Don’t all rush to WikiPedia to update the entry, but the Irish Times today tells us that “an addition to the German alphabet (has) emerged blinking into the daylight after a campaign lasting 130 years – to a hail of indifference.”

Apparently, it’s the capital letter equivalent of ß, which up to now has been taken care of (in Germany) by use of two “S” letters instead, because only a small letter ß exists.

They’d been trying to kill the case for the thing off for years, but now, the “German Norms Institute (DIN) …proposed a capital ß to the International Organisation for Standardisation and, on Monday, the letter became standard – with ISO 10646.” The article quotes an excited Dr Günter of the German Language Council:

“We are not responsible for letters, but for keeping an eye on spelling and to make sure rules are followed. Whether there is a need for this letter is a question that remained unanswered for centuries. It’s likely to remain that way for a while to come.”

Anyway, I couldn’t find much about on the Internet as to what this new letter even looks like, or is supposed to look like. Maybe someone knows?

Yes: Someone did (see the comments too):

(WikiPedia has Unicode details too. Hat Tip: Will)

To read more about it, you’ll need an Irish Times paid subscription (don’t bother, it’s not worth getting streßed about).



Will this lead to a mad updating of translation memories, I wonder?