The Genesis of the New Official Orthographic Guidelines 1
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Originally published in: Omdal, Helge/Røsstad, Rune (Eds.): Språknormering - i tide og utide? – Oslo: Novus AS, 2009. Pp. 15-32. Concurrent standardization as a necessity: The genesis of the new 1 official orthographic guidelines ) KERSTIN GOTHERT Rat fiir deutsche Rechtschreibung The new official orthographic guidelines were brou ght into force by the official stat e auth orities on A ugust l st. 1998 and its principle goals we re a standa rdi zed represe nt ation of th e guidelines and a «gentle simplifica ti on in res pec t of content ». This regulation was not supported by th e public and in fact it was the starting point for a struggle for conce ptual solutions and a qu es t fo r th e ac hievement o f' a consensus between different po ss ible norms. Since orthograph y is an officially codified standard taking up a prominent pos ition among lingui sti c standards. it is of particular socio- politica l importance. It was th e foremos t task of the Council fo r Germ an Orth ography (Rat fu r deutsc he Rechtschreibung), in stituted in December 2004. to elaborate a co mpromise in order to bring th e «Orthograph ica l war» (Die Zeir) to an end , which was led enthusiasti ca lly for more than a deca le. - The conce rn o f' thi s article is to class ify historicall y the agreement reached in 2006. Against this background. it ca n be stated th at official guidelines will onl y be accepted. if th ey are ba sed upon th e usage in writing and if they take into account th e interes ts o f' the reader. Both principles are characteri zing th e proposa l made by th e ou ncil for German Orthogra ph y. An outloo k on the Council 's acti vities conce rning orthographic standardi za tion ex pec ted in th e future will conclude this article. 11 O n December 15' , 2006 peace was constituted by an impartial jud!!,e: «After long yea rs o f controversies, the hea ted debates were cut off temporarily by the so ca lled orthographical peace». In this way the Society for German Language (Gescllschaft fi.ir deutsche Sprache), which picks the «words of the year» annually, motivates its cho ice to declare «orthographica l peace» a «verbal ty pe fossi l» . These verbal type foss ils determine the public discuss ion to a grea t extent. T hey stand for important topics or they may be characteri stic in any other way. 15 Publikationsserver des Leibniz-Instituts für Deutsche Sprache URN: http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bsz:mh39-104646 Concurrent standardizati on as a necessity «Peace» implies «War» . And indeed , in the years leading up to 2006 man y wa r metaph ors were to be found in the press covera ge of this topi c. The orth ographical war seems to have broken out (again) (tirol). Reports arc submitted from th e front I ine (Die Zeit) and the sloga n «era se mistak es» is chanted (like Hitler) (w -;, ). The «infamous dictati on of Versailles» (taz), read Vienna , where th e new orthographic ru les were stated in the nineti es, is claimed to bear res pon sibility for th e controversies . But what is the iss ue th ere? What happened in the years in-between? Where did the front line run ? What induces a cartoonist to depict German y on ce more as a divided country - a co untry cut in to two parts - each w ith its own orthographic rul es (d . illustration I )? Wieder geteiltes Deutschland Illustrati on I : «A Gap Through the Land» The concern of th is article is to an swer th ese qu es tions. In the first sec tion , I will introduce th e underl ying co nccpluctl ity and in particular the main principles th e Germ an orthography is bound to. Subsequently, I w ill clas sify th e reform of 1996 in th e co urse of history and name its aims. From the present-day point of view , the conception of the orthographic reform , as we ll as its un w illing acceptance by the pub lic, wa s th e so urce for its fai lure and as a consequ ence an ex tensive rev ision took place in 2006. What co nclu sion ca n be 16 Kersti n GOthert drawn from that co ncerning future processes of standard i;r.a ti on? I w ill dea l w ith this ques ti on in the las t sec ti on or my article. Orthography takes up a prominent pos ition among lingui stic standard s beca use it is the only official codified linguistic standa rd . Codified mea ns that the orthographic rules arc ri xed in wrillcn fo rm. Swndard means that th e abidance of these rules ensures co rrect and hence officially ap proved spelling. The cru cial point ror the pupils is the combination between «(officially) codified» and «standard»: Onl y th ose, who ab ide by the rul es , are abl e to avoid mi stakes , which could lead to bad marks. Lingui sti c resea rch assumes th at the ex tern al standards undergo a process of internali za tion . During thi s process the standards arc not transferred onc-to- onc. but they arc necessarily enriched by a person's own generaliza ti ons and reg ul ati ons. T hi s necess ity is clu e to the fact that one would not be ab le to write fluently, if there was a constant need to chec k the rules. A typica l effect of intern alizat ion is the so called hyper-generali zation. This ex plains why every reform of German orthography ca nn ot possibly achieve w ide acceptance within the entire linguisti c community - as reasonabl e as the modifica tions might seem when rega rd ed singularl y . Only those rul es that confo rm to the internali zed rules of th e individual arc likely to be accepted. This ca n be illustrated by uttera nces like «I have always spelled thi s word like t·hat», which co uld be heard in the afterm ath of the reform of Germ an orth o- graphy in 1996. T he reform of Germ an orthography in 1996 did not change the basic principles or German orthography. As generally known , German orthograph y is based on an alphabeti c writing system, i.e. its elementary uni ts arc sounds and letters. As so unds rcrcr to lcllcrs and vice versa we ca n describe their co rrelat ion. T hi s fact is outlined with the phonologica l principle. T he co unterpart to the phonolog ica l principle is the morphological or semantic principle. The semantic principle enables the reader to ex tract the mean ing of a word from its orthograph y. For thi s reason, the word form s of one particul ar word stem should have similar orthograph y. For example, the final devoicing of th e final so und remains unmarked in the written text. Accord ing to a strict interpretation of th e phonologica l principle, spe lling should be <kint>, whereas th e actu al s1c lling <kind> is consistent w ith the standard . The spelling of the di sy llab ic <kinder> has been transferred to the monosy llab ic word. 17 Concurren t standardization as a necessity Obviously, the bas ic principles both arc linked close ly w ith the two basi c fu nctions of orthography , namely th e function or recording and the functi on of perception. By writing something down, utteran ces and th oughts ca n be tran sformed into something written and the 01hcr way around. So mclhing written can be tran sform ed into an uttera nce or a th ought. The phonological principle and the functi on of recording serve the writer of a language whereas the semantic principle and th e fun ction of perception serve th e reader of a language. In th e course of its development, orthography has been altered in ord er to mee t th e reader's needs in a better way. T he se man ti c principle became ever more effecti ve . This deve lopment was sped up considerably by grammar books and scholast ic works which indicate the semantic criteria fo r orthography very early. In the «Tci.itschc Grammatica» - published approximately in 1535 - lckclsamer points out that in ord er to write words correctly, one has to co nsider their meaning and their co mpos ition (p. C/ ). For exa mple, not knowing that a Haarband ('hai r-band ') is a band «which you bind your hair with» leads to an in correct pronunciation and as a co nsequence th e writer will spell ii according to this pronunciation . The res ult could be a spe lling like «harwtit» or «harwand». With this statement, Ickelsa mcr provides th e basic principle th at has determined th e orthograph y 01· th e German language to a great ex tent. Up to the 19'11 century , the Germ an orth ography had developed based by an interacti on of spelling usage and grammar books . Around 1800. the main features of the orthography were fi xed, but th ere was sti II a wide ran ge of variants. Fi rst"l y, th ese va riants arc yielded by the interference of the different pri nciples.