German alphabet

The modern German alphabet consists of the twenty-six letters of theISO basic Latin alphabet:

Majuscule forms(also calleduppercaseorcapital letters)

A

B

C

D

E

F

G

H

I

J

K

L

M

N

O

P

Q

R

S

T

U

V

W

X

Y

Z

Ä

Ö

Ü

ẞ

Minuscule forms(also calledlowercaseorsmall letters)

a

b

c

d

e

f

g

h

i

j

k

l

m

n

o

p

q

r

s

t

u

v

w

x

y

z

ä

ö

ü

ß

German uses letter-diacritic combinations (Ä/ä,Ö/ö,Ü/ü) using theumlautand one ligature (ẞ/ß(calledeszett(sz) orscharfes S,sharp s)), but they do not constitute distinct letters in the alphabet.

Key characteristics

Umlaut diacritic usage

See also:Umlaut (diacritic)

Although the diacritic letters represent distinct sounds inGerman phonology,they are almost universally not considered to be part of the alphabet. Almost all German speakers consider the alphabet to have the 26cardinal lettersabove and will name only those when asked to say the alphabet.

Thediacriticlettersä,öandüare used to indicate the presence ofumlauts(frontalizations of back vowels). Before the introduction of theprinting press,frontalization was indicated by placing aneafter the back vowel to be modified, but German printers developed the space-saving typographical convention of replacing the fullewith a small version placed above the vowel to be modified. In GermanKurrentwriting, the superscriptedewas simplified to two vertical dashes, which have degenerated to dots in both handwriting and German typesetting. Although the two dots look like those in thediaeresis (trema)diacritical marking, a distinction should be made between umlaut and diaresis because the two have different functions.

When it is not possible to use the umlauts (for example, when using a restricted character set) the charactersÄ, Ö, Ü, ä, ö, üshould be transcribed asAe, Oe, Ue, ae, oe, uerespectively, following the earlier postvocalic-econvention; simply using the base vowel (e.g.,uinstead ofü) would be wrong and misleading. However, such transcription should be avoided if possible, especially with names. Names often exist in different variants, such as "Müller" and "Mueller", and with such transcriptions in use one could not work out the correct spelling of the name.

Automatic back-transcribing is not only wrong for names. Consider, for example,das neue Buch( "the new book" ). This should never be changed todas neü Buch,as the secondeis completely separate from theu:neueisneu(the root for new) followed by ane,an inflection. The wordneüdoes not exist in German.

Furthermore, in northern and western Germany, there are family names and place names in whichelengthens the preceding vowel, as in the former Dutch orthography, such asStraelen,which is pronounced with a longa,not anä.Similar cases areSoest,CoesfeldandBernkastel-Kues.

In proper names and ethnonyms, there may also appear a rareëandï,which are not letters with an umlaut, but adiaeresis,used as in French to distinguish what could be a digraph, for example,aiinKaraïmen,euinAlëuten,ieinFerdinand PiëchandoeinBernhard Hoëcker(although Hoëcker added the diaeresis personally). To separate theaudiphthong, as well as some others, which are graphically composed of potentially umlaut-holding letters, theacute accentis sometimes used (e.g. Saúdi-Arabien).

Swiss typewriters and computer keyboards do not allow easy input of uppercase letters with umlauts (norß) for their positions are taken by the most frequent French diacritics. Uppercase umlauts were dropped because they are less common than lowercase ones (especially in Switzerland). Geographical names in particular are supposed to be written withA, O, Upluseexcept "Österreich" (Austria). The omission can cause some inconvenience since the first letter of everynounis capitalized in German.

Unlike inHungarian,the exact shape of the umlaut diacritics, especially when handwritten, is not important, because they are the only ones in the language (except for the dot oniandj). They will be understood whether they look like dots (¨),acute accents(̋), vertical bars (̎), a horizontal bar (macron,¯), abreve(˘), a tiny N, atilde(˜), and such variations are often used in stylized writing (e.g. logos). In the past, however, the breve was traditionally used in some scripts to distinguish aufrom ann,as was thering(°). In rare cases thenwas underlined. The breveduwas common in someKurrent-derived handwritings; it was mandatory inSütterlin.

