always allowed.
The polite capitalisation of du, dich, dein, ihr, euch, and euer (the cases of the familiar second person pronouns) in letters is discouraged, but it is retained for Sie, Ihnen, and Ihr (the formal second person pronouns).
As before, compound nouns are generally joined into one word, but several other compounds are now separated.
Nouns and verbs are generally separated:
Multiple infinitive verbs used with finite 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:
The scholarly debate over spelling was polarised in the late 1960s, because some of the young men and women of that generation rejected spelling regulation as "repressive" and a means of social oppression. Suggestions for reform were no longer limited to doubtful cases, but rather proposals were made to simplify German spelling and writing fundamentally, and thus to simplify the task of learning to write.
Many of the suggested reforms called for the elimination of the capitalisation of all common nouns. A similar reform had previously been carried out in the Nordic countries.
In 1980, the Internationaler Arbeitskreis für Orthographie (International Working Group for Spelling) was formed, with linguists from East Germany, West Germany, Austria, and Switzerland taking part.
The initial proposals of this working group were further discussed at two conferences in Vienna, 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 Culture of the federal states (Bundesländer in West Germany) assigned the "Institute for the German Language" in Mannheim, Germany and the "Society for the German Language" in Wiesbaden, 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 traditionally-phrased Der Kaiser ißt den Aal im Boot would be changed to the Der keiser isst den al im bot) ("The Emperor eats the eel in the boat"), but these proposals were quickly rejected by the general public, and then they were withdrawn by the Ministers of Culture 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 entitled Deutsche Rechtschreibung — Vorschläge zu ihrer Neuregelung (German Spelling — Proposals for its New Regulation). In 1993, the German Ministers of Culture 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 homophones das ("the", or "that", relative pronoun) and daß ("that", the conjunction, as in "She said that you came"), which introduce different types of subordinate clause.
At a third conference in Vienna in 1994, the results were recommended to the respective governments for acceptance. The German Ministers of Culture decided to implement the new rules on August 1, 1998, with a transitional period lasting until the 2004–2005 school year.
On July 1, 1996, all of the German states (Bundesländer), and the countries of Austria, Switzerland, and Liechtenstein, as well as some other countries with German-speaking minorities (but notably not Luxembourg) agreed to introduce the new spelling by August 1, 1998. A few German Bundesländer introduced the new rules starting with the 1996–1997 school year.
The various dictionary companies raced to be the first with the new spellings, and that idea turned out to be quite profitable. For a time, German dictionaries were showing up on the best-seller lists for German books. The market for school textbooks was also given a new life.
Some have suggested that the main cause of the current controversy over the spelling reform was the eight-year transitional period. Experience from other reforms that affected the behaviour of large groups of people (introduction of the metric system, switching to the euro, Sweden's change from driving on the left to driving on the right on Dagen H, and Britain's and Ireland's introduction of decimal currency) suggested that such reforms might very well be more effective with a shorter transitional period. When there is a longer transition period, it has been argued, many do not bother to familiarise themselves with the reforms, in the questionable hope that they might later be repealed. This tends to divide people into groups of early adopters and persistent resisters. Some experts suggest that the better course is to prepare well in advance and then make the change from one day to the next.
The above analysis, however, ignores the fact that the decision of the Ministers of Culture can ultimately affect only schools and public documents, since everyone else can simply write the way that they prefer. Thus, it is impossible to introduce a spelling reform "overnight". Even if the spelling of private individuals could be legislated, there are still billions of books and archived magazines in libraries using the older spellings. Comparison with currency change or driving on one side of the road or the other is invalid anyway: in those cases the old behavior completely disappears after the change (the old money is either valueless or must be traded in soon, and it would be highly dangerous to continue driving on the "wrong" side of the road).
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 confronted with the implementation of the new rules. At the Frankfurt Book Fair (the largest in Germany) of 1996, Friedrich Denk,[4] a teacher from Bavaria, obtained signatures from hundreds of authors and scientists demanding the cancellation of the reform. Among the leading supporters were Günter Grass, Siegfried Lenz, Martin Walser, Hans Magnus Enzensberger, and Walter Kempowski. The protest gained further nationwide significance through initiatives such as Wir Lehrer gegen die Rechtschreibreform (Teachers Against the Spelling Reform),[5] which was headed by the teacher and activist Manfred Riebe.
In May 1997, the "Society for German Spelling and Language Cultivation – initiative against the spelling reform"[6] (Verein für deutsche Rechtschreibung und Sprachpflege 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 the Bundesverfassungsgericht (Federal Constitutional Court of Germany) was called upon to make a ruling. In May 1998 a group of 550 language and literature professors, led by Theodor Ickler,[7] Helmut Jochems, Horst Haider Munske[8] and Peter Eisenberg, two of the Reformers, Harald Weinrich of the Collège de France, Jean-Marie Zemb of the Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques, and others, with a resolution requested the reversal of the reform by the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany.[9]
On July 14, 1998, after one hearing on May 12, 1998, and involving only one teachers' organisation, the High Court declared that the introduction of the spelling reform by the Ministers of Culture was legal.
