Talk:German alphabet

First comment

I'm almost absolutely positive that the umlauts aren't alphabetised separately. -- Toby Bartels 04:10 12 Jun 2003 (UTC)

You are right. I think this page is dispensable altogether; there is no "German alphabet"; we use the same 26 Latin letters as everyone else. Umlauts are no separate letters and aren't sorted separately; most people make no difference between "Ä" and "A" when sorting. Phonebooks are a bit more picky and sort "Ä" as if it still was the ligature from which it derived, "Ae". djmutex 06:54 12 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Really? I was teached at elementary school that the alphabet consists of 29 letters plus ß, and that the non-latin letters are sorted like their non-umlaut ersatz forms (ae, oe, ue, ss). That was in the early 1980s, things may have changed since however. --LordToran (talk) 00:52, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

I don't think think that the article's completely useless. It's got stuff about phonebooks in it, for example. ^_^ -- Toby Bartels 08:14 12 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Thank you, except that I think you misunderstood what I was trying to say. :-) djmutex 08:59 12 Jun 2003 (UTC)

German most certainly counts ä, ö, ü, and ß as separate letters. Compare the German page on the same topic, which is correct in this respect: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deutsches_Alphabet

This page therefore needs to be corrected. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.28.127.169 (talk) 12:07, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

This page definitely contains a lot of mistakes. There is a German-alphabet and it does consist of 30 letters. Also every educated person knows that fact. Please somebody has to correct this mess. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wirtschaftsingenieurstudent (talk • contribs) 15:34, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

Confusion first paragraph

In the second phrase: "German uses letter-diacritic combinations (Ä/ä, Ö/ö, Ü/ü) using the umlaut", but Umlaut is a diacritic (the phonetic phenomenon). To be honest, all articles related with this term leads the reader to the same confusion. So, the phrase could be better if it was: "German uses letter-diacritic combinations (Ä/ä, Ö/ö, Ü/ü) knows as umlaut using the trema mark" 195.93.244.97 (talk) 09:48, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

A trema consists of double dots. That does not mean that double dots always form a trema. The double dots in "Köln" may look like a trema, but they are not. Richard 08:43, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

Geographical names

I do not understand the sentence Geographical names in particular are often required to be written with A, O, U plus e, in particular the word "required".

Does this mean "there are circumstances in which no geographical names with Umlauts are allowed"? I don't think so.

Or does it mean "there are geographical names with ae/oe/ue which are never written with umlauts"? That is certainly true (the Duden mentiones Oelsnitz and Oebisfelde), but this is true for many names, not only geographical ones. Goethe is never spelled with ö.

-- Austrian 22:19, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Some general thoughts

I'm afraid this page is trying to replicate much of the information that is already found under ß and Umlaut, and these articles are as comprehensive as this one can ever hope to be. I would like to suggest that we cut down the descriptions of the extra letters a little and concentrate on a comprehensive account of collation rules, pointing, of course, the inclined reader to the mentioned articles.

By the way, I removed the section about Fraktur. Fraktur is not an alphabet. It's a typeface which can be used to print the 30 letters described in this article just like an Antiqua typeface can. --SKopp 01:48, 1 August 2005 (UTC)

I'm reluctant to just unilaterally revert it, but I don't think the stuff on Fraktur should've been removed. Fraktur's not an alphabet, true (at least, for given values of alphabet), but Fraktur was quite significant to the German orthography. The italicised word's why I'm reluctant to just add it back, but I think something about Fraktur should be mentioned that's mostly just a link to a page on Fraktur. I don't think you could get less than what was there before (modifying the word 'alphabet' as appropriate). (People also often use words like 'German alphabet' to express a meaning ambiguous between blackletter and Fraktur styles, so in any case something about Fraktur needs to be here.) Felix the Cassowary 08:34, 1 August 2005 (UTC)

