German orthography reform of 1996

The German spelling reform (Rechtschreibreform) is based on an international agreement signed in 1996 by the governments of the German-speaking countries Germany, Austria, Liechtenstein, and Switzerland. Luxembourg, a trilingual country with German as one of its official languages, has not endorsed the reform.

New rules

The spelling reform is an attempt to simplify the orthography and make it easier to learn, without substantially changing the familiar rules of the German language. The new rules concern the following areas:

correspondence between sounds and written letters (this includes rules for spelling loan words)
capitalization
joined and separate words
hyphenated spellings
punctuation
hyphenation at the end of a line.

Place names and family names are excluded from the reform.

Sounds and letters

The reform aims to systematize the correspondence between sounds (phonemes) and letters (graphemes), and to strengthen the principle that derived forms should follow the spelling of the root form.

ß and ss: the letter "ß" is to appear only after long vowels and diphthongs.

der Fluß → der Fluss (the river)

A short vowel is to be followed by "ss" or "s".

Ich möchte, daß du kommst. → …, dass du kommst (I want you to come)
but das Haus → das Haus (the house)

As a consequence, the German spelling of Anschluss, for example, is now closer to the English spelling.

der Anschluß → der Anschluss

Triple consonants before a vowel are no longer reduced (but hyphenation is often used in these instances anyway):

Schiffahrt → Schifffahrt from Schiff + Fahrt (boat trip)

Doubled consonants appear after short vowels at the end of certain words, to conform with derived forms

As → Ass because of plural Asse (ace, aces)

Vowel changes, especially "ä" for "e", are to be made to conform with derived or otherwise close forms

Stengel → Stängel (stalk) because of Stange (bar)

Additional minor changes aim to remove a number of special cases or allow alternative spellings

rauh → rau (rough) because of blau, grau, genau

Several loan words now allow spellings that are closer to German. Especially, the affixes -phon, -phot, and -graph can be spelt with f for ph.

Capitalization

The reform aims to make the capitalization of nouns uniform, and clarifies the criteria for this.

infrage stellen → in Frage stellen (to call into question)
eislaufen → Eis laufen (to ice-skate)

Capitalization after a colon is now always allowed.

The polite capitalization of du, dein, ihr, euch in letters is removed, but retained for Sie, Ihnen, and Ihr.

Compound words

As before, compound nouns are joined, but several other compounds are now separated.

Nouns and verbs are generally separated:

radfahren → "Rad fahren" (ride a bike)

Infinitive verbs with other verbs are separated:

kennenlernen → kennen lernen (get to know)

Other constructions now admit alternative forms:

an Stelle von or anstelle von (instead of)

There are some subtle changes in the meaning when the new forms collide with pre-existing forms:

vielversprechend → "viel versprechend" (literally "much promising", but the meaning of the first word is "promising" in the sense of "up-and-coming", while the second meaning is "promising many things")

History of the 1996 spelling reform

Debate over the need for reform

The scholarly debate over correct spelling was polarized in the late 1960s, because some of the young men and women of that generation rejected spelling regulation as "repressive" and a means for social selection. Suggestions for reform were no longer limited to trying to decide doubtful cases, but rather proposals were made to fundamentally simplify German spelling and thus simplify the task of learning to write.

Many of the reform suggestions called for the elimination of the capitalization of all nouns, replacing it with a system like that in English, where only proper nouns are capitalized. A similar reform had been carried out in Nordic countries after World War II.

A study in the Netherlands suggested that the German system seemed to improve the reading speed of test groups. The test subjects could read text samples in their native tongue more quickly if they were written with all nouns capitalized than with the English capitalization system. The report was quite influential, and in Britain it was soon suggested that this capitalization be taken over into English, though the attempt to do so failed completely.

Institutionalized reform talks since 1980

In 1980, the International Working Group for Spelling (Internationaler Arbeitskreis für Orthographie) was formed with linguists from East and West Germany, Austria, and Switzerland taking part.

Their initial proposals were further discussed at two conferences in Vienna, in 1986 and 1990, to which the Austrian government invited representatives from every region where German is spoken. In the closing remarks from the first of these meetings, the capitalization reform was put off to a "second phase" of reform attempts, since no consensus had been reached.

In 1987, the Ministers of Culture of the federal states in West Germany charged the Institute for the German Language in Mannheim and the Society for the German Language in Wiesbaden with the task of coming up with a new system of rules. In 1988 these groups presented an incomplete but very wide-ranging set of proposed new rules (for example, "Der Kaiser im Boot" would be changed to "Der keiser im bot"), but these were quickly rejected by the general public and then withdrawn by the Ministers of Culture as unacceptable. At the same time, similar groups were formed in Switzerland, Austria, and East Germany.

In 1992, the International Working Group published a proposed global reform to German spelling entitled Deutsche Rechtschreibung— Vorschläge zu ihrer Neuregelung (German Spelling—Proposals for its New Regulation). In 1993 the German Ministers of Culture invited 43 groups to present their opinions on the document, with hearings held in Germany (now united), Austria and Switzerland. On the basis of these hearings, the Working Group backed off the idea of eliminating the capitalization of all nouns, and also allowed the continued differing spelling of the homophones das (the) and daß (that).

