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By Andres Heuberger

Maintaining the tradition of making language a matter of legislation, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and Liechtenstein have recently mandated a comprehensive spelling reform.

This past August, German-speaking countries and regions implemented a set of new rules, starting a six-year transition period. Bringing about much discussion, bickering, and warnings of imminent anarchy, the spelling reform had been in the making since the 1980s.

The changes are quite dramatic: The 212 rules that used to govern German spelling have been consolidated to 112. And of the 57 old comma rules, only 9 remain. German-speaking school children everywhere are rejoicing...

Translators, of course, have followed these developments with great interest. After weighing if and when to adopt the new rules, many translation companies have begun to accommodate the spelling reform in German translations.

For clients, it is important to poll their German company staff for their preferences and usage. Some people and/or companies may wish to continue using the old spelling rules (they won't be "wrong" until August 2005).

Additional resources:

1. Send an email to heller@ids-mannheim.de to receive the December '98 special edition of IDS' "Sprachreport" (available in German, English, French, or Spanish), which details the new rules.
2. Duden-online is THE authority on German spelling rules (in German).
3. Institut für Deutsche Sprache (German Language Institute) maintains a committee to implement and clarify the new rules (in German).
4. http://german.miningco.com/education/german/mmore.htm is an English site with links and information.

Andres Heuberger is an editor at multilingualwebmaster.com. He frequently writes on issues related to technology, translation, and regulations. Rants and raves can be sent to aheuberger@multilingualwebmaster.com.

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