Information I would like to see

I think this article is missing some information about the "common" letters. It (barely) explains the use of y, x, c, ß, etc., but doesn't explain how the other letters are used (e.g.: Are "f" and "v" two letters for the same sound? The first vowel of the name of the letter "y" corresponds to one of ä, ö, ü or is it a different vowel? Is it pronounced as its name implies?). The name of the letters may give some clue, but they are not enough. Some information from "German Phonology" may help to enrich this article.

y is pronounced ['ypsilo:n], the first vowel is the same as an ü. In German words, y can be pronounced like ü (Xylofon, Physik), like i (Baby, Handy) or like j (Yacht) --Androl 13:35, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

f is always pronounced [f], v is either pronounced [f] or [v]. x is [ks], ß is [s], and c is one of a myriad of variants depending on the word's origin, what di- or trigraph it's part of, and so on. —Nightstallion (?) 14:58, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

Does anybody object if I add a pronunciation table near the end of the article? After all, German phonology does only list the sounds, but not how written German is to be pronounced. --Wutzofant (✉✍) 12:08, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

In the beginning of a word "v" is pronounced as [f] in all words and names that are originally German (or Dutch). Otherwise, so in loanwords from other languages and in the midst of a word "v" is pronounced as [v] (exceptions: evangelisch, Hannover) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.52.180.182 (talk) 18:32, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

"The letter x (Ix, /ɪks/) occurs almost only in loan words. Natively German words that are now pronounced with a /ks/ sound are usually written using chs or cks." - The 2 very common Expections are "Axt" (axe) and "Hexe" (witch) - e - bost at gmx dot de 217.82.118.125 07:07, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

W equals V, V equals W

How did the stereotype arise that German speakers, when speaking English, mispronounce the V like a W? I understand the W=V part, but how does V=W when clearly V=F? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 67.188.172.165 (talk • contribs) 11:14, 5 October 2006 GMT+11.

It’s the sounds, not the writing system, that count here. The German sound of w is not always [v]; frequently, it’s a sound mid-way between [v] and [w] (a labiodental approximant). This particular phone can sound like either /v/ or /w/ to English speakers, and often sounds like the other one. —Felix the Cassowary 06:20, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Letter combinations

Nothing is written about the letter combination, used in German, i.e.: ie, ei, sch, tsch, etc. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Asker123 (talk • contribs) 10:06, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Comes the question: do these combinations have a place in the alphabet?. I know that for example in Hungarian the "combinations" cs, dz, dzs, gy, ly, ny, sz, ty and zs have their own place in the alphabet but that isn't the case in German: ie are two letters: i and e. So, in my opinion, the combinations might be worth mentioning somewhere but not in this article. Richard 09:35, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Error

Quote: "loan words from the French language spelling and diacritics are usually preserved"

This is not true. Indeed, the accents are usually not preserved, except for -é- in the end of a word: Café, Kommuniqué, etc. It is only in exceptions that an accent grave or circonflexe can occur.

No, you are wrong here. Especially french accents are normally always preserved – all of them that are somehow accessible. So you often see the french "à" in Germany in the meaning of "zu" (e.g. "6 Gläser à 250 ml") or in the combination "à la ..." and a "Crème fraîche" is also always written like this. So it is clearly not only the "é". --188.104.139.25 (talk) 23:56, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

Ë

From the article:

In proper names there rarely may also appear an ë, which is not an umlaut, but a trema to distinguish what could be a digraph as in French, like oe in Bernhard Hoëcker (although in this case the trema was added artificially by that person).

That is unclear. How does Herr Hoëcker pronounce his name? How is "Hoecker" pronounced (when not mispronounced "Höcker")? And how does Ferdinand Piëch pronounce his name? Piëch already has a Wikipedia article so might make a better/additional example; though of course there is no possible confusion with *Pïch. jnestorius^(talk) 11:18, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

I think that, without the trema, Hoecker would indeed often be pronounced as if it were Höcker (two syllables). Since it should be pronounced Ho: ecker (three syllables) mr. Hoëcker added a trema (I guess he got tired of his name being mispronounced).

Piëch is Pi: eχ (two syllables) where Piech could be pronounced Pi:χ (one syllable).

