German spelling alphabets: the (nearly) full story
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- Опубликовано: 23 июл 2024
- I was surprised at the amount of interest there was in my recent Shorts about the German spelling alphabet. So in this video, I take a slightly deeper dive into its history: why a spelling alphabet was needed, the abysmal first attempt, a new approach, a revision, and ideological complications.
Chapters:
00:00 Intro
00:41 Why a spelling alphabet?
01:22 A first attempt
01:46 A better solution
03:00 A few tweaks
03:51 Aryanisation
05:55 An industry norm
07:01 Meanwhile in East Germany...
07:34 In common use
08:04 De-Nazification
09:04 Tongue-twisters
09:39 Will it catch on?
Music:
"Style Funk" and "Hot Swing"
by Kevin MacLeod incompetech.com/
Creative Commons Attribution licence
Sound effects:
by martinimeniscus at freesound.org/
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Хобби
18 R
15 O
23 W
19 S
19 S
That makes 5 mistakes in 7 letters. The following were correct:
5 E
2 B
I see what my mistake was. I was reading off the original table from 1895 when writing my script. But when making the table to show on screen, I didn't notice that in the original, "I" and "J" both have the same number.
So R is the 18th letter of the alphabet, but has the number 17 in the original spelling table.
@@rewboss I'd expected something like this, as B and E are at the very start of the ABC (alphabet) and the offset was always by -1...
@@rewboss Yup, I and J as seperate letters are a surprisingly recent development in Germany. They used to be just different graphical variants for the same letter. J was often used as capital i because, depending on the typeface, capital i is easy to be confused with a small letter L.
@@kpanic23I tend to do that occasionally as well, in fact, that is how I learned the cursive I. But usually I put the capital I either just as a vertical line or add serifs. (the latter more towards the beginning of a sentence, the simple line in the middle. That is also how I write my one. Standalone it has the hook, but in bigger numbers it's just a vertical line)
The J tends to either have a bow at the bottom like a small g and goes beyond the baseline, or a horizontal stroke, or both.
And the fact that I and J are somewhat recent is something everyone who watched Indiana Jones will remember. "In Latin Jehova starts with an I"
And numbers don't really help either, as 2 and 3 are pronounced as closely to each other as M and N. There is a reason 9 is usually spelled as "niner" in NATO phoonetics.
@@HappyBeezerStudios There's also a convention to write U as V... -> IVLIVS 🤪
My guess as to why Salzwedel stands for S is that it also begins with an S sound, as opposed to Stuttgart, which begins with a Sch sound.
Tiny and poorly known Salzwedel is still a head-scratcher. Why not
Saarbrücken,
Salzgitter,
Siegen, or
Solingen
… all vastly larger and better known?
Why not Salzburg?
@@christiangeiselmann Perhaps it’s because the most well-known Salzburg is found in Austria, and this spelling alphabet lists places in Germany.
@@christiangeiselmann Cause it was developed as a national standard for Germany. Including Austrian city names would be problematic politically.
Indeed interesting! Thank You! I’ll give you the Swedish version: A=Adam, B=Bertil, C=Caesar, D=David, E=Erik, F=Filip, G=Gustav, H=Helge (earlier Harald), I=Ivar, J=Johan, K=Kalle, L=Ludvig, M=Martin, N=Nicklas, O=Olov, P=Petter, Q=Quintus, R=Rudolf, S=Sigurd, T=Tore, U=Urban, V=Viktor, W=Wilhelm, X=Xerxes, Y=Yngve, Z=Zäta, Å=Åke, Ä=Ärlig, Ö=Östen.
Very interesting, thanks for sharing! ❤🇸🇪
A Rudolf feels honored. Without a red nose, of course.
I think most people improvise. They don't know all the names so they take one that comes to mind. I'm thankful when people use the spelling alphabet because in some dialects there is almost no difference between "T" and "D" and "B" and "P".
Mein Name ist Meyer, ich buchstabiere: M wie Morie, E wie Epanalepsis, Y wie Yoghurt, E wie Echophrasie, R wie Radotage.
That's what I do. I never learned the German spelling alphabet. I have heard people use it. I actually learned an English spelling alphabet instead. I don't what it's official name is or who defined it. It starts like Alpha Bravo Charlie Delta Echo Foxtrott ...
@@bernhardkrickl3567
>It starts like Alpha Bravo Charlie Delta Echo Foxtrott
That's the NATO phonetic alphabet also used by other Institution like the ICAO.
Or on amateur radio, which is what I learnt it for. If I have to use the German one I have to admit it is the "Glücksrad" one, which as I had to find out in this video is mostly the East German one.
@@bernhardkrickl3567 That's the ICAO alphabet. ICAO developed it and it is now used by many international organizations.
As an Austrian, although growing up in Germany, I just learned that I have been using the Austrian version my whole life without even noticing that the German way differs. Anyhow, I can assure you that I just once ran into trouble with this when spelling my last name on the phone. I wondered why the lady at the other end of the line took so long to note down my name. Eventually, she replied: "Wow, you have a lot of names, Zeppelin, Anton, Dora..." I actually did not know what to answer :-)
Even though I'm german, I actually learned the international spelling alphabet with my dad when he was training for his radio license. So I'm much more familiar with
Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, Delta, Echo, Foxtrot, Golf, Hotel, India, Juliet, Kilo, Lima, Mike, November, Oskar, Papa, Quebec, Romeo, Sierra, Tango, Uniform, Victor, Whiskey, X-ray, Yankee, Zulu.