In the German state of Schleswig-Holstein, a majority of people who voted in a referendum on September 27, 1998, called for a return to traditional spellings. However, the prime minister of that state, Heide Simonis, found a way to reverse the results of that 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 Culture continued to refuse to accede to their demands. The editors of the Duden 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 it, 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 was Josef Kraus,[10] the president of the Deutscher Lehrerverband (German Association of Teachers).
In 1997, an international committee was formed to handle any cases of doubt that might arise under the new rules. In 2004, the German Federal Education Minister, 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 Ministers of Culture. 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 the Conference of Ministers of Culture in March 2004. The ministers also demanded that the committee work together with the "German 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.
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 a Council 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, the use of lower and upper case, punctuation and syllabification".[11] This modified reform came into effect by August 1, 2007.
The spelling change is based on the international agreement of 1 July 1996, signed on behalf of Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. Strictly speaking, it is not a treaty. The signatories for Germany were the president of the "Conference of Ministers of Culture", Karl-Heinz Reck, and the parliamentary secretary of the Federal Ministry of the Interior, Eduard Lintner. There have been no Bundestag (parliamentary) decisions on the reforms. Instead, as mentioned above, the German Supreme Court ruled that the reform in the public schools could be decided by the Ministers of Culture. Thus, as of 1 August 2005, the traditional spelling system is to be considered incorrect in the schools, except that two of the German states, Bavaria and North Rhine-Westphalia, had both officially rejected the reform. Since 2006, the new rules have become compulsory at the 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 use spelling rules that to a large extent comply with the reforms. These includes most newspapers and periodicals, and the German press agencies Deutsche Presse Agentur (DPA) and Reuters. Still, some newspapers, including Die Zeit, the Neue Zürcher Zeitung, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, and the Süddeutsche Zeitung, created their own in-house orthography rules, while most other newspapers use approximately the rules set forth by the DPA. These in-house orthographies thus occupy a continuum between "old spelling with new rules for ß" and an (almost) full acceptance of the new rules.
In books, the implementation's success depends on the book's subject, and it often varies within a publishing house. Approximately 80% of newly-published books use the new system. 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 specifically editions intended for use in the schools.
Since dictionaries adopted the new spellings early on, there is no currently in-print, standard reference work available for traditional spellings. However, Theodor Ickler, a Professor of German at the University of Erlangen, has produced a new dictionary that aims to meet the demands of simplification without the need to impose any new spellings. There is also a lively commerce in used copies of the older Duden dictionaries. As of the 2004 edition, the Duden dictionary includes the most recent changes proposed by the Ministers of Culture.
There are still active groups working to repeal the reform, despite the transitional period having ended. The year 2002 saw the foundation of the Forschungsgruppe Deutsche Sprache (FDS) (German Language Research Group)[12] by the historian and author Reinhard Markner, with the support of some leading writers and intellectuals. In 2003, the Bavarian Minister of Culture, Hans Zehetmair, declared that the reform was a mistake, in his opinion. "Language is a dynamic process. It must grow and develop." Friedrich Denk, together with the journalist and author Hans Krieger,[13] as well as several other reform critics, founded the "Rat für deutsche Rechtschreibung" (Council for German Spelling)[14] on August 22, 2004.
Among politicians, Christian Wulff, then Minister-President of Lower Saxony, has also stated that Germany should go back to the traditional spelling. Peter Müller, the Minister-President of the Saarland said, "This spelling reform is a miscarriage, and it is not accepted by most people. Politicians have to accept this and have the power to remove this reform again completely." The Christian Democratic Union and Christian Social Union of Bavaria leaders Angela Merkel and Edmund Stoiber have also proposed repealing the reform.
The "German Academy for Language and Poetry" suggested a compromise proposal in 2003.
According to a report on the television magazine "Panorama" on July 21, 2004, "Even six years after its introduction, 77% of Germans consider the spelling reform not to be sensible. This came out of a representative poll. A majority of adults reject the new rules (for example 81% of those between 30 and 40 years old). In the meantime, only one out of every five German citizens (21%) feels that the spelling reform is acceptable."
The German debate about the spelling reform produced much surprise among Swiss media companies, rather than agreement. In Switzerland, the reform has had a less noticeable impact since the letter "ß", which was the most prominent part of the reform, had not been in much use anyway. Most Swiss newspapers and magazines follow house style that, in the case of the Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Switzerland's leading daily paper, diverges substantially from the official rules. The Schweizer Monatshefte company returned to the traditional Swiss spelling in 2004.
Liechtenstein follows the same spelling system as Switzerland.
Austrian media companies consider the orthography reform subject to be open to discussion, with no final decision having been made. A return to the traditional spelling would still be possible. Many media outlets in Austria use house style rather than the official spelling rules. A Gallup poll conducted in August 2004 indicated that 62% of Austrians would favour a return to the traditional spelling. The Kronen-Zeitung company (the most widely read newspaper in Austria) announced on August 16, 2004, that it would return to the classical spelling rules — but in the end, it did not.
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.