Re: Uppercase ß is coming? (U+1E9E)

From: Asmus Freytag (asmusf@ix.netcom.com)
Date: Mon May 07 2007 - 13:15:12 CDT

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    Adam Twardoch concluded his very nice analysis with:
    > ....To remain logical, consistent and reader-friendly, "ß" needs (at
    > some point) to assume a single graphemic shape in the uppercase.
    >
    > I believe that it should be an exciting task for type designers now to
    > come up with a new form. In my opinion, this issue is definitely not
    > one that is completely solved. We’re in the middle of a slow
    > transition period for "ß". The 1996 reform started it and showed the
    > direction.
    >
    > A.
    >
    We are currently in the phase where the 1996 reform is still being
    digested, but once enough people have grown up with it, Adam's arguments
    about the insufficiency of the standard 'SS' uppercase vis-a-vis a now
    unambiguous distinction between the way ß and 'ss' are pronounced will
    become only more salient.

    The process will be slow, and there is no way to predict any outcome as
    inevitable. But given that the historical trend went in the direction of
    treating ß more and more as a single character, and the general trend in
    bicameral systems is to have 1:1 correspondence, including the addition
    of missing forms, I think Adam may well be correct in his analysis.

    I certainly would not venture to place a bet on the long-term viability
    of a merely glyph-oriented solution to this issue.

    I'm also convinced that this character is in danger of becoming the
    most-studied single character proposal, which is especially ironic in
    the light of the 4000-odd CJK extension C characters that may contain
    dozens, nay hundreds of characters with less-certain origin and future,
    but that excite barely a comment.

    It's time to end this diverting discussion and approve the proposal as
    presented,

    A./



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