View source for German alphabet

{{Short description|German form of the Latin alphabet}}
{{Refimprove|date=December 2009}}
{{Listen
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 |title        = German alphabet
 |description  = (Listen to a German speaker recite the alphabet in German)
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[[File:Vereinfachte Ausgangsschrift.png|right|thumb|250px]]

The modern German alphabet consists of the twenty-six letters of the [[ISO basic Latin alphabet]] plus four extra letters placed at the end:

{|class="wikitable" style="margin:1em auto; border-collapse:collapse;"
|-
|bgcolor="#EFEFEF" align="center" colspan="30" | '''[[Capital letters|Uppercase forms]]'''
|-
|width=3% align="center"|[[A]]||width=3% align="center"|[[B]]||width=3% align="center"|[[C]]||width=3% align="center"|[[D]]||width=3% align="center"|[[E]]||width=3% align="center"|[[F]]||width=3% align="center"|[[G]]||width=3% align="center"|[[H]]||width=3% align="center"|[[I]]||width=3% align="center"|[[J]]||width=3% align="center"|[[K]]||width=3% align="center"|[[L]]||width=3% align="center"|[[M]]||width=3% align="center"|[[N]]||width=3% align="center"|[[O]]||width=3% align="center"|[[P]]||width=3% align="center"|[[Q]]||width=3% align="center"|[[R]]||width=3% align="center"|[[S]]||width=3% align="center"|[[T]]||width=3% align="center"|[[U]]||width=3% align="center"|[[V]]||width=3% align="center"|[[W]]||width=3% align="center"|[[X]]||width=3% align="center"|[[Y]]||width=3% align="center"|[[Z]]||width=3% align="center"|[[Ä]]||width=3% align="center"|[[Ö]]||width=3% align="center"|[[Ü]]||width=3% align="center"|[[ẞ]]
|-
|bgcolor="#EFEFEF" align="center" colspan="30" | '''[[Lower case|Lowercase forms]]'''
|-
|align="center"|a||align="center"|b||align="center"|c||align="center"|d||align="center"|e||align="center"|f||align="center"|g||align="center"|h||align="center"|i||align="center"|j||align="center"|k||align="center"|l||align="center"|m||align="center"|n||align="center"|o||align="center"|p||align="center"|q||align="center"|r||align="center"|s||align="center"|t||align="center"|u||align="center"|v||align="center"|w||align="center"|x||align="center"|y||align="center"|z||align="center"|ä||align="center"|ö||align="center"|ü||align="center"|ß
|}

German uses letter-diacritic combinations ([[Ä|Ä/ä]], [[Ö|Ö/ö]], [[Ü|Ü/ü]]) using the [[Umlaut (diacritic)|umlaut]] and one ligature ([[ß|ẞ/ß]] (called ''eszett'' (sz) or ''scharfes S'', sharp s)), but they do not constitute distinct letters in the alphabet. {{Listen|filename=German extra letters.ogg|title=German extra letters|description=(Listen to a German speaker naming these letters)|format=[[Ogg]]}}

Before 1940 German employed [[Fraktur]], a [[blackletter]] typeface (see also [[Antiqua–Fraktur dispute]]), and [[Kurrent]], various cursives that include the 20-century [[Sütterlin]]. [[Grundschrift]] describes several current handwriting systems.

== Key characteristics ==
=== Umlaut diacritic usage ===
{{See also|Umlaut (diacritic)}}

Although the diacritic letters represent distinct sounds in [[German phonology]], they are almost universally not considered to be part of the alphabet. Almost all German speakers consider the alphabet to have the 26 [[cardinal letter]]s above and will name only those when asked to say the alphabet.{{Citation needed|date=June 2007}}

The [[diacritic]] letters ''[[ä]], [[ö]]'' and ''[[ü]]'' are used to indicate the presence of [[Germanic umlaut|umlaut]]s (frontalizations of back vowels).  Before the introduction of the [[printing press]], frontalization was indicated by placing an ''e'' after the back vowel to be modified, but German printers developed the space-saving typographical convention of replacing the full ''e'' with a small version placed above the vowel to be modified.  In German [[Kurrent]] writing, the superscripted ''e'' was simplified to two vertical dashes, which have degenerated to dots in both handwriting and German typesetting.  Although the two dots look like those in the [[Diaeresis (diacritic)|diaeresis (trema)]] diacritical marking, a distinction should be made between umlaut and diaresis because the two have different functions.

