Re: ß (German sharp s) in word-initial position

From: Frank Ellermann (nobody@xyzzy.claranet.de)
Date: Sun May 06 2007 - 16:09:46 CDT

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    Karl Pentzlin wrote:

    > Some Low German ortographies use word-initial ß.

    Never heard of that one before, and trying to Google it I only
    found one article claiming that it won't see any "Sßtich" (trick):
    http://de.nntp2http.com/etc/sprache/deutsch/2006/05/2c9bfa76b0409c894fb10e271d0e1049.html

    > Uppercase in this orthography is "Sß".

    Interesting, they wouldn't propose it if they have no Low Saxon
    words for it, or would they ? Is it a side-effect of their
    orthography ?

    > Sorbian orthography used word-initial ß until about 1946.
    > Uppercase in this ortography is "Ss". A specimen of 1905 is
    > attached.

    Also interesting, and unsurprisingly I wasn't lucky in my attempt
    to find other online samples. The ßwojo (?) in your PNG led me
    to a page apparently saying that this is a "wrong" variant of
    siswojo, the ßedlo resulted in various ssedlo, some of them Czech,
    and the Sßerbskje (when I try ßerbskeje) resulted in a page where
    I could buy an old Sorbian bible, and a page where the authors
    might have avoided "Sß" by using "Ss" for an English audience:
    http://www.taslib.ox.ac.uk/2004maysla.htm

    Frank



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