Linked by rohan_p on Wed 8th Aug 2012 15:21 UTC
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RE[4]: Its AÃ��ïÂÂ&i
by Doc Pain on Thu 9th Aug 2012 00:39
in reply to "RE[3]: Its AÃ��ïÂÂ&i"
Disagree here; those special characters shape a language.
Especially compount words in the german language profit from ligatures like the Eszett. (Yes, it's not a letter, it's a ligature consisting of two lowercase s, precisely long-s plus round-s, forming a unit that's not hyphenated, dissolving to SS when capitalized, and has nothing to do with "vowel length").
Example: Meßstrecke vs. Messstrecke (measuring track)
Just count the consonants!
It also improves reading:
Bambuseßstäbchen vs. Bambussessstäbchen (today's common "short vowel" nonsense spelling error included) (bamboo chopstick)
The Eszett is a typographical aspect of the language that helps to differentiate words. In Switzerland, those two are only distinguishable from context, not from written representation:
Buße (penalty fee) vs. Busse (buses)
Maße (measures) vs. Masse (mass)
If Eszett cannot be typed, it's common to replace it by ss (which is a valid and common replacement). If it's neccessary to "preserve" the Eszett (e. g. to write a name of a person), instead of ss also sz may be used (because it appears "validly" only in easily recognizable exceptions, so you can be sure sz means Eszett). This concept is nearly exclusively used in teletype and data transmission via basic ASCII.




Member since:
2006-05-09
Disagree here; those special characters shape a language. I'm a native Spanish speaker and 'á', 'ñ', '¿' or 'ü' are part of its history and personality. Currently a lot of people write without using tildes, and, though their texts are perfectly understandable, their texts show their poor level of language handling too.