[TUHS] end-S/long-S (was: Re: GNU eqn clarifications and reforms)

[Paul Winalski]

On 6/16/23, markus schnalke <meillo at marmaro.de> wrote:
>
> [2023-06-16 07:07] "G. Branden Robinson" <g.branden.robinson at gmail.com>
>>
>> For inſtance, the United States uſed to employ a non-final lowercaſe S
>> in the founding documents of its preſent government, where you can see
>> exhibits of the "Congreſs of the United States".
>
> In old German, up to WWII, namely in Fraktur (the printed letters)
> and Sütterlin (the handwritten letters) both kinds of S are
> present.
>
> Today, the long-S has only survived in some old company and
> restaurant names, many of them changing by and by to the end-S,
> because younger Germans can't read long-S and don't understand it
> anymore.

German also has a ligature letter called eszet that is a fusion of a
long s (the one that resembles the English letter f) and a short s.
It is used when a 's' sound is immediately preceded by a long vowel or
a diphthong and not followed by a consonant.  When the glyph for eszet
isn't available 'ss' is substituted, as in the word 'strasse'
(street).

-Paul W.