Sharp s

The German sign "Delicious red cabbage." Left cap is with old orthography, right with new.

Theeszettorscharfes S(ß) represents theunvoiced ssound. TheGerman spelling reform of 1996somewhat reduced usage of this letter in Germany and Austria. It is not used inSwitzerlandandLiechtenstein.

As the ß derives from a ligature of lower-case letters, it is itself exclusively lower-case. The proper transcription when it cannot be used, or when writing a word in all capital letters, isssorSS.This transcription can give rise to ambiguities, albeit rarely; one such case isin Maßen(in moderation) vs.in Massen(en masse). For all caps usage, anuppercaseßhas been proposed for over a century, but has found neither general acceptance nor official recognition.In 2008, however, it was included inUnicode 5.1as U+1E9E, and since 2010 its use is mandatory in official documentation when writing geographical names in all-caps.

Although nowadays substituted correctly only byss,the letter actually originates from two distinct ligatures (depending on word and spelling rules):long swithround s( "ſs" ) andlong swith(round) z( "ſz" / "ſʒ" ). Some people therefore prefer to substitute "ß" by "sz". According to official rules this is incorrect, but it can avoid possible ambiguities (as in the above "Maßen" vs "Massen" example).

Incorrect use of the "ß" letter is a very common type of spelling error even among native German speakers. Although the spelling reform of 1996 was meant to simplify the rules concerning "ß" and "ss", it also caused considerable confusion and is widely disregarded: some people even incorrectly assumed that the "ß" had been abolished completely.

Long s

In theFrakturtypeface and similar scripts, along s(ſ) was used except in syllable endings (cf. Greeksigma) and sometimes it was historically used inantiquafonts as well; but it went out of general use in the early 1940s along with the Fraktur typeface. An example where this convention would avoid ambiguity isWachstube,which was written eitherWachſtube=Wach-Stube(German pronunciation:[ˈvax.ʃtuːbə],guardhouse) orWachstube=Wachs-Tube(German pronunciation:[vaks.tuːbə],tube of wax).

Letter usage in loanwords

• Except for the common sequencessch(/ʃ/),ch(allophone:/x/or/ç/) andck(/k/) the lettercappears only inloanwordsor inproper nouns.In many loanwords, including most words of Latin origin, the lettercpronounced (/k/) has been replaced byk.German words which come from Latin words withcbeforee, i, y, ae, oeare usually pronounced with (/ts/) and spelled withz.
• The letterqin German only ever appears in the sequencequ(/kv/), with the exception of loanwords, e.g.,Coq au vinorQigong(which is also writtenChigong).
• The letterx(Ix,/ɪks/) occurs almost exclusively in loanwords. Native German words that are now pronounced with a/ks/sound are usually written usingchsorcks,as withFuchs(fox). Some exceptions do occur, though, such asHexe(witch),Nixe(mermaid) andAxt(axe).
• The lettery(Ypsilon,/ˈʏpsilɔn/) occurs almost exclusively in loanwords, especially words of Greek origin, although some such words (e.g.,Typ) have become so common that they are no longer perceived as foreign. It used to be more common inGerman orthographyin earlier centuries, and traces of this earlier usage persist in proper names. It is used either as an alternative letter fori,for instance inMayer/Meyer(a common family name that occurs also in the spellingsMaier/Meier), or – especially in the Southwest – as a representation of[iː]that goes back to an oldIJ (digraph),for instance inSchwyzorSchnyder(anAlemannic Germanvariant of the nameSchneider).Another notable exception isBayern,the German name ofBavaria,and derived words likebayerisch(Bavarian).

In loan words from theFrench languagespelling and accents are usually preserved. For instance,caféis always writtenCaféin German when it means "coffeehouse";Cafewould be considered erroneous and it cannot be writtenKaffeeeither, because this meanscoffee.For this reason Germantypewritersand computer keyboards offer twodead keys,one for the acute and grave accents, and one for circumflex. Other letters occur less often, likeçin loan words from French or Portuguese, andñin loan words from Spanish.

Sorting

There are three ways to deal with the umlauts inalphabetic sorting.