Yey, I managed to write it down from memory :) This alphabet is also known as the NATO spelling alphabet which is used in aviation as well as on sea for radio communication.
Yeah, I use the NATO spelling usually as well.
@@MrFusselig
I learned both in the 1980's.
German alphabet including „Siegfried“ and „Zeppelin“ as part of education in German Civil defense (Katastrophenschutz; which I chose rather than German military service).
At the same time I passed the Amateur radio license at former Deutsche Bundespost Fernmeldeamt (German Federal Postal Telecommunications Office) and learned Alpha Bravo Charlie.
Interestingly, I never mixed up the two alphabets
I use the same. I needed to learn it when I did my attempt at a pilots licence in South Africa. I don't care which country I am in, This is the alphabet I'm using.
Yeah, this is one is also the only one I ever had to learn, during my military service in a signal battalion.
I use the sane - especially since I regularly need to spell things out on the phone when talking to people who don't speak German. While most people would understand really well-known city names like Frankfurt, Hamburg or Berlin, some smaller cities and their names may not be as well known. So using something that works for people from almost everywhere in the world is likely the best idea.
In the last spelling alphabet I miss Ch and Sch. Ä, Ö and Ü do not have their own place names here either.
Here are some possible place names for those who want a complete list:
C - Cottbus (as Chemnitz begins with Ch)
CH - Charlottenburg (or Chemnitz, ignoring confusion with the current spelling alphabet)
SCH - Schweinfurt (not Schwerin, as this can be confused with Berlin if the Sch is not transferred)
Ä - Äpfingen
Ö - Öhringen
Ü - Überlingen
I made a conscious effort to learn the second to last one, i also learnt the NATO one. It has proven to be quite practical in my line of work as I often have to make phone calls and spell my name or an address. Many times I've witnessed people try to spell with non standard names but it causes confusion. The standards work reliably well, even with people who have never learnt them. Unfortunately the city name version is just too unknown to most people, it's as if you're using any random words that start with the same letter. It causes confusion as well. The names are also mostly too long. At that point i'll have better success with the NATO one, which causes people to think I'm some crazy military movie nut.
This spelling table was actually developed by ICAO, the NATO just adopted ist. Besides that's historically correct, ICAO-alphabet sounds much more simpatico than NATO-alphabet.
@@glpxt It's like when Americans call the 24 hour time "military time". Also the English spelling alphabet is probably most used in civil aviation. But to German ears hearing something like "Sierra Papa Tango Foxtrot" is associated with movie military mumbo jumbo.
@@glpxt I think NATO alphabet sounds pretty awesome. Also while everyone knows what NATO is, most people won't even know what ICAO is.
@@TigruArdaviunfortunately true - it is more likely people know the IATA (International Air Transport Association) then the ICAO (International Civil Aviation Organisation) even though the latter is a UN agency ;)
yes, town names are pretty long, many people will use different (local) town names instead, and depending on dialects or education they may return false letters like Kemnitz and SCHtuttgart
Yes, the "sch" combination is so common in german, that in some dictionaries and libraries it has it's own entry between S and T
I learnt the Telefonalphabet in Bavaria in the early 1980s. According to your video that would theoretically be the DDR one. But it isn't. I was working in the export department of a multinational company and we got calls from our subsidiaries all over Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Belgium. They all used the Anton, Berta version which had Konrad, Siegfried and Zeppelin in it. And for the Umlauts we had Ärger, Ökonom, Übel. Everybody said "scharfes S", nobody said "Eszett". We used "Schule" for "sch", but nobody ever used "Charlotte" for "ch", it was always "Cäsar Heinrich".
I still use that alphabet and I don't see any reason to change since everyone understands it.
I wouldn't use an alphabet with city names. A lot of those cities are not that well known to everyone even in Germany and some would not be known to people outside Germany at all.
Police in Hessen used an Anton, Berta, Kaufmann, Siegfried, Ypsilon, Zeppelin, Ärger, Ökonom, Übel, Schule, and scharfes S variant after 1990 (I do not know how it was before then, maybe they used Konrad).
saying 'Esszett' for ß could be confusing since 'Ess Zett' might be written down as 'SZ' (forgetting that it should be spelled with other words and not single letters). this problem does not exist with 'Ypsilon'
can confirm for austria, except ö is österreich of course and Dora for d
Many people simply still used the old one they learned, and taught it to others, regardless if the official norm.
@@danel1922You mentioning Dora for d reminded me of an incident in my office. The company was situated in Lower Franconia (Unterfranken), which is in the very northwest of Bavaria. The Franken don't cosider themselves Bavarian and they also have a completely different dialect. Part of that dialect is that they often can't tell the difference between voiced and unvoiced consonants (b/p, g/k, d/t), so a lot of things had to be spelt out, especially foreign names.
