From: Otto Stolz (Otto.Stolz@uni-konstanz.de)
Date: Fri Feb 18 2005 - 09:07:16 CST
Hello,
I had written:
> The current spelling is "Pressburg", according to
> <http://www.ids-mannheim.de/reform/a1-2.html#P2>.
> (This has been effective since 1998-08-01.)
Peter Kirk schrieb:
> This reform was promulgated by the German government, but I didn't think
> it had had any authority in Slovakia at least since 1945.
Wrong. This is a myth promulgated by opponents to the reform.
Actually, on 1996-07-01 at Vienna, delegates (mostly the heads of the
educational departments) of Belgium, Germany, Bozen-Südtirol (part of Italy),
Liechtenstein, Austria, Romania, Switzerland, and Hungary,
have agreed on this reform, which had been finally drafted by an
international board of experts from 1994-11-24 and 1994-11-24 at Vienna.
The whole agreement (in German, including facsimiles of the delegates'
signatures) can be found at
<http://rechtschreibung.ids-mannheim.de/kommission_wienerErklaerung.html>.
No delegate of Slovakia had participated at those Vienna conferences,
but then the actual spelling of that town's name in Slovakia is "Bratislava";
"Preßburg" is a historical spelling; "Pressburg" is the actual spelling
of the German name of that town. I didn't think that the Slovakian
government is competent (or even interested) in deciding about Bratislava's
spelling in foreign languages. (Though, to my upmost astonishment, if not
shock, the Czech government indeed has exerted influence on the German
name of their country.)
Best wishes,
Otto Stolz
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Fri Feb 18 2005 - 09:08:00 CST