Danish spelling reform of 1948
The Danish spelling reform of 1948 laid the foundation for today's spelling of the Danish language .
The most obvious are two innovations: the introduction of lower case letters for nouns and the conversion of the digraph and / ɔ / -sound Aa, aa into Å, å ( Swedish Å or Bolle-Å ).
Lower case
The most obvious change for German readers as part of the spelling reform of 1948 was the introduction of moderate lower case, which fundamentally changed the typeface.
Reform will of the press
After the new spelling rules were published on March 22, 1948 by the “Spelling Committee of the Ministry of Education” (Undervisningsministeriets Retskrivningsudvalg), the predecessor of today's Danish Language Commission (Dansk Sprognævn) , a newspaper, Vejle Amt Avis, immediately started using lower case letters. Immediately after the new spelling came into force on April 1 of the same year, Aftenbladet, Land og Folk, Vestkysten and the entire social democratic press followed. Newspapers such as Politiken , Ekstra Bladet , Information and Kristeligt Dagblad initially only partially accepted the new rules, and it wasn't until 1956 that the conservative press followed, such as B. Berlingske Tidende . In 1958 there were 12 newspapers in Denmark that spelled the old way, and it wasn't until 1965 that Ærø Folkeblad was the last to introduce the new spelling.
The rules
The following rules do not apply to lower case letters:
- At the beginning of a sentence, after a period, question mark and exclamation mark (if these act as the end of the sentence), the first word is capitalized. In the cited speech one writes like this: “Kommer du i aften?” Say han. (“Are you coming tonight?” He said.) - Han råbte: “Come here! Jeg har noget til dig. ”“ Vent lidt! ”Lød svaret. (He shouted, "Come over here! I have something for you." "Wait a little!" Was the answer.)
- Proper names are capitalized:
- Jan Jacobsen, Marie Hansen (personal names ), København, Ålborg ( place names ), Tuborg , Lego (company names)
-
Gud, Faderen, Herren ("God, the Father, the Lord"), Folketinget (the Danish Parliament), Jomfruen (the constellation Virgo), Fjordvejen ("the Fjordweg", which is called Fjordvej on the street sign )
- In some cases alternative spellings are allowed: Rådhuset or rådhuset (“the town hall”), Ribe Amt or Ribe amt . Padborg Banegård or Padborg Banegård (Pattburg Train Station)
- In the case of proper names with more than two components, the first and last word are capitalized: Det kongelige Teater ("The Royal Theater"), Frederik den Anden ("Friedrich the Second")
- All important words can also be capitalized in such a name: Kristelig Forening for Unge Mænd ( KFUM = CVJM )
- Words derived from proper names such as tysk (“German”, “German”), tysker (“German”), akilleshæl (“Achilles heel”) or janushoved (“Janus head”) are written in lower case.
- Exceptions are derivations, which in turn can be emphasized again: Jesusbarnet ("the Jesus child"), Finsenmonumentet ("the Finsendenkmal ").
- The forms of address I (“you”), De (“you”), Dem (“you”), Deres (“your (e)”) are capitalized: Hvor kommer I fra? (“Where are you from?”) - Taler De tysk? (“Do you speak German?”) - Hvor he sikkert Deres WLAN? ("How secure is your WiFi?")
- Also still applies Deres Majesty ( "Your Majesty "), Hendes Majesty ( "Her Majesty"), Hans Højærværdighed ( "His Reverence").
- Letter names like DSB , KFUM , the cardinal points N, S, V, Ø (N, S, W, O) and finally with units like the C in 15 ° C are capitalized while celsius is lowercase.
The A
prehistory
- For the letter in general see Å
- For the sound, see rounded half-open back vowel
Around 1200–1250 people started to use the Old Norse long / a / with á , ā or aa . (The spelling Á, á is still used today for Icelandic , Faroese and normalized spelling of Old Norse, but denotes different phonetic values in modern languages.) In addition, this Old Norse [aː] in large parts of Scandinavia becomes a long, partly open , partly closed / o / ( [ɔː] , [oː] ), which led to the use of the sound as ao, o or oo until the 15th century . For example, the old bla ("blue") in the graphics became blá, blā, blaa and later also blao, blo, bloo or even bló, blō.
The Bible translator Christiern Pedersen standardized the Danish orthography in his Karl Magnus-krøniken in 1534 . From there on, the Aa, aa as a digraph was the symbol for the long rounded back vowel [ɔː] (or [å] in Danish phonetic spelling). The digraph aa has since been used for both the short and the long å : blaa (long) and haand (short). Incidentally, Pedersen wrote the latter as hond .
The character Å, å was introduced in Sweden as early as 1526 to represent the vowel here which has become [o zu ] . It was probably based on the German Ä, ä , which was originally an A with a small E above it to represent the digraph ae ; analogously, the circle in Å is a stylized O.
Rasmus Rask popularized the å in his grammar Dansk Retskrivingslære in 1826 as a symbol for the previous aa . Scandinavians like Svend Grundtvig followed this spelling. In 1870 his Dansk Retskrivnings-Ordbog appeared, in which not only the å was used, but also the moderate lower case. This spelling was z. B. 1894 used in Folkehöjskolens sangbog , the hymn book of the Danish folk high schools . Grundtvig's official Danish spelling dictionary from 1872 Dansk Haandordbog, med den af Kultusministeriet Anbefalede Retskrivning did not use this spelling (as can be seen from the title "Haandordbog") because this book should have official status. In the spelling ordinance of June 7, 1889, the following was explicitly mentioned again: the skrives aa, ikke å (“it is written aa, not å”).
