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The Cultural Politics of the 1998 Reform of German Orthography
Author(s) -
Johnson Sally
Publication year - 2000
Publication title -
german life and letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.1
H-Index - 12
eISSN - 1468-0483
pISSN - 0016-8777
DOI - 10.1111/1468-0483.00155
Subject(s) - orthography , german , politics , premise , political science , law , sociology , history , linguistics , philosophy , reading (process)
In November 1995, after many years of debate by linguists and politicians, it was announced that a reform of German orthography would be officially introduced from 1998. No sooner had the reform been agreed, however, than widespread protest began, such that by 1996 the issue of how the German language should be written had evolved into a major constitutional wrangle requiring intervention on the part of the ‘Bundesverfassungsgericht’. This paper is an attempt to explore what I see as the issues underpinning this protest. It is my basic premise that the disputes which surrounded the reform were not exclusively about orthography. Clearly, cultural and political significance was attached to the proposed changes, and it is my aim to investigate how and why this was so. The first part of the paper describes in some detail the historical background to the reform. The second outlines the structural amendments to German orthography which were proposed. Finally, the third part explores the various levels of protest against the reform, as voiced by lawyers, writers, publishers, politicians, and the wider population.