German alphabet

Deutsch or Deutsche Sprache belongs to the Indo-European group of languages, whose writing is based on Latin and english to german translate. But Latin does not seem to us as rough as German speech. Why? Initially, the Latin alphabet, on the basis of which German appeared, consisted of only 21 letters. Over time, it became clear that due to the insufficient number of sounds to designate certain objects, confusion could arise among peoples who also borrowed Latin. Despite all the changes in Latin, the languages ​​​​that adopted this language were forced to add their own sounds. It is worth noting that one of these adjustments was the letter “W”, which was included in the alphabet in the 16th century. In addition, the Greek letters “Z”, “Y” appeared in Latin, used to denote borrowed words. At the moment, 26 Latin letters are used in German, while there are also letters in it that are not part of the alphabet. For example, “Ä”, “Ö”, “Ü”, allowing you to change some words from a morphological point of view.

These letters include the ligature “ß”, which arose from a combination of 2 Gothic letters: “S”, “Z”. Not all countries use this letter in the spelling of words, for example, Switzerland abandoned it in the 20th century, and Germany prefers doubled “S” to the old letter “ß”. In German and english to german, there is no word that begins with this letter, because previously it was written only in lowercase. In 2017, a law was passed in Germany, thanks to which “ß” gained the right to be printed with a capital letter. The need for this reform arose in those moments when it was necessary to write the entire word in which there is a ligature in capital letters. For example, in the designation of any establishments, streets, or even the names in the passport.

The Gothic script, which was used almost everywhere until the 20th century, ceased to play a large role in the development of the German language. After the November Revolution of 1918, European letters were officially introduced. Nazi attempts to bring back the gothic font were not successful, so for the moment it is used only for decorative purposes.