Richard 09:05, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

I am German so sorry for my English.

Ë (e with two dots) doesn't belong to the German alphabet and isn't available in any German words except loanwords (ë doesn't even exist on German keyboard layouts!). Hoëcker's birth name is Hoecker (without two dots on the e).

In German language it is common to replace ö with oe, if ö isn't available (e.g. on old typewriters). Same with ä and ae, ü and ue, and ß and ss. Especially in personal names those spelling variants are usual (a frequent last name is Schröder, but a lot of people are spelled Schroeder. It is pronounced equally).

But the o and the e of Hoëcker's name aren't in the same syllable, so oe isn't a replacement for ö. And that was Hoëcker's problem—most people automatically pronounced his last name like Höcker.

He decided to change his stage name from Hoecker to Hoëcker to show that the letters are pronounced individually. His ID and his passport names him officially Hoecker without two dots.--31.17.92.168 (talk) 19:24, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

Puzzled by a y-umlaut

I was researching some old genealogy and found Catholic church records spelling the town once known as "Weigelsdorf" (prior to WWII, when it was absorbed by Poland as Wigancice) as "Weygelsdorff", with two dots over the "y", like an umlaut. The era was the 1760s and earlier. (Starting in 1770 it had the modern spelling.) I looked here to see what it might have been. Can anyone update the page with information about that character, or how it was pronounced? (Dbomp (talk) 01:13, 16 March 2009 (UTC))

I don't know if this helps, but in Dutch (which is closely related to German) a similar phenomenon exists: the last names Kuiper, Kuijper and Kuyper all exist and although they're not the same, their pronunciation is. The same goes for Meiboom / Meijboom / Meyboom. These variations probably developed from the 17th century onward. It seems to me that combinations vowel+i at some point could occur as vowel+ij and/or vowel+y as well, and although vowel+ij / vowel+y have been eliminated in most cases, names are usually not changed when a spelling reform is effected. So, to answer your question: Weygelsdorff is probably pronounced identical to Weigelsdorf.

Mind you: a y-umlaut (ÿ) does NOT exist in Dutch.

Richard 09:06, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Introduction

I’ve changed the introduction here; it started by saying the alphabet had 26 letters, then further down it has a section for four extra letters. That makes it a 30 letter alphabet by my reckoning. And the link to Latin-based alphabet describes German as an Extended Latin Alphabet, so I’ve added put that here too. I also thought the Latin letters should have their own section, too. Moonraker12 (talk) 17:38, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

That is a difficult case: The four extra-letters are somewhere in between. On the one hand, German children learn in elementary school that the alphabet consists of 26 letters, and when enumerating the letters of the alphabet, Germans usually will not mention the umlauts or ß. On the other hand, the extra four letters are "felt" to be sufficiently distinct so as to not be exchanged for their base variants, e.g. even lazy German writers will rather not write A instead of Ä, like it is done in Spanish or French when leaving away the accent marks. 129.69.215.20 (talk) 09:32, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

Extra letters

When listening to the extra letters, I noticed that the sounds were the same as in Tux Paint. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.190.123.204 (talk) 17:24, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

Ligatures and non-standard letters

If the Grammar is poor, improve, but not remove! And say, which grammar is poorer: English or German? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.220.33.64 (talk) 16:54, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

Each language has its own grammar but on the English wikipedia you should abide by the rules of English grammar. Aside from bad grammar, the new section contained info that was already in the article, as well as a lot of stuff that wasn't really alphabet-related. And since this article is about the German alphabet, it doesn't belong here. Richard 08:14, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Can You help me to find those places in my addition, which are seriously bad in Grammar!

And of course, why have you removed some information which doesn't copy the other materials from this article? (For example, about using of ů and y?).

Answer my questions, please. (Because my another additions in Wikipedia were not removed because of grammar. And what about the same information? I think, my addition is able not only copy, but it also can broad the superscribed information).