One day I had a woman on the phone who seemed to have "cloth ears" (didn't understand or didn't want to understand what I was saying). I got so fed up that I said to her "Nee, des schrebb ma ned med Dora, des schrebb ma med D wie Deodor." The rest of my office fell about laughing because they hadn't expected me (a Scot who spoke Hannover-accented Hochdeutsch) to come out with the local dialect. But it worked, so that's the main thing.
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My grandma was a big fan of Glücksrad when it was still on TV, and when my brother and I spent our vacation at my grandparents' place, often the family would sit around the TV in the evening watching Glücksrad together.
I'm probably the only one in my peer group who knew any spelling alphabet just because of that.
I learned my spelling alphabet through said "Glücksrad" ... Though that also lead me to adopt a style of "name the first thing that comes to your mind starting with that letter" spelling alphabet.
Yet I also had to learn the official NATO alphabet. And it is a pretty handy technique that has proven it's worth whenever I needed to dictate something ... and if you say "well I just need it max once a year" remember that Christmas, birthdays and other anniversaries are also just once a year and also return astonishingly quickly.
I would just say the first word that comes to mind that starts with a certain letter if I didn't knew the spelling alphabet
Yep, that's my tactic as well... I never learned any spelling alphabet.
The Y is indeed extremely rare in german. Also the reason why on a german keyboard the letters Z and Y are switched compared to the english layout.
and fun fact about the Y: Ypsilon (or Uspilon) is one common way to spell the letter, the other is "greek I" (in the respective local language), as it's pronounced similar to I in many languages.
Yoga could fit the bill.
Don't underestimate the need to spell the Mcdonalds-App Cupon-code at the drive-through counter. There is real need for such an alphabet.😊
They usually don't understand me if I try spelling in the official (name based) alphabet. They always ask me to come to the first window and show it to them🤣
I think with all the technology available they intensionally kept the intercom from pre-WW1-era because most people at McDonald's don't understand German anyway until pictures were added.
As if McDonald's employees could understand our alphabet 😂
@@senfdazu2230 In der Hauptschule sollte auch das ABC in den Lernplan aufgenommen werden. evtl. andere fastfood skills lernen, wie: burger stacking ,"ohne gurke(oä.)" und einfachstes Deutsch verstehen.
@@ketaminekermit802 Aber bitte das lateinische Alphabet. Ich kann nicht buchstabieren mit diesen komischen Krächzlauten...
A spelling alphabet is still needed, even in normal verbal communication, because some people misunderstand names, especially surnames. I do not mean exotic surnames but surnames which may not be very common but very simple. You do not know how often I had to correct people because they wrote my very simple surname wrong. They either added consonants or omitted them or replaced them with others. Sometimes they do this with vocals.
My surname has both an umlaut and an ß, and since the spelling reform excludes names, pronounciation and how you would write it differ.
Or think about the name Meyer. Or was it Maier.... Yeah, that is one of those names where you need to make clear how to write it.
I know. I learned by hearing it at my parents when I was very young how to tell the letters one by one, but usually without spelling alphabet. That was only seldom necessary. It's astonishing what people can do with a name.
As I did the Morse test long ago, I needed to learn an alphabet, but I think it was the english one.
Researching family history in the local arrival records out here in Oz for German immigrants in the 1850s to 80s era (when the British Toffs were literally "in bed with" their German counterparts!) can turn up some really hilarious spelling shifts when compared to their counterparts in the departure shipping documentation from Hamburg. The local yokel clerk who registered 1 of my great grandmas converted her illiterate accented German name to Bahme - but then, considering some of my relatives, perhaps he wasn't all that far wrong! 🤔😈😱
If you order take out via phone, spelling your name this way might help you getting your pizza without problems ;)
Thanks for the in-depth coverage, great video! Got a feeling you also couldn't really let the topic go after the first short :D
Also, as a person with a rather unusual last name, I still need the spelling alphabet from time to time. Thinking now wether I should try using David instead of Dora or maybe see if I can get used to the new official one
On a mostly unrelated note, Ypern / Ypres / Ieper was caught in the middle of the front lines in WW1, and has seen more of it than just the gas attacks you mentioned. It's also very close to Passchendaele, for example.
It hosts the _In Flanders fields_ museum, and if you're around there, it's definitely worth a visit.
A second reason for Unna instead of Ulm is that it has 2 syllables, so if the first syllable cut off, you still have -na as a distinct and more or less unique sound. First syllable cut off from Ulm and it's gone completely
I actually learned the german and international spelling alphabets during paramedic training, where communications are still radio-based. Being able to spell out things can get important.
I thought it odd that Ulm would be difficult for Germans to pronounce, whereas for English speakers it is a piece of cake. It seems though it's because of the different ways that the letter "L" is pronounced in German and English. English has in fact got two different ways of pronouncing L, depending on its position in a word; look at "Liverpool", first and last L are pronounced differently (Slavic languages are like that also to some extent; note the two different L's in the Russian spelling of Liverpool: "Ливерпуль").
I knew about Emil and Gustav because of WWII history. The Bf 109 fighter came in several variants or versions, two of the most common being the E and the G ones.
