S long

S length (?) is one contextual alternative old of the letter S, i.e. a form annexes that the letter could adopt without that changing its pronunciation.

One traced S round (our S) at the end of the words, S length everywhere else. The illustration opposite shows possible in a police force with sérif and a police force without sérif, in and in .

This letter exists only in tiny, which explains why , made up of one S long follow-up of one S round (or of one Z) the same principle follows: in capitals, ? and ss (?+s or ?+z for German) pass to S and SS.

Synopsis 1 Origins and traced 2 Employment 2.1 In French 2.2 In German 3 Safeguarding of the character 4 Data-processing coding 5 Related articles

Origins and traced

S length, resulting from half-uncial Latin (appeared towards IVe century; one finds the first steps of them as of the news cursive Roman), was transmitted to all the posterior Latin writings. Its use, at the beginning, did not follow strict rules. Simple handwritten alternative of S, its layout varied much according to the writing, its localization and the scribe. It could besides only be used and in any position to replace S round. Progressively, however, it came from there to replace S in all the positions except finally.

It is noted that the alternative , in the printed texts, often has a longer pole descendant under the base line. It is not rare either that one adds a footing on the left, with height ofX, which makes it resemble one F :

S length, because of its layout, is prone to the many ones , of which ?+s, which gives in many languages. Only it preserved this binding, named eszett. It could, in this language, to come from a binding ?z who, written in Gothic script then in Fraktur and in Sütterlinschrift, resembles more ??.

This convention (as well as the many bindings with S length) was preserved in until the XIXe century, during which the use, already fluctuating at the end of XVIIIe (in the same work, both S could be used in competition withS single), entirely loses itself. Currently, of the not informed readers frequently confuse it S length with one F (in the same manner that the english-speaking confuse the modern C-W communication of þ with one y who does not have any report/ratio). Confusion is often due to the presence of the additional footing.

Employment

S long was employed by almost all the languages of Europe having known the Latin alphabet. Here some examples of use.

In French

The text on the left (to click to see a larger version) represents an extract of the epistle dédicatoire Calendar of Paphos of as printed in . It was reproduced by including them S length and them S such as did it and orthography of the time. To note: the use of a space before the comma and that of one S runs in the patronym Deshoulieres, as if it acted of Of Houlieres. The placement and the nature of the accents differ compared to the current C-Ws communication.

S long follow-up of another S could be written several manners, with the choice of the typographer (and sometimes without much coherence), like two S long or with one S long follow-up of one S round, which could lead to which one believes, wrongly, that it is limited to, what was not the case in the past.

In France, although rarer, this binding meets in competition with the form without (one returns the eager reader of more than precision to the treating article of this subject), until the disappearance of S length. One finds it for example in Manner correctly of translating of a language into aultre: of advantage of the punctuation of the language françoyse, more of the accents of ycelle ofÉtienne Dolet, edition of 1540 (profession, p. 3) or in Euures of Louïze Labé, Lionnoize, reuues & corrigees by the aforementioned Injury from 1556, which edition is not shown very systematic in its choices: page 9, one reads pushed but, just below pa??er, which verb is however written pa?sé p. 4. Moreover, if the editor employed the binding ?t waited (re?té, p. 4, e?toit p. 9), it is however a binding with one S round which is sometimes used (feast, p. 9, estois p. 120) [ in these quotations, one did not try to make the bindings other than ss for reasons of compatibility with the bills of character ].

Let us note finally that had proposed not to preserve itS length that when it marked the lengthening of the preceding vowel, convention which was not followed and which is described in the article .

Here possible layouts for these characters:

In German

In German, especially in the C-W communication known as Fraktur, the use of both S does not obey only contextual constraints but too morphological : S round is employed at the end of the word or element of made up word, which requires, to write correctly, to know the language. Thus, Wachstube (the example is borrowed from Yannis Haralambous in Unicode and typography: an impossible love, document available on line), such as he is currently written, can be analyzed and pronounced in two manners:

• Wach + Stube : "room (Stube) of day before "/wax.?tu?b?/;
• Wachs + Tube : "tube (Tube) of wax (Wachs) "/waks.tu?b?/.

The C-W communication raised ambiguity formerly: Wach + Stube was written Wach?tube while Wachs + Tube was written Wachstube. The use of one S round marked the virtual end of a word in composition (with the manner of Deshoulieres of Voltaire in the text referred to above).

In the current orthography of this language, only the binding ss (eszett) remains, that one can make go up with ? and S or ? and Z. Still it of reduced use following an important spelling reform in 1998 is (see German spelling reform).

Safeguarding of the character

It is in that the last is found , remained very long-lived, of S length, in the form of the symbol of, ∫. Its inventor, Leibnitz, indeed drew from the Latin word summa, "nap", written ?umma, it kept only the initial one.

There exists in another alternative of S length named esh ?, which is used to note deaf post-alveolar fricative consonant that one hears at the beginning of the word cat in French (noted by digraph CH). One now finds it in the recent orthographies of several languages of Africa (like dagbani with , it songhoy and it tamasheq with or it pandikeri in ). Its capital is not one S but is a kind of sigma Greek capital, ?, that is to say a version of big size of tiny ininternational alphabet of Niamey, preferable layout for the languages of Africa.

These two characters are always traced, in as in , with a pole going down under the line.

Data-processing coding

The standard envisages obviously only the tiny ones for S length and its derivatives.

• ? (U+017F):
  • UTF-8: 0xC5 0xBF ;
  • Octal UTF-8: \305\277 ;
  • decimal numerical entity HTML: ſ ;
• ? (U+1E9B, S length used for example in the manuscripts gaelic from Ireland):
  • UTF-8: 0xE1 0xBA 0x9B ;
  • Octal UTF-8: \341\272\233 ;
  • numerical entity HTML: ẛ ;
• ? (U+FB05; of S length and T) :
  • UTF-8: 0xEF 0xAC 0x85 ;
  • Octal UTF-8: \357\254\205 ;
  • numerical entity HTML: ſt.

The symbol of is coded by another character:

• ∫ (U+222B):
  • UTF-8: 0xE2 0x88 0xAB ;
  • Octal UTF-8: \342\210\253 ;
  • decimal numerical entity HTML: ∫.

Lastly, for esh and present in the orthography of several languages of Africa (cf international alphabet of Niamey :

• ? (U+0283):
  • UTF-8: 0xCA 0x83 ;
  • Octal UTF-8: \312\203 ;
  • decimal numerical entity HTML: ʃ.

The capital version, which is useful only for the African languages, is almost invariably badly represented by the bills of character; you should not read a character similar to sigma Greek (?):

• ? (U+01A9):
  • UTF-8: 0xC6 0xA9 ;
  • Octal UTF-8: \306\251 ;
  • decimal numerical entity HTML: Ʃ.

Related articles

• Contextual alternative ;
• eszett (ss);
• ;
• (where character S long is still used nowadays).