Standard German - Orthography

Orthography

A first standardization, although non-prescriptive, of Early Modern High German was introduced by the Luther Bible of 1534. In consequence, the written language of the chancery of Saxony-Wittenberg rose in importance in the course of the 17th century, and the 1665 revision of the Zürich Bible abandoned its Alemannic idiom in favour of this standard.

The First Orthographical Conference (I. Orthographische Konferenz) was called in 1876 by the government of Prussia. Since Prussia was by far the largest state in the German Empire, its regulations also influenced spelling elsewhere.

Konrad Duden published the first edition of his dictionary, later simply known as the Duden, in 1880. The first spelling reform, based on Duden's work, came into effect in 1901. The orthographical standards predating 1901 are now known as "classical orthography" (Klassische deutsche Rechtschreibung), while the conventions in effect from 1901 to 1998 are summarized as "old orthography" (Alte deutsche Rechtschreibung). A failed attempt at another reform dates to 1944, delayed on the order of Hitler and not taken back up after the end of the World War II. In the following decades German spelling was essentially decided de facto by the editors of the Duden dictionaries. After the war, this tradition was followed with two different centers: Mannheim in West Germany and Leipzig in East Germany. By the early 1950s, a few other publishing houses had begun to attack the Duden monopoly in the West by putting out their own dictionaries, which did not always hold to the "official" spellings prescribed by Duden. In response, the Ministers of Culture of the federal states in West Germany officially declared the Duden spellings to be binding as of November 1955.

The 1996 spelling reform was based on an international agreement signed by the governments of the German-speaking countries Germany, Austria, Liechtenstein, and Switzerland; but acceptance of the reform was limited. While, as of 2004, most German print media follow the reform, some newspapers, such as Die Zeit, Neue Zürcher Zeitung and Süddeutsche Zeitung, created their own in-house orthographies.

In 2006, there was a final revision of the spelling reform because there were disagreements like capitalizing or separating German words. Also revised were the rules governing punctuation marks.