Translate german characters - not working

After Update from ver3.32 to ver3.36
the Option
Input - Commands - Translate German characters
is no longer functional.
This option is supposed to (and formerly did) translate
any "ä", "ö", "ü", "ß" typed in the command to
be sent to the mud as "ae", "oe", "ue", "sz".
After the update however, they are sent untranslated.

Ach! I remember the option well. I moved the code carefully from one spot to another. Obviously not carefully enough. I'll fix that. Thanks for the advice.

It works in some places, but not others. I have fixed that in version 3.37.

The S-zet (ß) is supposed to be a double s (ss)

not a sz...

Can we get some confirmation of this from our German speakers? I have done a search on the Net which is inconclusive. For instance:

http://documents.wolfram.com/teachersedition/MathematicaBook/A.11.1527.html

This shows that "ss" and "sz" are acceptable aliases for ß.

Also, Hve in the earlier post mentioned "sz" not "ss".

From what i've heard, S-zet is now being replaced by "ss", so i think that that would be a better conversion.

OK, sorry to have caused that trouble, Nick.
I mentioned "ß -> sz" only because that was the original implementation.

Historically, 'ß' is a ligature of 's' and 'z', though one can hardly recognize that nowadays: The (German or Fraktur) 's' had a variant that looked more or less like an 'f' without horizontal bar and the 'z' looked quite similar to a '3'. Hence the combination gave the famous beta-like shape.
And hence this is called "sz-ligature".

Nevertheless, it is absolutely unusual to replace 'ß -> sz' nowadays. One always uses 'ß -> ss' and this is also what the 'authoritative' German dictionary (the Duden) says.

Note that 'Translate german characters' is older than the problem of restricting to ASCII and has already been used in handwriting. For example, it is usual not to use umlauts and 'ß' in a crossword puzzle (although the german version of Scrabble has 'Ä', 'Ö', 'Ü'!).
Also, note that 'ß' is considered a lower-case letter.
Hence, "Carl-Friedrich Gauß" ususally becomes "CARL-FRIEDRICH GAUSS" upon capitalization.

To sum up: Once You're at it, I suggest You should
ä -> ae
ö -> oe
ü -> ue
ß -> ss


Thanks for Your interest in funny letters,
Hagen

In crossword puzzles, at least, as far as Ive come in contact with, you never use the 'special' characters, ö is always oe, ä ae, ü ue, and ß ss.

And yeah, Also in words like Street (Straße - Strasse).

I dont think Ive ever encountered ß as sz... What are some examples (just for my own curiosity)

edit:(now that I read Hve's above post in detail)....

lots of old letterings used something that looked like an f as s (Olde-English did too, etc). and the z looked like our cursive z.... so yeah, I can see wehre youre comming from for it look look like ß thats interesting... Ill have to look into that.

OK, I've changed that in version 3.37.



I also have the upper-case versions of the first three, they were in the current version. However ß is now ss.