When it is not possible to use the umlauts (for example, when using a restricted character set) the characters ''Ä, Ö, Ü, ä, ö, ü'' should be transcribed as ''Ae, Oe, Ue, ae, oe, ue'' respectively, following the earlier postvocalic-''e'' convention; simply using the base vowel (e.g., ''u'' instead of ''ü'') would be wrong and misleading. However, such transcription should be avoided if possible, especially with names. Names often exist in different variants, such as "Müller" and "Mueller", and with such transcriptions in use one could not work out the correct spelling of the name.

Automatic back-transcribing is not only wrong for names. Consider, for example, ''das neue Buch'' ("the new book"). This should never be changed to ''das neü Buch'', as the second ''e'' is completely separate from the ''u'': ''neue'' is ''neu'' (the root for new) followed by an ''e'', an inflection. The word ''neü'' does not exist in German.

Furthermore, in northern and western Germany, there are family names and place names in which ''e'' lengthens the preceding vowel, as in the former Dutch orthography, such as [[Straelen]], which is pronounced with a long ''a'', not an ''ä''. Similar cases are [[Soest, Germany|Soest]], [[Coesfeld]] and [[Bernkastel-Kues]].

In proper names and ethnonyms, there may also appear a rare ''[[ë]]'' and ''[[ï]]'', which are not letters with an umlaut, but a [[Diaeresis (diacritic)|diaeresis]], used as in French to distinguish what could be a digraph, for example, ''ai'' in [[Karaite (disambiguation)|Karaïmen]], ''eu'' in [[Aleuts|Alëuten]], ''ie'' in [[Ferdinand Piëch]] and ''oe'' in [[Bernhard Hoëcker]] (although Hoëcker added the diaeresis personally). To separate the ''au'' diphthong, as well as some others, which are graphically composed of potentially umlaut-holding letters, the [[acute accent]] is sometimes used (e.g. Saúdi-Arabien).<ref>Lexikon A—Z in zwei Bänden; Volkseigener Verlag, Leipzig, 1956—1957</ref> 

Swiss typewriters and computer keyboards do not allow easy input of uppercase letters with umlauts (nor ''ß'') for their positions are taken by the most frequent French diacritics. Uppercase umlauts were dropped because they are less common than lowercase ones (especially in Switzerland). Geographical names in particular are supposed to be written with ''A, O, U'' plus ''e'' except "Österreich" ([[Austria]]). The omission can cause some inconvenience since the first letter of every [[noun]] is capitalized in German.

Unlike in [[Hungarian alphabet|Hungarian]], the exact shape of the umlaut diacritics, especially when handwritten, is not important, because they are the only ones in the language (except for the dot on ''i'' and ''j''). They will be understood whether they look like dots (¨), [[double acute|acute accents]] (̋), vertical bars (̎), a horizontal bar ([[Macron (diacritic)|macron]], ¯), a [[breve]] (˘), a tiny N, a [[tilde]] (˜), and such variations are often used in stylized writing (e.g. logos). In the past, however, the breve was traditionally used in some scripts to distinguish a ''u'' from an ''n'', as was the [[ring (diacritic)|ring]] (°). In rare cases the ''n'' was underlined. The breved ''u'' was common in some [[Kurrent]]-derived handwritings; it was mandatory in [[Sütterlin]].

===Sharp s===
[[File:Delikatess.JPG|thumb|The German sign "Delicious red cabbage." Left cap is with old orthography, right with new.]]
The ''eszett'' or ''scharfes S'' ([[ß]]) represents the [[Voiceless alveolar sibilant|unvoiced s]] sound. The [[German spelling reform of 1996]] somewhat reduced usage of this letter in Germany and Austria. It is not used in [[Switzerland]] and [[Liechtenstein]].