Alphabetical sorting of the Aa or Å
The Aa, aa was sorted under A in the oldest spelling dictionaries Dansk ortografisk Ordbog (1799), Haandordbog (1813) and Dansk Ordbog (1833 and 1859) , so it came before abe . Svend Grundtvig's official Dansk Haandordbog (1872) also used this order. In his Dansk Retskrivnings-Ordbog (1870), Grundtvig took a different approach . Here the Å, å stood on its own as one of the last letters of the alphabet , following the Swedish model: a, b, c, ..., v, y, å, æ, ö, ø (he avoided the "foreign" letters w , x and z , but etymologically differentiated between ø and ö ). The usual sorting of the Aa in first place has been retained in the following official dictionaries: Dansk Retskrivningsordbog udarbejdet i Overensstemmelse med de ministerial Retskrivnings Regulator af June 7, 1889 (1891 ff.), And Dansk Retskrivningsordbog udgivet af Undervisningsministeriets until 1946 ). It was only with the spelling reform of 1948 that the Aa was replaced by the Å . The first official dictionary that followed, Retskrivningsordbog udgivet af Dansk Sprognævn , appeared in 1955. There, Å was placed at the end of the alphabet as a separate letter. In 1953 the Nudansk Ordbog came out for the first time. There, Å was sorted as the first letter of the alphabet, but also as a separate letter in contrast to Aa before. It was not until the second edition in 1957 that the current rule was adapted and the Å was put at the end of the alphabet.
Proper names
Initially, the spelling reform did not automatically record place names. This provision was repealed in 1956, and exceptions were only permitted in special cases, such as at Aalborg Akvavit and Aarhus Universitet , as these terms are both brand names and are used in international correspondence. But as early as 1948 the city of Aarhus decided on the spelling with Å, which was valid until 2010. Ålborg and Åbenrå, on the other hand, wanted the old spelling (Aalborg and Aabenraa) and were found right in 1984 by Minister of Education Bertel Haarder and Minister of Culture Mimi Jacobsen - against the resistance of the Danish Language Council.
Since then, the Danish spelling rules allow in such cases - only if the Aa spelling is common in the local area - to write either Åbenrå and Ålborg or Aabenraa and Aalborg . The same applies to derived terms such as ålborgenser, ålborgensisk and ålborgsk, which can also be spelled aalborgenser, aalborgensisk and aalborgsk . Although the residents and local authorities of Aalborg and Aabenraa prefer the Aa spelling, the Å spelling remains the option recommended by the Danish Language Council.
Personal names are excluded from the spelling rules. The wearer himself can decide about Aa / Å spelling. The vast majority have retained the old spelling, which can be seen, for example, in the common family names in -gaard / -gård ( gård = "yard"). First names like Åbjørn, Åge, Åke, Åmund, Åsmund thus still exist today in the alternative forms Aabjørn, Aage, Aake, Aamund, Aasmund . Furthermore, Aa , aa exists in foreign names and words that are not pronounced as / å / but as long / a: /, as in Aachen, Saar, Haag, Kanaan, Afrikaans , kraal .
Aa is sorted under Å in Danish word lists : Åge, Aage, Åmund, Aamund etc. This also applies today to foreign names and words in which the Aa is pronounced as a long / a: /; In the past, such cases were sorted by sound value, so that Aachen was at the very front under Aa, Aalborg / Ålborg at the very back under Å.
modal verbs
The spelling reform also affected the modal verbs kunne, skulle, ville (can, should, want), whose past tense was kunde, skulde, vilde . According to the pronunciation, this was written exactly like the infinitive, i.e. kunne, skulle, ville .
When reading older texts one must also make sure that the forms kunne, skulle, ville stood for the plural of the present tense up to around 1900 as well as for the infinitive (vi / I / de / De kunne, skulle, ville) .
Reading sample
"Borgerne have Ret til at forene sig i Samfund for at dyrke Gud paa den Maade, der stemmer med deres Overbeviisning, dog at intet læres eller foretages, som strider mod Sædeligheden or the public order."
And the same text in 1953:
"Borgerne har ret til at forene sig i samfund for at dyrke Gud på den måde, der stemmer med deres overbevisning, dog at intet læres eller foretages, som strider mod sædeligheden or den public order."
Translation: Citizens have the right to gather in churches to worship God in ways that are consistent with their beliefs, but that nothing is taught or done that is contrary to morality or public order.
literature
- Vibeke Sandersen: " Om bogstavet å " in Nyt fra Sprognævnet 2002/3 September.
- Nudansk Ordbog (the examples in the " Lower case" section are from the 8th edition from 1974, Retskrivnings Regulator , p. 9)
credentials
- ↑ a b Retsinformation: Bekendtgørelse om ændringer i retskrivningen , accessed on August 20, 2010 (Danish)
- ↑ Spelling rules, §3.2 ( Memento of the original dated May 13, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , sproget.dk (in Danish)