At a third conference in Vienna, in 1994, the results were recommended to the respective governments for acceptance. The German Ministers of Culture decided to implement the new rules on August 1, 1998, with a transitional period lasting until the 2004–2005 school year.

Institution of the reform

On July 1, 1996, all of the German states (Bundesländer), Austria, Switzerland and Liechtenstein as well as some other countries with German-speaking minorities (but notably not Luxembourg) agreed to introduce the new spelling by August 1, 1998. A few German states introduced the new rules as of the 1996–1997 school year.

The various dictionaries raced to be the first with the new spelling, which turned out to be very profitable. For a time dictionaries were showing up on the best-seller lists for German books. The market in school books was also given a new impulse.

Transitional period

Some have suggested that the main cause of the current controversy over the spelling reform may spring from the eight-year transitional period. Experience from other reforms that affect the behavior of large groups of people (introduction of the metric system, switching to the euro, Sweden's change from driving on the left to driving on the right, etc.) suggests that such reforms may be more effective the shorter the transitional period is. When there is a longer transition period, it has been argued, many do not bother to familiarize themselves with the reform, in the hope that it will later be canceled. This has the tendency of dividing the people into groups of early adopters and resisters. Some experts conclude that the ideal is to prepare well in advance and then make the change from one day to the next.

The above analysis, however, ignores the fact that the decision of the Ministers of Culture can ultimately affect only schools and public offices, since anyone else can simply write the way they prefer. Thus it is impossible to introduce a spelling reform "overnight". Even if the spelling of private individuals could be legislated, there are still millions of books in libraries using the older spelling. Comparison to the currency change or driving on one side of the road or the other is debatable, anyway, since in those cases the old behavior completely disappears after the change (the old money is valueless or must be traded in; it is illegal and unsafe to continue driving on the "wrong" side of the road).

Public debate after the signing of the declaration of intent

The reforms did not attract much attention from the general public until after the international declaration of intent was signed. Animated arguments arose about the correctness of the decision, with schoolteachers being the first to be confronted with the implementation of the new rules. At the Frankfurt Book Fair (the largest in Germany) of 1996, Friedrich Denk, a schoolteacher from Bavaria, obtained signatures from hundreds of authors and scientists demanding the cancellation of the reform. Among the leading supporters were Günter Grass, Siegfried Lenz, Martin Walser, Hans Magnus Enzensberger and Walter Kempowski. The protest gained further nationwide significance through initiatives such as "Wir Lehrer gegen die Rechtschreibreform" ("Teachers Against the Spelling Reform"), which was headed by the teacher and activist Manfred Riebe.

The issue was taken up in the courts, with different decisions in different states, so that the German Supreme Court (Bundesverfassungsgericht) was called upon to make a ruling. On July 14, 1998, after several hearings involving the teachers' initiatives, the court declared that the introduction of the spelling reform by the Ministers of Culture, without a decision by the legislature, was legal.

In the state of Schleswig-Holstein a majority voting in a referendum on September 27, 1998 called for a return to the traditional spelling. However, the Premier of the state, Heide Simonis, managed to reverse the decision of the referendum via a parliamentary vote in 1999.

As the new dictionaries were published in July and August 1996, the critics of the reform felt themselves justified. They began to demand the reversal of the change at the federal level. However, the Ministers of Culture continued to refuse to accede to their demands. The editors of the Duden dictionaries also agreed that many of the problems in the traditional spelling system were due to the arcane rules that they had produced to explain it, thus lending their support to the new spelling, which was said to be "more logical".

In May 1998 a group of 550 language and literature professors demanded the reversal of the reform.

Later developments

In 1997, an international committee was formed to handle any cases of doubt that might arise under the new rules. In 2004, the German Federal Education Minister, Edelgard Bulmahn, announced that this committee was to be given wide-ranging powers to make decisions about German spelling. Only in cases of extreme changes, such as the proposed capitalization change, would the committee require the agreement of the Ministers of Culture. This move was strongly criticized.

Simultaneously, the committee released its fourth report on the spelling reform, reviewing the points of the reform in detail. However, this report was rejected by the Conference of Ministers of Culture in March 2004. The Ministers also demanded that the committee work together with the German Academy for Language and Poetry in their future deliberations. The Academy had been strongly critical of the reform from the beginning. The Ministers also made changes to the composition of the international committee.

In July 2004, the ministers decided to make some changes to the reform, making the traditional spelling of certain words and phrases the preferred spelling, with the new spelling still being acceptable. They also confirmed that the transition phase would end on August 1, 2005. A Council for German Spelling was instituted on this date, taking the place of the existing international committee. This decision was unanimous and would require a unanimous vote to change, which seems highly unlikely at this point.