As the ß derives from a ligature of lower-case letters, it is itself exclusively lower-case. The proper transcription when it cannot be used, or when writing a word in all capital letters, is ''ss'' or ''SS''. This transcription can give rise to ambiguities, albeit rarely; one such case is ''in Maßen'' (in moderation) vs. ''in Massen'' (en masse). For all caps usage, an [[capital ẞ|uppercase ''ß'']] has been proposed for over a century, but has found neither general acceptance nor official recognition.<ref>{{in lang|de}} [http://rechtschreibrat.ids-mannheim.de/doku/teil1_regeln2006.pdf official German spelling rules as of 2006]</ref> In 2008, however, it was included in [[Unicode|Unicode 5.1]] as U+1E9E, and since 2010 its use is mandatory in official documentation when writing geographical names in all-caps.<ref>{{in lang|de}} [http://www.stagn.de/Portals/0/101125_TopR5.pdf Empfehlungen und Hinweise für die Schreibweise geographischer Namen, 5. Ausgabe 2010]</ref>

Although nowadays substituted correctly only by ''ss'', the letter actually originates from two distinct ligatures (depending on word and spelling rules): ''long s'' with ''round s'' ("ſs") and ''long s'' with ''(round) z'' ("ſz"/"ſʒ"). Some people therefore prefer to substitute "ß" by "sz". According to official rules this is incorrect, but it can avoid possible ambiguities (as in the above "Maßen" vs "Massen" example).

Incorrect use of the "ß" letter is a very common type of spelling error even among native German speakers. Although the spelling reform of 1996 was meant to simplify the rules concerning "ß" and "ss", it also caused considerable confusion and is widely disregarded: some people even incorrectly assumed that the "ß" had been abolished completely.

=== Long s ===
In the [[Fraktur (script)|Fraktur]] typeface and similar scripts, a [[long s]] ('''ſ''') was used except in syllable endings (cf. Greek [[Sigma (letter)|sigma]]) and sometimes it was historically used in [[Antiqua (typeface class)|antiqua]] fonts as well; but it went out of general use in the early 1940s along with the Fraktur typeface. An example where this convention would avoid ambiguity is ''Wachstube'', which was written either ''Wachſtube'' = ''Wach-Stube'' ({{IPA|de|ˈvax.ʃtuːbə}}, guardhouse) or ''Wachstube'' = ''Wachs-Tube'' ({{IPA|de|vaks.tuːbə}}, tube of wax).

=== Letter usage in loanwords ===
* Except for the common sequences ''sch'' ({{IPA|/ʃ/}}), ''ch'' ([[allophone]]: {{IPA|/x/}} or {{IPA|/ç/}}) and ''ck'' ({{IPA|/k/}}) the letter ''c'' appears only in [[loanword]]s or in [[proper noun]]s. In many loanwords, including most words of Latin origin, the letter ''c'' pronounced ({{IPA|/k/}}) has been replaced by ''k''. German words which come from Latin words with ''c'' before ''e, i, y, ae, oe'' are usually pronounced with ({{IPA|/ts/}}) and spelled with ''z''.
* The letter ''q'' in German only ever appears in the sequence ''qu'' ({{IPA|/kv/}}), with the exception of loanwords, e.g., ''[[Coq au vin]]'' or ''[[Qigong]]'' (which is also written ''Chigong'').
* The letter ''x'' (''Ix'', {{IPA|/ɪks/}}) occurs almost exclusively in loanwords. Native German words that are now pronounced with a {{IPA|/ks/}} sound are usually written using ''chs'' or ''cks'', as with ''Fuchs'' (fox). Some exceptions do occur, though, such as ''Hexe'' ([[witch]]), ''Nixe'' ([[mermaid]]) and ''Axt'' ([[axe]]).
* The letter ''y'' (''Ypsilon'', {{IPA|/ˈʏpsilɔn/}}) occurs almost exclusively in loanwords, especially words of Greek origin, although some such words (e.g., ''Typ'') have become so common that they are no longer perceived as foreign. It used to be more common in [[German orthography]] in earlier centuries, and traces of this earlier usage persist in proper names. It is used either as an alternative letter for [[i]], for instance in ''Mayer'' / ''Meyer'' (a common family name that occurs also in the spellings ''Maier'' / ''Meier''), or – especially in the Southwest – as a representation of {{IPA|[iː]}} that goes back to an old {{angbr|[[IJ (digraph)|IJ]]}}, for instance in ''[[Schwyz]]'' or ''Schnyder'' (an [[Alemannic German]] variant of the name ''Schneider'').{{Citation needed|date=November 2009}} Another notable exception is ''Bayern'', the German name of [[Bavaria]], and derived words like ''bayerisch'' (Bavarian).

