The following article from the Daily Telegraph might be of interest to
readers of this list. Recent polls of the Allensbach Institut reflect the
lack of popularity of the new spelling. The proportion of people in favour
of the reform remains low:
http://www.ifd-allensbach.de/pdf/prd_0409.pdf
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Sturm und Drang spell doom for Germany's Rechtschreibreform
By Kate Connolly in Berlin
(Filed: 29/05/2004)
A national experiment to reform the German language is close to collapse
after a quiet but angry revolt by publishers, academics and teachers who say
it is "barbaric" and would destroy centuries of linguistic freedom.
Under the new rules, which were meant to simplify a complex language once
described by Mark Twain as "slippery and elusive to the grasp", Germans were
supposed to find it easier to read and write.
But with 1,106 new rules to learn, and 12,000 new spellings, even the
hardiest academics have declared the system "almost impossible".
The president of Germany's PEN club, Johano Strasser, has called it
"language rape".
The Rechtschreibreform (spelling reform) includes in select cases, replacing
the ancient symbol resembling a fat capital B (known as the S-Zett) with "ss".
Despite a campaign to replace the umlaut with a "u" or an "e", more were
introduced into the language. Oddly, there has been no attempt to simplify
aspects of the language which can be infuriatingly complicated to Germans
and foreigners alike, such as the compound Unabhaengigkeitserklaerungen
(declarations of independence).
Far less still have been attempts to tackle the unattractive flow of English
words into the German language, such as kidnappen (kidnapping), walken
(walking), and Handy (mobile phone).
The reforms, first introduced as an experiment in the mid-1990s and due to
become official next summer, have caused an immeasurable amount of friction
and most practices have simply failed to catch on.
Legislators from the country's 16 states declared that all new school
textbooks had to be written in the new style - at great cost to publishers.
But some publishers have stuck to the old rules, or left it to their authors
to decide whether they want to use the old or new system. While some
newspapers reluctantly went along with the changes at first, most have since
dropped them, or adopted parts of them.
When the august Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung discarded them four years
ago, it wrote in a front-page condemnation: "Gripped by uncertainty about
what is right and what is wrong, people have begun avoiding terms and
phrases that might be subject to the new spelling rules. A new language . .
. of avoidance has been created and it is not a pretty one."
Yesterday Michael Klett, one of the largest publishers of school textbooks,
became the latest establishment figure to speak out. "There is a complete
orthographic chaos in the classroom . . . no German will be able to hold
out, even though it's his own language we're talking about," he said.
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