P.S. Wikipedia is a f r e e Encyclopædia, so one must reconcile himself to encyclopedia's situation: if the article or addition isn't dangerous for sosciety, it can be typed here. I think, before any removing a large amount of people have to vote for or against the removing, like in any democratic sosciety. 62.220.33.64 (talk)

Could you please sign your comments on talk pages? You can do that by typing four tildes (~~~~). Upon saving, that will be replaced by your username or IP address and the date and time. That way, it's easier to see who said what and when.

While blackletter is an interesting subject, it's more typeface than alphabet related. That German spelling rules have changed is true. That in the past combinations with 'y' were more common than today is true as well, but it has more to do with the history of German spelling than with the German alphabet.

Except for ß, the ligatures you mention are not part of the current German alphabet and therefore don't belong in this article. The origin of ß is the only reason why ſ is mentioned in this article. ∫ is not a long s.

The umlaut has an article of its own. Its history is in that article. In that article ů can be found as well - and as you can read there, that's not a u but an oldfashioned way of writing uo. ŭ is a way of writing u but that is already mentioned: a brevis ( ˘ ) ... also used to distinguish a "u" from an "n" in some Kurrent-derived handwritings.

In short: your addition does not belong here. Richard 09:13, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

PS: A free encyclopedia means you can use it for free and yes, you can add content to it. It doesn't mean that you can add everything everywhere.

16:23, 6 December 2010 (UTC)~~ —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.220.33.64 (talk)

I know that ∫ is not the long s, but my system can't represent this symbol, so I have no way and use the integral instead of it. You could improve it but your attitude to me isn't very friendly today and you prefered to delete that information from the main page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.220.33.64 (talk) 16:20, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

And about ů - don't mix slavic and germanic languages, because that you've mentioned is more typical for Czech language than for German. May be you know that in modern Czech it is to be read as long u (written not in the beginning of the word where ú with accent is used). And what about German? For example, you can read some Renaissance documents. E.g., a document (circa 1542) about Carl V and his war in Algeria: <...>mit einer treffenlichen Armada/die Statt Algiero zů Erobern...<...> und so weiter!

Round and brevis were used as well as half-rounds and commas above u. You can find them if you want. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.220.33.64 (talk) 16:39, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

In hand-written German various signs are used above an u to distinguish it from an n.

And please sign your edits with ~~~~. ♆ CUSH ♆ 08:52, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

Were used, in my opinion. My grandmother used to do that, and so did a rather old teacher of mine many years ago, but as far as I know, the marks above u to distinguish it from v and n have fallen out of fashion decades ago. 129.69.215.20 (talk) 09:35, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

62.220.33.64 (talk) The justice is alive! Some pieces of information which I have proposed are written in the Note. Das ist nicht schlecht. Natuerlich! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.220.33.64 (talk) 16:46, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Bruno

The turrets on the battleship Bismarck were named: Anton, Bruno, Caesar, Dora. The article makes no mention of the word Bruno being used as part of the WWII German spelling alphabet. Was this just an anomaly, or are there other instances of this? -Noha307 (talk) 02:47, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

Number of letters

It is not true that most Germans think that there are 26 letters. If you compare this article to the German version of this article, you can see the section with the comment, that some say it’s 26, some say it’s 27 (including the ß) and some saying it’s 30 (including äöüß). 92.10.254.18 (talk) 10:26, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

Merger with a German Orthography

I think this page might need to be merged with German orthography. The only piece of information on this page that isn’t covered at German orthography is the spelling alphabet, which could easily be added as a column to the current tables in the alphabet section of the German orthography pages. 2001:BB6:B84C:CF00:15BB:56B7:7154:568D (talk) 12:35, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

Spelling alphabet is incorrect

The traditional german spelling alphabet "postalische Buchstabiertafel" got replaced by "Deutsche Buchstabiertafel für Wirtschaft und Verwaltung" as can bee seen here. I did read the DIN 5009 which states that table reworked in 2020 was only symbolic to revert the changed the nazis made. In the official table, the spelling alphabet consits of german cities. 2A00:8A60:C010:1:0:0:1:10F2 (talk) 15:45, 13 February 2024 (UTC)