1. Treat them like their base characters, as if the umlaut was not present (DIN5007-1, section 6.1.1.4.1). This is the preferred method for dictionaries, where umlauted words ( "Füße", feet) should appear near their origin words ( "Fuß", foot). In words which are the same except for one having an umlaut and one its base character (e.g., "Müll" vs. "Mull" ), the word with the base character gets precedence.
2. Decompose them (invisibly) to vowel pluse(DIN 5007-2, section 6.1.1.4.2). This is often preferred for personal and geographical names, wherein the characters are used unsystematically, as in Germantelephone directories( "Müller, A.; Mueller, B.; Müller, C." ).
3. They are treated like extra letters either placed
   1. after their base letters (Austrian phone books haveäbetweenazandbetc.) or
   2. at the end of the alphabet (as inSwedishor in extended ASCII).

Microsoft Windowsin German versions offers the choice between the first two variants in its internationalisation settings.

Eszettis sorted as though it weress.Occasionally it is treated ass,but this is generally considered incorrect. It is not used at all in Switzerland.

Accents in French loan words are always ignored in collation.

In rare contexts (e. g. in older indices)sch(equal to Englishsh) and likewisestandchare treated as single letters, but the vocalicdigraphsai, ei(historicallyay, ey),au, äu, euand the historicuiandoinever are.

Letter names

• A:/ʔaː/
• Ä:/ʔɛː/
• B:/beː/
• C:/t͡seː/
• D:/deː/
• E:/ʔeː/
• F:/ʔɛf/
• G:/ɡeː/
• H:/haː/
• I:/ʔiː/
• J:/jɔt/;in Austria/jeː/
• K:/kaː/
• L:/ʔɛl/
• M:/ʔɛm/
• N:/ʔɛn/
• O:/ʔoː/
• Ö:/ʔøː/
• P:/peː/
• Q:/kuː/;in Austria/kveː/
• R:/ʔɛʁ/
• S:/ʔɛs/
• ß:Eszett,/ɛsˈt͡sɛt/;scharfes S,/ˈʃaʁfəsʔɛs/
• T:/teː/
• U:/ʔuː/
• Ü:/ʔyː/
• V:/faʊ̯/
• W:/veː/
• X:/ʔɪks/
• Y:/ˈʔʏpsilɔn/
• Z: /t͡sɛt/

Spelling alphabet

There is a Germanspelling alphabetsimilar to theICAO spelling alphabet.The official version in Germany, laid down in DIN 5009, is as follows:

Letter	Code	Letter	Code	Letter	Code
A	Anton	K	Kaufmann	ß	Eszett
Ä	Ärger	L	Ludwig	T	Theodor
B	Berta	M	Martha	U	Ulrich
C	Cäsar	N	Nordpol	Ü	Übermut
D	Dora	O	Otto	V	Viktor
E	Emil	Ö	Ökonom	W	Wilhelm
F	Friedrich	P	Paula	X	Xanthippe
G	Gustav	Q	Quelle	Y	Ypsilon
H	Heinrich	R	Richard	Z	Zacharias
I	Ida	S	Samuel
J	Julius	SCH	SCHule

The spelling alphabet was changed several times during the 20th century, in some cases for political reasons. In 1934, "Jewish" names (i.e. those derived from theHebrew Bible) were replaced by theNazi regime.Thus,David, Jakob, Nathan, SamuelandZachariasbecameDora, Jot, Nordpol, SiegfriedandZeppelin.In Germany, the 1948 and 1950 versions reverted to some of the old versions but introduced additional changes. Many of the older, officially obsolete forms are still found in popular use, in particularSiegfriedandZeppelin.Some letter names are still official in Austria. The official Austrian version, as laid down in ÖNORM A 1081, differs from DIN 5009 in the following places:

Letter	Code	Letter	Code
K	Konrad	Ü	Übel
Ö	Österreich	X	Xaver
S	Siegfried	Z	Zürich
ß	Scharfes S

Konradis also used in Germany, although this is not and never was official there.Konradcan cause confusion since the first name "Conrad" (spelled with a "C" ) also exists. Not following the norm, but not uncommon areCHarlotteand - especially in Austria -CHristine,NorbertandZeppelin.

In Switzerland and Liechtenstein yet another slightly differentspelling alphabet is used.

See also

• German orthography
• German braille

External links

Wikt:Appendix:German spelling alphabet