I had to spell a MAC address to O2 support, tired using NATO aphabet but it didn't work out. So had to hodgepodge some german names together.
Knowing my fellow Germans and especially the blimming bureaucrats and lay-about civil servants they'll soon come up with yet another version.
The spelling alphabet here in austria is completely different for example
It looks so strange to me that they'd need to come up with this system, because in my mother tongue, Greek, every letter already has a name. A is alpha, B is beta etc. Really neat video!
We have A Be Ce De E eF Ge…. aso. Not easy to distinguish
10:20 “Ulm is a slыischɚ” is such a mood
As stated under one of the shorts as an IT admin I find myself using the spelling alphabet quite often because while the phones technology becomes better, the connection quality is awful most of the time. When using Teamviewer the caller needs to tell me a password of usually six to eight letters and there have been instances when I had to ask several times, even four to five times for the password because I couldn't tell if it was a B, P or T...
Most of the people use the newest iteration of the names list and I don't think that I'll encounter the cities any time soon.
9:36 During the development of the new spelling alphabet a discussion about the less represented East German cities has started. As a result some west German cities were replaced by East German cities. Since reunification there is a discussion about a kind of discrimination of East-Germany and East Germans especially every year around the Reunification Day at the 3rd October.
Salzwedel is a little city/town in northern Saxony-Anhalt between Berlin, Hannover and Hamburg.
Ah yes, that makes sense.
Also, S like *Sch*tuttgart might lead to confusion in some cases. That was my first thought.
Between Berlin, Hannover and Hamburg is still incredibly broad. I know where Saltzwedel is, but that doesn't help.
I also know that Chemnitz is written with C, but it isn't pronounced with C, it's pronounced with K. If someone doesn't know Chemnitz, they would think the sender meant K.
So Stuttgart (or Schtuttgart) for S shouldn't be an issue if "Kemnitz" is okay for C.
@@HappyBeezerStudios How do you pronounce C anyways? It is either K or Z. That letter has plainly no own pronounciation at all.
Also I think that I read somewhere that with this choice of cities, all federal states but one are represented (of course it not being possible to represent the city states Berlin and Bremen at the same time). I guess some cities might therefore have been chosen instead of more well-known with the same first letter.
In my line of work I need to spell my name quite a few times a day. I'm so glad I was watching Glücksrad as a teenager.
Very informative. I might even print this list out and put it somewhere on the wall near my PC for the rare occassions on which I have to dictate my name or my e-mail address through the phone.
"Most People will probably never have any particular reason to learn a spelling Alphabet"
Some of the fastfood online ordering systems in my country use letter-number combinations for pick up. I started learning a spelling alphabet real quick when operators not understanding which letters I said was either giving me the wrong order or keeping me from getting my food when hungry. :'D
Would have been great if you included the year on the graphics where you show the different steps in the evolution. So not just the audio
The spelling alphabet influenced model names. The different versions of the Messerschmitt Bf 109 were given letters. The Messerschmitt Bf 109 E for example was simply called "Emil" and the Messerschmitt Bf 109 G was called "Gustav".
Thank you. Very interesting. So many "official" versions of the spelling alphabet. But the to me well known spelling words "Norbert" for n and Xaver for x seem not to be included in any of this vast amount of versions.
well, i can't live without using the spelling alphabet, i saw so much variations of my 4 letter surname, you won't believe it.
So, it is standard for me to use the spelling alphabet everytime i get asked my name to prevend the hustle to get it corrected afterwards.
I've long used a different strategy: "Mit so vielen N wie geht" (or similar).
In my previous job I sometime used the swedish spelling alphabet. Because to get into a military base with a vehicle, they needed the license plate, and if they could not see it I had to say it and its a lot clearer using the spelling alpabeth.
Nice to know~ even as a german I didn't know where it came from.
I think the first time I heard that way was someone spelling their name. It wasn't even on phone I guess. Could have been at a public office I went with my mother.
And after that we used it mostly for hangman. Cause you pronounce the letters and some are hard to differentiate like you said. Like M and n. The we would tell the other person: "m" and they would either write down to keep track or didn't understand right so it was easier to say "m, like marta" or "n, like nordpol" and sometimes if you didn't know the one everyone used you just used a word that clearly starts with that letter.
If you are at a public office it can be quite convinient if you need to spell your name for them. I did not need to (my last name is quite easy and my first name is quite easy to correct the people) but it can be hard for i.e. A person called Mayer. Or Maier. Or Meyer. Or Mayar. And there are probably more ways to write this name...
This is getting out of hand.
I shall from now on use the "spelling alphabet" I learned from my first book as a wee lad:
A wie Affe, B wie Ball, C wie Clown, D wie Dach, ...
E wie Ente, F wie Fuchs, G wie Geige, H wie Haus?
As a person that considers themselves still young (28) I never knew there was a offical system I always thought you just always said the first word/name that popped up in your head with the correct starting letter.
An alternative way to spell something with umlauts is to use ae, oe and ue. So you do not have to worry about someone spelling with/without it. Like for example, it should be spelt Koeln or Zuerich but many are unaware for use in English
It's a shame that the newest spelling alphabet misses the letter combinations "CH" and "SCH". Especially the former one has a big city with it: Chemnitz.
