Sütterlin

Infobox Writing system
name = Latin script (Sütterlin subvariant)
type = Alphabet
time = 1915–1970s
languages = German
fam1 = Latin script (Blackletter variant)
fam2 = Latin script (Fraktur variant)
fam3 = Latin (Kurrent subvariant)
sample = Sütterlinschrift.pngimagesize = 250px
iso15924 = Latf

Sütterlinschrift (Sütterlin script), or Sütterlin for short, is the last widely used form of the old German blackletter handwriting ("Spitzschrift"). In Germany, the old German cursive script developed in the 16th century is also sometimes called Fraktur. Some people refer to the script as Sütterlin, although it was in use centuries before graphic artist Ludwig Sütterlin (1865–1917) was born. The beautiful version that Sütterlin developed was taught in German schools from 1935 to 1941. Sütterlin was designed by and named after Ludwig Sütterlin, a German graphical designer and teacher who was commissioned to do so by the Prussian ministry for culture in 1911. The word Sütterlin is nowadays often used to refer to all varieties of Old German handwriting.

History

Sütterlin was introduced in Prussia in 1915, and from the 1920s onwards began to replace the relatively similar old German handwriting in schools. In 1935 it officially became part of the curriculum as an "Aryan script".

When the Nazis conquered much of Europe, they found that commands in the local language could not be understood when written in Sütterlin, so, in 1941, like all blackletter typefaces, it was officially banned from use. However, many German speakers brought up with this writing system continued to use it well into the post-war period.

Sütterlin was taught in some German, especially Bavarian, schools until the 1970s, but no longer as the primary script.

Characteristics

The Sütterlin lower-case 'e' resembles two slanted bars, in which the origin of the umlaut diacritic from a small 'e' written above the modified vowel can be seen.

Sütterlin is based on the old German handwriting, which is a handwriting form of the Blackletter scripts such as Fraktur or Schwabacher, the German print scripts which were used during the same time.

It also had the long s (ſ), as well as several standard ligatures such as unicode|ff (f-f), unicode|ſt (ſ-t), unicode|st (s-t), and of course ß (ſ-z or ſ-s).

For most people outside of Germany, as well as younger Germans, Sütterlin is nearly illegible — even more so than Fraktur printing. Sütterlin letters are still sometimes used for mathematical symbols which would use Fraktur letters in print. The Sütterlin lower-case D is used in proof-reading for delete and stands for Latin deleatur - it shall be deleted.

Overview of the letters

Examples

ee also

* Kurrent

External links

* [http://www.omniglot.com/writing/german.htm#suetterlin The Sütterlin script at Omniglot]
* [http://csumc.wisc.edu/mki/Resources/Suetterlin/sutterl.html Freeware Sütterlin font] , from Prof Don Becker of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. This is the font used to set the sample characters at
* [http://www.suetterlinschrift.de/Englisch/Sutterlin.htm Learn Sütterlin] , a lesson, with sample texts