German Spelling and Leadership
Along the lines of what we talked about in class today, I just wanted to say that Germany had a big Spelling Reform of 1996 in order to streamline the language and figure out exact rules for special German letters like eszett (a double S) and capitalization. At least, in German class those were the only parts of it we talked about. Anyway, it was a big deal signed by the four predominantly German-speaking nations in Europe that even led to court rulings. And now, Germany for the first time has a female chancellor, Angela Merkel, who was elected about ten years later.
–Brandon
October 25th, 2007 at 8:10 am
Brilliant, Brandon. Yes, that’s exactly right. Change the symbolic system and get a Female ruler. The first major linguistic reform was in Nazi Germany. I’m going to post something on it right now.
Dr. B.