And why Salzwedel and not Stuttgart? Perhaps they were debating adding to the letter cominations "ST" which would get Stuttgart.
As I wrote above, not using Stuttgart makes sense. But why not use Saarbrücken, Salzgitter, Siegen, or Solingen, all vastly larger and better known than tiny and obscure Salzwedel?
Offenbach is on the list twice and Frankfurt only once? THAT LIST NEEDS AN UPDATE!!!! 🙂
Foxtrot unicorn Charlie kilo is such a great song by the bloodhound gang 😆
Intersting, as an Austrian I didn't even notice, that Germany changed its spelling alphabet. They differed a bit already, but the new one is not applyable to Austria as a good bunch of the towns and cities used are unknown to the average Austrian.
It's possible that places like the railways in Germany adopt the spelling. I do know that they use the previous spelling alphabet during communications, such as when copying names to write them on a special order form for example. I think they're outliers in that domain though, the Dutch for example use the NATO spelling alphabet.
Using the city-names spelling alphabet in a train station could lead to all kinds of confusion 🙂
Being German, just having learned about the Nazi roots in the spelling alphabet I grew up with, I have just decided to use the NATO alphabet from now on. Thanks for the info!
I would expect the Autobahnpolizei would stick to the old one since they'd been using city names in full to call out license numbers, so that DGF-IO 102 is read as "Dingolfing Ida Otto eins null zwo" rather than "Dora Gustav Friedrich Ida Otto eins null zwo". "Dingolfing Ingelheim Offenbach eins null zwo" would be a confusing mess (where's that car from?) and at least half of the cities on the list overlap with single-letter registration codes.
S for Salzwedel might have been chosen because Stuttgart is actually pronounced with the sch sound [ʃ] at the beginning, which in turn sounds a lot like [f] over the phone.
The point of a spelling alphabet is to make sure that doesn't matter. Nobody is going to think that you said "Ftuttgart".
@@rewbossVery true, but it is still somehow "neater" and possibly easier to process for the mind if you use a name with a [z] sound (voiced s) to represent "S". At least that's what they MAY have been thinking. Salzwedel is in any case a surprising choice since it is a little known place.
Even if they didn't want Stuttgart there were better options for S such as Saarbrücken or Solingen.
Every time I hear Gustav, I automatically go "Gus-tav, Gus, Gus-tav". :D
I actually get told customer names in this form *way* too often on telephone (orthopeadic shoemaker here in Offenbach of all places) and it can be abysmally annoying, especially when the elderly customer's phone is about their age and consequently everything degenerates into an almost incomprehensible jumble of phonemes...
And of course it's *always* a randomly mixed version of both the NSDAP approved version and the older FRG version but worst off all (and sometimes driving me to a near choleric state...) is that they *all* think me dull for *not getting their Glücksrad based blathering.*
Best regards
Raoul G. Kunz
This is useful pretty much anywhere, other than at the McDonald's DriveThru. There you may ask people to confirm that they said "B like Berta", but even after they do, it will actually be a "Z like Zeppelin", or something alike...
Phonetic alphabet according to DIN 5009. There is (was) also a military "German" phonetic alphabet that was introduced by the Nazis in 1934 and replaced "supposedly un-German" names with others. So "Samuel" became --> "Siegfried". "David" became "Dora", N like "Nathan" became "Nordpol" and "Zacharias" became "Zeppelin".
The Nazi phonetic alphabet was adopted without question after World War II. I learned it that way as a radio operator in the early 80s!
The "Süddeutsche Zeitung" looked into this in an article from November 6, 2019. 😲
Buchstabieralphabet nach DIN 5009. Daneben gibt (gab) es aber auch ein militärisches "deutsches" Buchstabieralphabet, das von den Nazis so ab 1934 eingeführt wurde und "vermeintlich undeutsche" Namen durch andere ersetzte . So wurde aus "Samuel" --> "Siegfried". Aus "David" wurde "Dora" , aus N wie "Nathan" wurde "Nordpol" und aus "Zacharias" wurde "Zeppelin".
Das Buchstabieralphabet der Nazi wurde ohne hinterrfragen nach dem 2- Weltkrieg übernommen. Ich habe es noch Anfang der 80er Jahre als Fernmelder so gelernt!
Die "Südddeutsche Zeitung" hat sich in einem Artikel vom 6. November 2019 darüber eruiert.😲
And I
Use my own mixed up version of the official versions (all of them) and the international phonetic alphabet
You just said the Ulm tongue-twister better than me, a native German speaker
It is especially useful for foreign, not known names.
Gosh I did not even knew they changed it to city names.
I learned it some 20 years ago in school. It was a buisness school. But the version I learned was not one you mentioned. Which is interesting I think.
I also think it makes sense to change it to city names… although I am not sure I will be able to remember them. I am gratefull I haven‘t forgotten the one I learned at school.
If you are interested:
Anton
Bärta
Cäsar
Dora
Emil
Friedrich
Gustav
Heinrich
Ida
Jakob
Kaufmann
Ludwig
Martha
Nordpol
Otto
Paula
Qualle
Richard
Siegfried
Theodor
Ulrich
Viktor
Wilhelm
Xanthippe
Ypsilon
Zebra
You see, most are a mix of what you mentioned, but some are completely new to your list, like Qualle and Zebra.
