What does the word orthography mean?
Orthography - again just a foreign word that apparently clever minds use to express something very simple? What does the word orthography mean?
Orthography means nothing else than spelling
The seemingly difficult word "orthography" means nothing else than the completely familiar one spelling, orthography. What sounds so succinct is more profound than you might think at first.
- How about if every dialect in Germany would also be adopted in the written form in exactly the same way? Would the Bavarians understand Platt in the Rhineland? Just so that there can be a uniform official language, it is important that the spelling and what it means is not underestimated.
- At a conference of the ministers of education in Berlin in 1901 it was decided that there had to be fixed rules and spellings that were valid for all schools across Germany. Thus, the orthography means one thing above all for us: A uniform (written) language in German-speaking countries with fixed rules. The different dialects in Germany do not play a role.
- Nothing has changed since then. Even if the spelling is occasionally reformed and the vocabulary changes and expands as a result, there is always a way to determine the officially and school-correct spelling - via the spelling dudes.
Orthography and the Duden - why you can rely on it
The Spelling Dude is de facto the reference book when it comes to determining the correct spelling for a word. When in doubt, the Duden is right. But why is it like that?
How do you write "knows" about knowledge?
That today one can cover more with the word "know" than just expressing one's knowledge ...
- As early as 1880 there was the "Complete Orthographic Dictionary of the German Language" by Konrad Duden, which is known today under the term "Urduden". The high school teacher has been campaigning for the standardization of the German language for many years.
- In 1903, the printing associations of Switzerland, Austria and Germany turned to Konrad Duden for an objection To create a reference work in which a decision was made to use a fixed spelling for various double spellings became. With that the so-called Buchdruckerduden was born. The majority of all German-language books were printed according to the rules described there.
- In 1915 the time had finally come: The Urduden or his new editions and the Buchdruckerduden merged into the Duden. This created a work that made a significant contribution to the uniformity of writing throughout Germany.
- Finally, in 1955, the rules and spellings in the Duden dictionary were classified as provisionally binding in West Germany. This has not changed to this day and the Duden is the reference work when it comes to what a word means and how it is spelled correctly.