In loan words from the [[French language]] spelling and accents are usually preserved. For instance, ''café'' is always written ''Café'' in German when it means "coffeehouse"; ''Cafe'' would be considered erroneous and it cannot be written ''Kaffee'' either, because this means ''coffee''. For this reason German [[typewriter]]s and computer keyboards offer two [[dead key]]s, one for the acute and grave accents, and one for circumflex. Other letters occur less often, like ''ç'' in loan words from French or Portuguese, and ''ñ'' in loan words from Spanish.

=== Sorting ===
There are three ways to deal with the umlauts in [[collation|alphabetic sorting]].
# Treat them like their base characters, as if the umlaut was not present ([[DIN]] 5007-1, section 6.1.1.4.1). This is the preferred method for dictionaries, where umlauted words ("Füße", feet) should appear near their origin words ("Fuß", foot). In words which are the same except for one having an umlaut and one its base character (e.g., "Müll" vs. "Mull"), the word with the base character gets precedence.
# Decompose them (invisibly) to vowel plus ''e'' (DIN 5007-2, section 6.1.1.4.2). This is often preferred for personal and geographical names, wherein the characters are used unsystematically, as in German [[telephone directory|telephone directories]] ("Müller, A.; Mueller, B.; Müller, C.").
# They are treated like extra letters either placed
## after their base letters (Austrian phone books have ''ä'' between ''az'' and ''b'' etc.) or
## at the end of the alphabet (as in [[Swedish alphabet|Swedish]] or in extended ASCII).
[[Microsoft Windows]] in German versions offers the choice between the first two variants in its internationalisation settings.

''Eszett'' is sorted as though it were ''ss''. Occasionally it is treated as ''s'', but this is generally considered incorrect. It is not used at all in Switzerland.

Accents in French loan words are always ignored in collation.

In rare contexts (e. g. in older indices) ''sch'' (equal to English ''sh'') and likewise ''st'' and ''ch'' are treated as single letters, but the vocalic [[digraph (orthography)|digraph]]s ''ai, ei'' (historically ''ay, ey''), ''au, äu, eu'' and the historic ''ui'' and ''oi'' never are.