I wonder why that is. Maybe it‘s a regional thing? I grew up in Schleswig Holstein. And I am baffled now that my version isn‘t the official one for the whole of Germany. 😂
Watching this Video a song of the Bloodhound Gang came immediately into my mind: "Foxtrot ..."
I actually use the spelling alphabet all the time for my surname! It's of Polish origin and if you just hear it spoken you will get it wrong.
So for doctors or making a restuarant reservation etc. I use Paula, Ludwig, Emil, Wilhelm, Anton.
Was never aware of the history of it all. I like the City version except for the Umlaute.
Im a simple man (from xanten) i see a video about the new german spelling alphabet, i like
0:54 - Witch-which distinction, a tapped /r/ between vowels, and happY-laxing, that's very much Old (pre-1950s) Received Pronunciation.
what always confuses me most is H and I live in berlin and a lot of people here use H wie Herta, but my grandmothers name was acualy Berta and lot of people from west germay including my fatyher use it. so I almost always have to check asspechaly when I am not told the whole word.
I see more than I is puzzled by not using the Phonetic alphabet from the military!!!??
Most people are using this on a daily basis during radio communication!!!
Thanks for the fun and thoughtful videos.
Kind regards the Danish Viking
well, people are just way too used to it and it has existed for multiple generations now so there's not really a reason to change it.
Actually the NATO Phonetic Alphabet is from 1956, so I will argue it is older than the reviced version Germany now use! @@IceBro
@@kimflycht2258 well, people just continued usung it after the war and the revized version didn't really caught on (he even talked about that in the video). The GDR version is actually closer to the one actually used nowadays (except Ä, Ö, Ü and sometimes Z) and that one wasn't even revized as it was just the things people actually said, not a please use these words now version.
In the GDR people didn't care about the NATO alphabet but obviously everyone would understand it nowadays but even the few people who work in aviation and the military don't use it in normal conversations.
I have never heard the nato spelling alphabet in every day civil german language. It is simply not used. Only in special uses like aviation, military and may be radio communication.
Regarding the question why Salzwedel and not Stuttgart, I think a lot of thought was put into not including combinations of consonants. Their thinking was that for people that have no idea of the German city names "Sa.." is much easier to be understood and spelled than "St...". "Stuttgart" might could be confused as "Schtuutgard" or something similar wrong spelling.
But, of course, if that was the true reasoning then some other city names shouldn't have been choosen as well.
I always say "Paula Berta" when I have to call the car workshop and tell them my number plate because it contains 'PB'
Friedrich and Heinrich strike me as easily confused on a shotty SSB or narrow-deviation FM simplex, or a very long circuit impinged by noisy electrical machinery like petrol (Otto cycle) engines.
I feel like the only advantage you get with city names is that you will be unbeatable at "Stadt, Land, Fluss"
Even though there's an official NATO English spelling alphabet; I often just make up letter and word pairings on the fly. Though; I haven't had to do this in many years.
Thank you for that video, didn't know that (I'm German). But please be careful when using the word "official" in the context of organizations like DIN, VDE, etc. That could be a topic for a new video :-) The most important sentence as introduction: These organizations aren't making laws, so what they're doing isn't official in that meaning. It also doesn't haven't anything to do with CE respectively declaring conformity to EU laws. One example: I think in 2003, the DIN published DIN EN 13724, AFAIK created by the Deutsche Post. It describes what an optimal postbox should be like: Sizes, lockable, making it not too easy to steal it's contents, the material mustn't have too much problems with corrosion like by saltwater etc.
But the Deutsche Post may not refuse putting your letters into your postbox that doesn't comply to that norm - except there is an actual problem. Like they have a very big letter for you (like "untwisted" DIN A4 paper or magazines) and the opening is to small for that, your letter would be damaged when putting it in or could get wet. So like if the roof above the postboxes is big enough, nobody would actually care if the postbox isn't "rain-proof" enough according to DIN. But if you have such a problem with the Deutsche Post (or respectively your landlord if you rented a flat _with_ a postbox, which should be normal) and the court is called - the judge won't have any real technical idea of such things. So they will search for recommendations by societies like DIN, VDE etc. also there's no law that everything must meet the requirements in like such a DIN norm.
Same like if you "repaired" some electrical device and someone is hurt/killed by that. There's no law electrical stuff has to comply with VDE, but if like some insurance or survivor are calling court...
But there can be law refering to like a DIN. E.g. if you want German subsidies for electrical cars, e.g. the plug to charge them has to comply to certain DINs.
And I'm sticking to the NATO alphabet, which works surprisingly well in Germany. Much better than even in the UK. I know this because my first name has rather unusual letter combinations for both English and German, so I always have to spell it. In the UK, they still got it wrong about 75% of the time, whereas in Germany I've not had that happen at all yet.
As an American, I utilize a mixture of the NATO phonetic alphabet (Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, Delta, Echo, etc.) and the LAPD (Los Angeles Police Department) phonetic alphabet (Adam, Boy, Charles, David, Edward, etc.).
