An Easier German Language Is To Be Made Unlike In France, You Can’t Be Fined For Ignoring Rules

Mark Twain once wrote a hilarious essay entitled “The Awful German Language.” Germany has decided it’s time to make its terribly complicated language less awful.

But it won’t be any easier to learn German. If you’re not already fluent, you might not even notice the changes.

Even the title of this supposed modernization of written German is a mouthful. It’s called Rechtschreibreform, which means, roughly, “Reform of the Correct Way to Write.”

A deadline expired this week for Germany’s 16 states to file objections to the proposed changes, which were drafted by the states’ culture ministers. No objections have been received.

The next step is for the federal government to approve the rules, which are to be used as guidelines by publishers, school teachers and bureaucrats. But unlike in France, you can’t be taken to court or fined for not obeying the language precepts.

The “Rechtscreibreform” contains 112 rules on writing in German - from how to spell foreign words to where to place a comma.

Write “Rad fahren,” which means bicycle-riding, instead of “Radfahren,” the reformers say.

And break a word at the end of a syllable instead of at some random place.

There is also an attempt to clear up confusion over whether to write “ss” or a character that has a similar sound but looks like a “B.”

If the preceding vowel is short, say the rules, use ‘ss.” If the vowel is long, the B-looking thing is preferred. So the German for beer keg - “Fass” - gets an “ss.”

The new rules won’t take effect until 1998.

Twain probably would not get too excited about all of this.

Because, seemingly infinite sentences loaded with unwieldy-strung-together-compound-words and containing several different subjects (along with parentheses within parentheses) and the verb at the very end, in Germany still will be written.