Yes, the German language has had several big changes, but until the reform we‘re talking about it was linguistically „proper“ in that the existing language was described and codified. It was bottom up.
In this reform some non-elected people (who just a few years earlier had said themselves that there job wasn‘t to invent German, but to describe existing use and trends) invented a whole new orthography from scratch. The new rules have never been in use anywhere throughout the German-speaking lands.
They were and are pure fiction.
In linguistics that‘s how you tell a layperson: they think linguistics is proscriptive. Now it seems to be... :-(
And of course people under 22 don‘t care. They have never learned proper German.
Yes, the German language has had several big changes, but until the reform we‘re talking about it was linguistically „proper“ in that the existing language was described and codified. It was bottom up.
In this reform some non-elected people (who just a few years earlier had said themselves that there job wasn‘t to invent German, but to describe existing use and trends) invented a whole new orthography from scratch. The new rules have never been in use anywhere throughout the German-speaking lands.
They were and are pure fiction.
In linguistics that‘s how you tell a layperson: they think linguistics is proscriptive. Now it seems to be... :-(
And of course people under 22 don‘t care. They have never learned proper German.