As someone who has poor hearing and works in networking, I always insist on NATO phonetic alphabet when I communicate Mac Addresses or the like.
My name is long and contains 4 easily confused letters. So I have been using the federal aviation authority version. Telephones aren’t good enough to not use it. But most Americans get confused by it anyway
I suppose they didn't use Stuttgart for S because the S actually makes a Sch sound in that case. That might lead to confusion.
As my father did his pilot's license when I was small, I learnt the English one, which confuses the heck out of most Germans.
My name has 2 "W"s in it. If I don't spell it using the spelling alphabet, it tends to come out as "B"s.
@6:44 "Zeppelin" is to my knowledge still the official term official term in Germany
@8:50 all organasitaions of civil defence use the original alphabet, german military uses the NATO code
Cool. I (in my late sixties) have never learned the German spelling alphabet, but since my army service use the NATO Aphabet (alfa-bravo-charlie...) instead. And if I look at the new German version, I don't believe it will prevail. But perhaps I can at least now use "Umlaut alfa", "Umlaut Oscar" and "Umlaut Uniform" for Ä, Ö and Ü.
***
Cool. Ich (Ende 60) habe das deutsche Buchstabieralphabet nie gelernt und verwende stattdessen spätestens seit meinem Wehrdienst allenfalls das NATO-Alphabet Alpha-Bravo-Charlie... Und wenn ich die neue deutsche Fassung anschaue, glaube ich nicht, dass sich das durchsetzen lässt. Aber vielleicht kann ich stattdessen jetzt endlich Ä, Ö und Ü mit "Umlaut Alpha", "Umlaut Oscar" und "Umlaut Uniform" bezeichnen.
Well, I can almost guarantee that "O=Offenbach" will NOT catch on in the region AROUND Offenbach XD
(I think you made a video explaining THAT as well... Hello from Hanau btw. ;)
B could also be Bayerish-Eisenstein, E for Eisenstein, and M for Markt-Eisenstein
It never crossed my mind that "Ulm" might be difficult to pronounce. But on the other hand, I grew up not far from Ulm
Probably Suhl was skipped over for the smaller Salzwedel for the very same reason.
What really strikes me about this is how remarkably stable German spelling alphabets have been, with only minor changes despite multiple seismic shifts in political systems (empire → republic →fascism →{republic | communist regime} → republic.)
By contrast, the US 🇺🇸 still uses completely different spelling alphabets today, with, e.g., many police and fire departments still using Able Baker Charlie Dog Easy …
Just curious but isn't it Jakob instead of Jacob? (see 2:08 ) I'm no expert nor have much knowledge about this topic but I'm quite sure Jakob is more common than Jacob in the German language. Feel free to correct me :)
It can be spelled either way. "Jacob" would simply be a more old-fashioned spelling.
@@rewboss 👍
Yeah, Jacob is indeed a correct, if less common version. I even knew someone who's name was Gustaf, with an F at the end.
Richard Emil Wagner is an amazingly Germanic slip of the tongue... 😁
In Austria it's almost the same except J - Johann or Josef, K - Konrad, Q - Ku,, X - Xaver, Z - Zürich, Ö - Österreich, Ü - übel and ß - scharfes S. Also N can differ between Nordpol and Norbert
anton berta cäsar dora emil friedrich georg heinrich ida julius konrad ludwig martha nordpol otto paula quelle / Ku richard sigfried theodor ulrich viktor wilhelm xaver ypsilon zeppelin ärger übel österreich schule
thats what i've been using in austria the last 20 years.. siegfried vs samuel hurts the most, would prefer samuel
Ahh, thanks, so the spelling words "Konrad", "Norbert" and "Xaver", which sound all very familiar to me, originate in the austrian spelling alphabet, which rewboss has not included in his video. Thanks a lot.
@@danel1922 Some people would write Samuel with "z", so I prefer Siegfried. I have no imagination, how Siegfried may cause pain. But if, I would avoid it.
@@brauchebenutzername weil die nazis den jüdisch gelesenen namen samuel durch den teutsch gelesenen namen siegfried ersetzt haben, deswegen paint es mich, niemand würde im deutschen alphabet samuel mit z schreiben, nichtmal russen...
@@brauchebenutzername Zamuel? Really? Who on earth does that?
My nitpicks with your pronunciation would be:
- Samuel is pronounced with long e, like "Samu-éhl"
- Likewise, Emil is pronounced Éhmil
- Oh, and Marie is stressed on the second syllable
We francophones just say whichever name comes to mind:
R comme Raoul, E comme Étienne, W comme William, B comme Benoît…
Salzwedel is way too complicated to say for such a common letter, why not Solingen? Maybe sounds a bit too similar to Völklingen but so do Jena and Unna.
I'm German and i never knew there are rules for this. Always thought people would just use common names that come to their mind.
