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I'm sure that the ligature is of a medial "s" and a "z", not a final "s". This explains the name "Ess-tsett" (or "Ess-zett") and also the shape, since a Fraktur final "s" looks like a modern "s" while a Fraktur "z" looks like the right half of "ß". Of course this is only the origin; it is "ss" today. -- Toby 04:40 Mar 20, 2003 (UTC)

If you can find a citation for this, please add it. - Montréalais

As noted in the article, the HTML entity for ß is ß, an abbreviation of "s-z ligature". I don't know about you, but I find that suggestive. --Paul A 06:11 Mar 20, 2003 (UTC)

Even though it goes my way, I wouldn't trust the HTML names. I mean, they came up with ë for ë! Anyway, I'm going to see what The World's Writing Systems says. -- Toby 06:20 Mar 20, 2003 (UTC)

This may be wrong, but in school we were taught to pronounce the letter (not the sound) as Ringel-S. If this practice is indeed correct (a native speaker or linguist should verify that), maybe a note on this page and a redirect would be in order. -- Kimiko 22:13 Apr 15, 2003 (UTC)

The name Ringel-S was used in Dutch schools, but not in Germany. -- dnjansen 17:56 14 Jun 2003 (UTC)

I object - Ringel-S (curly s) was used in German (Bavarian) schools around 80 years ago.

i am native speaker and i can say, that the way the letter "ß" is spelling (sz) is in use but wrong for the history of this letter. the ß was originally "ss" but written was it ſs (ligatur-s in html = ſ).

more ligatures: ff: ff (ff), fi: fi (fi), fl: fl (fl), ffi: ffi (ffi), ffl: ffl (ffl), ſt: ſt (ſt) und st: st (st)
(maybe the browsers can't show them all)

the ligatur-s was very special and it is a survivor (my English isn't very good, so i have to find the best words i know to write what i want to write) of the german Druckschrift (press font?) Fraktur and the old german Schreibschrift (writing font?) Sütterlin.

Fraktur ("gotische Schrift"):

http://de.wikipedia.org/Fraktur
http://de.wikipedia.org/Fraktur_(Schrift)

http://www.fraktur.com
http://www.fraktur.de
http://www.joern.de/tipsn98.htm
(there is a scanned document from the third
Reich. You can read there, that the nazis have
forbidden to use the font "Fraktur" in 1941,
because in their eyes it was a "jewish font")
--> http://www.joern.de/borm.gif
http://www.ligaturix.de/fraktur.htm
http://www.typolexikon.de/f/fraktur.html

Sütterlin:

http://www.peter-doerling.de/Lese/Sutterlin.htm
http://www.peter-doerling.de/Englisch/Sutterlin.htm
http://www.phil.uni-sb.de/projekte/suetterlin/
http://www.fontworld.net/_de/suetterlin.html

greetings, fux (31.05.03)

I am a native speaker as well, and fux is correct in that the letter is universally called "sz" (ess-tsett) in German, but this is incorrect as far as the origin of the letter is concerned, which indeed derives from "ſs". See long s; also, some of the information about Fraktur is already present on the Fraktur page. I have added a coupla notes to Ess-tsett to make the naming a bit more clear. -- djmutex 12:46 31 May 2003 (UTC)

man lernt nie aus. :o) --fux

ss vs. sz

The german ligature ß can look quite different in different font-faces.

Some suggest an origin in ſs, some in ſz. In fact, in the Middle Ages orthography was not stable, but soon this ligature got fixed...

Note, that in a lot of Fraktur fonts you will recognise ſz, also in the old german "Kurrentschrift", while most modern print fonts (though not all) derive the ß from ſs, as does modern handwriting.

Of course capitalisation is merely SS, though in the 70ies SZ was proposed (sz being a seldom letter combination in german, it could have made it easier uncapitalising words correctly).

Here (in Austria), ß is pronounced as "scharfes S", which translates to "sharp-S".

The form of ß can be derived from both ſs and ſz with equal legitimation: it is up to the creator of the font, which one he uses, while it is to note, that when using ſz, he has to use a z resembling old handwritings or Fraktur: with a loop under the base-line.

The today's most common font: Times New Roman derives ß indeed from ſs.

If you do not object, I will include the legitimate origin from ſz to the article as well.

Szabi Sept 2, 2003

You are right that both ß forms are used today, although really modern typefaces (not older than 10 years) tend to prefer the "round" (ſs) variant.

The actual origin was indeed a ſs ligature. In old Textur fonts ("Gothic") both letters were moved together so closely that the left half of the "s" overlapped with the stem of the "ſ". The result was that the visible part of the "s" looked like a Textur "z". This visual ambiguousness was the origin of the misinterpretation as "sz". (Reference: "Schriften erkennen" by Daniel Sauthoff, Gilmar Wendt, Hans Peter Willberg.)

Over the centuries the awareness of this origin has been lost. So it's legitimate to say that today it's an ſs or an ſz ligature, depending on the typeface.

BTW, the Times New Roman surely uses the ſz variant, at least in its upshape form. – Torsten Bronger 07:39, 17 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Tschichold

Is the Tschichold thesis undisputedly wrong? If so, it doesn't need to be treated at such length. If not, it cannot be "pointed out" that it's wrong. Markalexander100 02:58, 28 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Switzerland

Switzerland had abolished the use of "ß" in the 1930s already and uses "ss" in all cases. Still, most Swiss publishing houses use "ß" for books.

If they use ß in books, they can't use ss in all cases. When do they use ss? Markalexander100 03:03, 28 Jun 2004 (UTC)

(Since no-one seems to know better, I've done my best with the above two points). Markalexander100 03:20, 1 Jul 2004 (UTC)

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