Germans need rules- they just can't agree which
Summer is generally a time when only tourists stir in Germany. This year was different. It saw every orthographic reactionary in the country slither out of his or her linguistic hole and into the light of the mass media, rattling off accounts of a threat to society, more menacing and pernicious than McDonalds: the Rechtschreibreform. Passed in 1998 by governments in Austria, Germany, Switzerland and Liechtenstein, the reform basically touches on some spelling inconsistencies in German, mainly involving the use of ss and ß, as well as a few compounded, derived and loaned words. It applies only to state-controlled establishments and schools have been given a transition period to cope with the changes. Until August 1, 2005, spelling mistakes that are consequences of the new rules have no bearing on grades. This summer the press, specifically the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, the Süddeutsche Zeitung, Der Spiegel and the Bild Zeitung chose to sell the public a story that portrayed the spelling reform as a lethal, relentless force, capable of tainting everything we love about the German language and culture. Amid claims that the new spelling is more primitive, prevents the expression of certain ideas and requires changes in pronunciation, they called for the reform to be repealed. There is no denying that the reform has its flaws. The intention behind it may have been to streamline German spelling, but instead of a Formula 1 racer, we ended up with a camel. The reform is at best a Reförmchen. Only two percent of German words are affected. And 90 percent of these deal with the rules for using ss and ß. It is nothing like the Dutch reform of 1954, which eliminated an entire gender; it does not compare to Finland developing its own written language, or the way in which spoken Hebrew was developed out of an ancient written language; nor can it be equated with the Turks changing from the Arabic to the Roman alphabet. So, why then, are the Germans going to all this trouble? Why are they spending so much time and energy supporting or opposing what is, after all, a very modest reform? Hint: It’s not about spelling. It’s about the conceptions and values that drive German culture. Germans have a notion of linguistic perfection and order that is simply absent in native English speakers. The fascination with the spelling reform is a fascination with order and rules. The stereotypical German just can’t stand being without clear rules that are adhered to by every member of society. It’s that wait-for-the-green-light, don’t-walk-on-the-grass mentality. The problem with this reform, however, was that the committee that developed it was forced to make compromises that resulted in many inconsistent rules and a large number of exceptions. And there is an increasing insecurity about which rules to follow: the old or the new. Which is why many members of the cultural elite and their media operatives want order returned. Indeed, the single most common reason why spelling reforms are rejected is that old people don’t like them. Young Germans, on the other hand, have become fairly comfortable with the spelling sins and lapses of their colleagues and friends. As Der Spiegel put it, unclear rules reduce the number of mistakes. If the rules are cloudy, we can’t tell who can spell and who can’t. When I asked one of our technicians, a university graduate, what he thought about the spelling reform, he said it’s great. Now he can spell practically any way he wishes. This I-just-don’t-care, spell-and-let-misspell attitude drives older Germans up the wall. Yet resist as they may, spelling changes are going to take place and English is a perfect example of what happens if they are not managed. And it is down to national governments, not some middle-functionary sitting somewhere setting spelling defaults for Microsoft, to manage them. Let’s be clear about this. Germans need to repeal the spelling reform about as much as they need a Miss Germany or Bud beer. The reform may look like a camel, but it’s heading in the right direction. The states involved may make a couple of compromises, but they are not going to retreat on this issue and will doubtless introduce more radical reforms in the future. At any rate, in a couple of months the topic will be as dead as the German economy. Language is not, except in the big-bland news of August, a major cultural event. Withdraw the media and we can get back to letting the professionals handle this.