Well as a German that uses the spelling alphabet almost daily I still do that as well if I cant remember some letter at the moment I need it. As long as you choose a common one it's fine might make a collgue laugh and dispatch curse your existance but it works fine in a clutch.
the Austrian spelling alphabet variates just in 8 cases in comparision to the German spelling alphabeth "DIN 5009" which isn´t that many....the Swiss German spelling alphabet variates in 18 cases in comparision to the German spelling alphabet "DIN 5009" and that is many
Those 8 cases are
K = Konrad (in Germany = Kaufmann)
Ö = Österreich ( in Germany = Ökonom)
Then we in Austria differ between Q and Qu which the Germans don´t do
Q = Ku (in Germany = Quelle)
Qu = Quelle
S = Siegfried (in Germany = Samuel although the use of Siegfried is very common as well)
ß = scharfes S (in Germany = Eszett)
Ü = Übel (in Germany = Übermut)
X = Xaver (in Germany = Xanthippe)
Z = Zürich (in Germany = Zacharias)
Is Isildur in Tolkien's LoTR a variation of Isidor I wonder
Is Aragorn spanish? Or rather from the former kingdom of Aragon?
Tolkien took lots of inspriration from mythology, mostly english, but wider european tales also added some flavour.
Aye I think Norse and other mythos, idt Aragorn son of Arathorn was Spanish or Latino based, I'd have to go back and check and see if Silmarillion or any of the ones with his Tolkien's children shed any light on it
At the back of Return of the King it goes into detail of the names! Long its been since I looked at the end of RoTK, my faves were fellowship and two towers lol...the Mannish names, such as the men of the Mark were based on older English it seems....ill have to reread and see if Isildur mentioned lol
Also Aragorn is rightful heir to the Kingdom of Gondor, being direct descendant of Isildur, who cut the Ring off Sauron, then fell prey to its influence and later was betrayed by it
All that is gold does not glitter
not all those who wander are lost
The old that is strong does not wither
Deep roots are not reached by the frost
I think they went with salzwedel instead of stuttgart, because it really starts with an S, not with an "sch"-sound. makes it clearer i guess.
As someone just learning German, the city names alphabet will definitely by my weapon of choice
no chance, use only the old spelling alphabet.
Never heared these spelling alphabet with city names before.
@@Neonblue84 If I'd say "B wie Berlin", would you not understand?
@@DanCojocaru2000 Usually you'd just want to say: "Berlin". If you spell long addresses the "X wie ..." becomes tedious very quickly.
@@DanCojocaru2000 shure but only that, if that. Nobody would use that in everyday life.
"B" like "Berta" is the normal spelling.
Just wait five years and it will become modified, this time by solidarity. Examples: "jott wie Jerusalem", "ka wie Kyiv", "emm wie Mekka", "pee wie Priština", "gee wie Gaza-Stadt",...
One problem with the city-based alphabet is that it is inherently localized.
Which will have most of an impact when people improvise and just use the name of the next town over. (Which someone from the other side of the country probably won't know.)
And it might be a problem for German speaking communities in other countries. Not just in countries like Austria and Switzerland, but also the Pennsylvania Dutch, the Amish, and communities in Brazil and other former colonies, as well as learners of the German language). Then again, communities that don't use German names might also have problems with German first names.
I’ve never head the name Xantippe before! Is it common at all or was it just sort of the only X name the way English speakers always go with xylophone or X ray in alphabets
It's uncommon, but it's a Greek name: it was the name of, for example, the wife of Socrates. There was an American artist called Xantippe Saunders, a relative of Mark Twain, although I believe to her friends she was known as "Tip".
Yep "Xanthippe" (Sokrates wife was called so) is correct
It's pretty much the only word starting with X than Germans somewhat know about. I'd agree that Xylophon is a strong contender nowadays, but X-ray is called "Röntgenstrahlung" here universally. So that makes only two very slightly common words, and they chose that one.
Xantippe was Sokrates' wife. The name isn't common as name, but as an insult - she was notorious for being mean and quarrelsome, which is why that type of women is often called Xanthippe in German.
@@minski76 no, such kind of women/wifes are called "Hadra"-Hausdrache/ house dracon)😄
In der Fernsprechrichtlinie der Bahn gilt nach wie vor die alte Tabelle. Es gibt keine Lü Achen, sondern nur eine Lü Anton. Dafür haben sich die alten Namen viel zu sehr eingebrannt...
I assume Salzwedel was used instead of Stuttgart because the S in Salzwedel actually sounds like an S, and not like Sch.
A bit of a missed chance here with the East German spelling alphabet. They could have gone with the names of famous patry memebers: Erich, Walter, ...
Too dangerous. There would have been a proliferation of jokes such as,
“How do you spell ›ekelhaft‹?
Easy: E wie Erich, K wie Krenz, L wie Lenin, H wie Honecker, …“
I'm technically required to know the NATO spelling alphabet (in English) for my job at a hospital, as the phone call quality isn't great, but almost nobody uses it, at least not for internal communications
18, 5, 23, 2, 15, 19, 19 ;-)
5:54 Well, because Schule is spelled with an S. And a C. Then a H... I honestly don't understand the benefit of making it more confusing to make it simpler. SCH isn't a letter at all, in the first place.
Since my time as a soldier I always use the ICAO alphabet (aka NATO alphabet). For me it's way easier to remember than the Buchstabiertafel, let alone the 5009er. Also you just can use it almost everywhere on the planet.