== Letter names ==

{{div col|colwidth=15em}}
* A: {{IPA|/aː/}}
* Ä: {{IPA|/ɛː/}} or ''Umlaut A''
* B: {{IPA|/beː/}}
* C: {{IPA|/t͡seː/}}
* D: {{IPA|/deː/}}
* E: {{IPA|/eː/}}
* F: {{IPA|/ɛf/}}
* G: {{IPA|/ɡeː/}}
* H: {{IPA|/haː/}}
* I: {{IPA|/iː/}}
* J: {{IPA|/jɔt/}}; in Austria also {{IPA|/jeː/}}
* K: {{IPA|/kaː/}}
* L: {{IPA|/ɛl/}}
* M: {{IPA|/ɛm/}}
* N: {{IPA|/ɛn/}}
* O: {{IPA|/oː/}}
* Ö: {{IPA|/øː/}} or ''Umlaut O''
* P: {{IPA|/peː/}}
* Q: {{IPA|/kuː/}}; in Austria also {{IPA|/kveː/}}
* R: {{IPA|/ɛʁ/}} (usually [ʔɛɐ̯] when stressed, sometimes bare [ɐ] when unstressed, e.g. in ''[[Nordrhein-Westfalen|NRW]]'')
* S: {{IPA|/ɛs/}}
* ß: ''Eszett'', {{IPA|/ɛsˈt͡sɛt/}}; ''scharfes S'', {{IPA|/ˈʃaʁfəsˌɛs/}}
* T: {{IPA|/teː/}}
* U: {{IPA|/uː/}}
* Ü: {{IPA|/yː/}} or ''Umlaut U''
* V: {{IPA|/faʊ̯/}}
* W: {{IPA|/veː/}}
* X: {{IPA|/ɪks/}}
* Y: {{IPA|/ˈʏpsilɔn/}}
* Z: {{IPA|/t͡sɛt/}}
{{div col end}}

== Spelling alphabet ==
{{see also|DIN 5009}}
There is a German [[spelling alphabet]] similar to the [[ICAO spelling alphabet]]. The version in Germany in the late 20th century and early 21st century was:

{| class="wikitable"
! Letter !! Code !! Letter !! Code !! Letter !! Code
|-
| A || Anton || K || Kaufmann || ß || Eszett
|-
| Ä || Ärger || L || Ludwig || T || Theodor
|-
| B || Berta || M || Martha || U || Ulrich
|-
| C || Cäsar || N || Nordpol || Ü || Übermut
|-
| D || Dora || O || Otto || V || Viktor
|-
| E || Emil || Ö || Ökonom || W || Wilhelm
|-
| F || Friedrich || P || Paula || X || Xanthippe
|-
| G || Gustav || Q || Quelle || Y || Ypsilon
|-
| H || Heinrich || R || Richard || Z || Zacharias
|-
| I || Ida || S || Samuel || colspan="2" rowspan="2" | &nbsp;
|-
| J || Julius || SCH || SCHule
|}

The spelling alphabet was changed several times during the 20th century, in some cases for political reasons. In 1934, "Jewish" names (i.e. those derived from the [[Hebrew Bible]]) were replaced by the [[Nazi regime]]. Thus, ''David, Jakob, Nathan, Samuel'' and ''Zacharias'' became ''[[Dora (given name)|Dora]], [[J|Jot]], [[North Pole|Nordpol]], [[Siegfried]]'' and ''[[Zeppelin]]''. In Germany, the 1948 and 1950 versions reverted to some of the old versions but introduced additional changes. Many of the older, officially obsolete forms are still found in popular use, in particular ''Siegfried'' and ''Zeppelin''. Some letter names are still official in Austria. The official Austrian version, as laid down in ÖNORM A 1081, differs from DIN 5009 in the following places:

{| class="wikitable"
! Letter !! Code !! Letter !! Code
|-
| K || Konrad || Ü || Übel
|-
| Ö || Österreich || X || Xaver
|-
| S || Siegfried || Z || Zürich
|-
| ß || Scharfes S || colspan="2" | &nbsp;
|}

''Konrad'' is also used in Germany, although this is not and never was official there. ''Konrad'' can cause confusion since the first name "Conrad" (spelled with a "C") also exists. Not following the norm, but not uncommon are ''CHarlotte'' and - especially in Austria - ''CHristine'', ''Norbert'' and ''Zeppelin''.

In Switzerland and Liechtenstein yet another slightly different{{how|date=May 2013}} spelling alphabet is used.

In 2022, a large-scale revision was made of the DIN 5009 spelling alphabet was formalized, removing all personal names and favoring city names instead.

== See also ==
* [[German orthography]]
* [[German braille]]

== Notes ==
{{Reflist}}

== External links==
[[Wikt:Appendix:German spelling alphabet]]
{{Language orthographies}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:German Alphabet}}
[[Category:Latin alphabets]]
[[Category:German language]]