Legal status

The spelling change is based on the international agreement of July 1, 1996, signed by Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Strictly speaking it is not a treaty. Signers for Germany were the president of the Conference of Ministers of Culture, Karl-Heinz Reck, and the parliamentary secretary of the federal Ministry of the Interior, Eduard Lintner. There has been no parliamentary decision on the reform. Instead, as mentioned above, the German Supreme Court ruled that the reform in the schools can be decided by the Ministers of Culture. Thus as of August 1, 2005, the traditional spelling system is to be considered incorrect in the schools, except in two of the German states, Bavaria and North Rhine Westphalia, which have both officially rejected the reform. It is presumed that from the schools it will spread to the German public.

State of implementation

As of 2004, most German print media use rules that to a large extent comply with the reform. This includes most newspapers and periodicals, and the German press agencies dpa and Reuters. Still, some newspapers, such as Die Zeit, Neue Zürcher Zeitung, or Süddeutsche Zeitung, created their own in-house orthographies, while most other newspapers use more or less the rules set by dpa. These in-house orthographies thus occupy a continuum between “old spelling with new rules for ß” and (almost) full acceptance of the new rules.

Nevertheless, some newspapers and periodicals continue to use the traditional spelling system, or have switched back to it, including the most widely-read daily tabloid Bild-Zeitung (3.9 million copies), and two of Germany's most respected newspapers, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and Die Welt. The list at http://www.gutes-deutsch.de/Kaufempfehlungen.htm#Tageszeitungen (in German) contains some 300 newspapers and periodicals that are known to use the traditional spelling. (For comparison, the total number of German publications is several thousands.) However, there are at present no exact figures available as to the proportions of old/new spelling.

In books, the implementation depends on the specific subject, and often varies within a publishing house. Approximately 80 per cent of newly published books use the new system. Schoolbooks and children's books generally follow the new spelling, while the text of novels is spelled as the authors prefer. Classic works are typically printed without changes, unless they are specifically editions intended for use in schools.

Since the dictionaries switched to the new spelling early on, there is no standard reference work available for the traditional spelling. However, Theodor Ickler, Professor of German at the University of Erlangen, has produced a dictionary that aims to meet the demand of simplification without the need of imposing any new spellings. There is also a lively trade in used copies of the older Duden dictionaries. The newest Duden (2004) includes the most recent changes proposed by the Ministers of Culture.

Actions of opponents

There are still active groups working to cancel the reform, despite the transitional period having ended. The year 2002 saw the foundation of the "Forschungsgruppe Deutsche Sprache" ("Research Group German Language") by historian and writer Reinhard Markner, with the support of some leading writers and intellectuals. In 2003, the Bavarian Minister of Culture, Hans Zehetmair, declared that the reform was a mistake. "Language is a dynamic process. It must grow and develop." Friedrich Denk, together with journalist and author Hans Krieger as well as several other reform critics, founded the "Rat für deutsche Rechtschreibung" ("Council for German Spelling") on August 22, 2004.

Among the politicians, Christian Wulff, Premier of Lower Saxony, also stated that Germany should go back to the traditional spelling. Peter Müller, Premier of Saarland said, "This spelling reform is a miscarriage and is not accepted by most people. Politics has to accept this and have the power to remove this reform again completely." The CDU and CSU chiefs Angela Merkel and Edmund Stoiber also proposed to undo the reform.

The German Academy for Language and Poetry suggested a compromise in 2003. Many critics consider this reform of the reform to be a second-best choice.

Several state premiers have threatened to remove language reform from the competence of the Ministers of Culture, seeking in this way to capsize the reform plans. This has been followed by many publishing houses announcing returns to the traditional spelling.

Acceptance of the reform

In Germany

According to a report on the television magazine "Panorama" on July 21, 2004, "Even six years after its introduction, 77% of Germans consider the spelling reform not to be sensible. This came out of a representative poll. Especially older people reject the new rules, for example 81% of those between 30 and 40 years old. In the meantime, only every fifth German citizen (21%) feels that the spelling reform is acceptable."

In Switzerland

The German debate about the spelling reform produced surprise among the Swiss media outlets, rather than agreement. In Switzerland, the reform has had a less noticeable impact since the letter ß, which was the most prominent part of the reform, had not been in use anyway. Most Swiss newspapers and magazines follow house spelling rules which in the case of the Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Switzerland's leading daily paper, diverge substantially from the official rules. The Schweizer Monatshefte returned to the traditional Swiss spelling in 2004.

Liechtenstein follows the same spelling as Switzerland.

In Austria

Austrian media consider the subject to be open to discussion, with no decision having been made. A return to the traditional spelling would still be possible. Many media outlets in Austria use house rules rather than the official spelling rules. A Gallup poll conducted in August 2004 indicated that 62% of Austrians would favor a return to the traditional spelling. The Kronen-Zeitung (the most widely read newspaper in Austria) announced on August 16, 2004, that it would return to the classical spelling rules.

Reform of the Reform

Opinion: Spelling Reform Spells Trouble for Germany (Deutsche Welle on the Second German Spelling Reform).