Intergovernmental Commission for German Spelling

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The Intergovernmental Commission for German Spelling was an international commission of the states Germany , Austria and Switzerland , which was charged with the implementation of the new spelling after the spelling reform of 1996 .

The commission existed from 1997 to 2004 and was attached to the Institute for the German Language in Mannheim . The constituent meeting took place on March 25, 1997.

basis

Their work was based on Article III of the Vienna Letter of Intent of July 1, 1996:

“The responsible government agencies in Germany, Austria and Switzerland will send experts to a commission for German spelling, whose office will be set up at the Institute for the German Language in Mannheim. The commission works to maintain uniform spelling in the German-speaking area. She accompanies the introduction of the new regulation and monitors future language development. If necessary, it develops proposals for adapting the set of rules. "

predecessor

The intergovernmental commission was largely in the tradition of the spelling commissions based at the Institute for German Language (IDS) in Mannheim. On March 24, 1977, the “Commission for Spelling Reform” was founded there, and on June 2 it was renamed “Commission for Spelling Issues”. From 1977 to 1980 it was under the direction of Heinz Rupp . From 1980 to 1990 Hans Glinz followed and from 1990 to 1997 Gerhard Augst as chairwoman.

In 1979 the Commission submitted a draft of a new regulation of upper and lower case in the sense of moderate lower case.

In 1980, the Commission for Spelling Issues (FRG) joined the "Orthography Research Group" (GDR, head Dieter Nerius ), the "Spelling Reform Working Group of the Swiss Conference of Cantonal Education Directors" (Switzerland, President Horst Sitta ) and the " Scientific working group of the coordination committee for orthography at the Federal Ministry of Education and Culture ”(Austria, headed by Karl Blüml ) to form the international working group for spelling reform, which was later renamed the international working group for orthography . This met initially every two years, from 1986 annually.

In 1985 the Mannheim Commission went public for the first time with the proposal “The German Spelling and its New Regulation”. The draft first became known to the general public through an article by Gerhard Augst in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung .

Members of the Spelling Commission

The IDS spelling commission had the following members:

Members

The commission consisted of six members from Germany and three each from Austria and Switzerland, who were appointed by the respective state. Five of the German members could be proposed by the Institute for German Language Institute for German Language , one by the Society for German Language .

Original members

Upcoming members

Reports

Between 1997 and 2004 the Commission submitted four reports on the implementation of the spelling reform. They appeared in December 1997, March 2000, December 2001 and early 2004. The Commission was careful not to let the reports become public.

First report

On December 18, 1997, the Spelling Commission submitted its first report, almost 70 pages long, to the Conference of Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs , in which far-reaching corrections to the original set of rules were proposed, which were described as "absolutely necessary". On January 23, 1998, the Spelling Commission held a closed hearing on this report on the premises of the IDS in Mannheim, with almost exclusively reform proponents invited. The few reform opponents who were invited had to get the report under adventurous conditions. Journalists were not admitted until the evening press conference. On February 12, the Conference of Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs announced in a press release that, according to the result of its deliberations on February 6, it would not accept the proposed changes, but would instead introduce the original rules unchanged on August 1, 1998. Thereupon Peter Eisenberg resigned from the spelling commission.

Second report

The second report of the Spelling Commission was presented in March 2000 and contained just under four pages. Since the education ministers had rejected the proposed amendments in the first report, the commission had to limit itself to ensuring that the new rules - albeit partially recognized as incorrect - were implemented uniformly through the dictionaries.

Third report

On December 15, 2001, the Intergovernmental Commission for German Spelling sent its third 119-page report, marked confidential , to the secretariat of the Standing Conference of Education Ministers. The commission emphasizes the high acceptance of the spelling reform in the population and comes to the conclusion that "the implementation of the new regulations in schools has been carried out without any problems." In Part B of the report problems of the reform are discussed, but concrete proposals for changes are made not done, but postponed to the next report.

Fourth report

The fourth and last report of the commission from the beginning of 2004, which revised the new spelling in numerous points, was surprisingly not adopted by the Standing Conference of the Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs (KMK). Instead, talks between the commission and the German Academy for Language and Poetry took place under the leadership of the KMK , but they failed. The academy had previously sharply criticized the spelling reform and worked out its own compromise proposal. The KMK also decided that the Intergovernmental Commission should be partially re-appointed and expanded.

In May 2004 the Intergovernmental Commission submitted a report on the talks with the German Academy for Language and Poetry and modified some of the formulations of its proposed amendment from the fourth report without changing the core of it.

In June 2004 the German Standing Conference approved the fourth report of the Intergovernmental Commission for German Spelling and the supplementary report of May 18, 2004. There was also another spelling reform. The spellings now proposed included, for example, “for a long time” (next to: “for a long time”), “sorry” (next to “sorry”), “most” (next to: “most”); they did not make the previous Reformed spellings, which came into force in 1998, wrong, but were equally valid. In addition, the ministers of education affirmed that the transition period should end on August 1, 2005.

Succession

The tasks of the Intergovernmental Commission have meanwhile been transferred to the Council for German Spelling , which was set up by the Conference of Ministers of Education and which, under the chairmanship of Hans Zehetmair , has carried out a “reform of the spelling reform” since December 2004 .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Gerhard Augst: Proposal for the new regulation of the German spelling . In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, July 19, 1988
  2. 1st report of the intergovernmental commission for German spelling (PDF, 1.9 MB), December 1997
  3. ^ Theodor Ickler : Regulatory power. Background to the spelling reform (PDF, 1.9 MB). Leibniz-Verlag, St. Goar, 2004, ISBN 3-93115-518-8 , pp. 89, 120
  4. ^ Theodor Ickler : Closed department - a memory. In: My Spelling Diary, July 29, 2005
  5. ^ Theodor Ickler : Regulatory power. Background to the spelling reform (PDF, 1.9 MB). Leibniz-Verlag, St. Goar, 2004, ISBN 3-93115-518-8 , pp. 119-150
  6. ^ Theodor Ickler : Regulatory power. Background to the spelling reform (PDF, 1.9 MB). Leibniz-Verlag, St. Goar, 2004, ISBN 3-93115-518-8 , p. 89
  7. 3rd report of the intergovernmental commission for German spelling (PDF, 2.4 MB), November 8, 2001
  8. ^ Theodor Ickler : Regulatory power. Background to the spelling reform (PDF, 1.9 MB). Leibniz-Verlag, St. Goar, 2004, ISBN 3-93115-518-8 , pp. 262-283
  9. 4th report of the intergovernmental commission for German spelling (PDF, 0.58 MB), November 27, 2003
  10. ^ Heike Schmoll : Commission for the spelling reform disempowered . In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, March 6, 2004