# Can Germans still read black-letter text? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 27, 2017, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-germans-still-read-black-letter-text/780973 "2017-02-27T19:52:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![aldiboronti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@aldiboronti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aldiboronti)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2017, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-germans-still-read-black-letter-text/780973/1 "2017-02-27T19:52:44Z")
I’m watching a short [Youtube video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FpLEN6YuSow&feature=youtu.be&t=30) of an episode of _Die Deutsche Wochenschau_ from June 1944 describing German reaction to the D-Day invasion (basically, we’ve got it covered, folks!) Shown in the videos are Germans reading newspapers of the day and it’s all in that Gothic black-letter print which even if I could read German I wouldn’t be able to make out. Do modern Germans still use this print and if not can they still understand it? ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2017, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-germans-still-read-black-letter-text/780973/2 "2017-02-27T19:57:00Z")
My German isn’t all that good, but I can read Gothic script just fine. And yes, it’s still in occasional use in Germany and other European countries (less in Germany than in other countries, IME), as an Olde Style Thinge. It’s just a font style, not a different alphabet. ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2017, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-germans-still-read-black-letter-text/780973/3 "2017-02-27T20:27:43Z")
But it’s not just a font. It’s a hard-to-read font. (unless you’re used to it, I suppose). I can read a little German, in a proper font. But look at that newspaper (33 seconds). “Night Edition” is easy. But gott in himmel, what is that last sentence? Is that a “C”? Is that last word “Oange”? “Gange”? And that first letter in “American” - is that “2l”? 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Mops](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mops/32/16494_2.png) [@Mops](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mops)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2017, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-germans-still-read-black-letter-text/780973/4 "2017-02-27T20:35:12Z")
Any reasonably literate German can read Gothic _print_; there are virtually no long text published that way but a lot of promotional lettering meant to evoke old times (19th century or before). One deficiency in that respect is that a lot of people don’t recognize the medial (long) s anymore, confusing it for the letter f, and logo/graphic designers accomodate that by incorrectly using the terminal s where a medial s would be called for - a crime against typography. Old German _handwriting_ (Kurrent) is quite another thing - it’s mostly historians who learn to read it. The individual letters are still used in mathematic notation, though - at university we did vector analysis with Latin script for scalars and _Kurrent_ for vectors. We did not do any joined up writing in Kurrent, though. ---
**Author:** ![Pleonast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pleonast/32/1183_2.png) [@Pleonast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pleonast)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2017, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-germans-still-read-black-letter-text/780973/5 "2017-02-27T20:36:29Z")
Here’s a copy-paste from [Fraktur - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fraktur) ������ ������ ������ ������ ������ ������ ������ ������ ������ ������ ������ ������ ������ ������ ������ ������ ������ ������ ������ ������ ������ ������ ������ ������ ������ ������ ������ ������ ������ ������ ������ ������ ������ ������ ������ ������ ������ ������ ������ ������ ������ ������ ������ ������ ������ ������ ������ ������ ������ ������ ������ ������ Yeah, it might technically still be the same alphabet, but it’s different enough that I wouldn’t expect someone to be able to read it. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2017, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-germans-still-read-black-letter-text/780973/6 "2017-02-27T20:40:23Z")
> [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#): > > But it’s not just a font. It’s a hard-to-read font. (unless you’re used to it, I suppose). Of course, the people reading German newspapers in the 1940s were used to it. > [@](#): > > Is that a “C”? Is that last word “Oange”? “Gange”? [It’s a “G.”](http://www.peter-wiegel.de/inhaltgrafik/BMF2.png) “Erbitterte Kämpfe im Gange” = “Bitter struggle in progress.” While it’s a very busy font, it’s entirely readable if you know it. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2017, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-germans-still-read-black-letter-text/780973/7 "2017-02-27T20:43:48Z")
> [@Mops](#): > > Old German _handwriting_ (Kurrent) is quite another thing - it’s mostly historians who learn to read it. Right. I’ve tried to translate German letters from the 1800s and it’s virtually impossible. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2017, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-germans-still-read-black-letter-text/780973/8 "2017-02-27T20:47:01Z")
Heck of a video. Thanks for the link. ---
**Author:** ![cochrane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cochrane/32/10441_2.png) [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2017, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-germans-still-read-black-letter-text/780973/9 "2017-02-27T21:18:31Z")
> [@Pleonast](#): > > Here’s a copy-paste from [Fraktur - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fraktur) > > �� �� �� �� �� �� �� �� �� �� �� �� �� �� �� �� �� �� �� �� �� �� �� �� �� �� > �� �� �� �� �� �� �� �� �� �� �� �� �� �� �� �� �� �� �� �� �� �� �� �� �� �� > > Yeah, it might technically still be the same alphabet, but it’s different enough that I wouldn’t expect someone to be able to read it. I can’t see that at all. It just looks like a bunch of question marks. To be fair, I’m on a phone though, and my browser probably just can’t register that font. ---
**Author:** ![Mk\_VII](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Mk\_VII](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mk_VII)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2017, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-germans-still-read-black-letter-text/780973/10 "2017-02-27T21:24:42Z")
Even to try to read Sütterlin is difficult enough, especially when it’s as a foreign language. ---
**Author:** ![chrisk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@chrisk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chrisk)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2017, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-germans-still-read-black-letter-text/780973/11 "2017-02-27T21:42:06Z")
> [@cochrane](#): > > I can’t see that at all. It just looks like a bunch of question marks. To be fair, I’m on a phone though, and my browser probably just can’t register that font. Neither does my desktop Chrome. ---
**Author:** ![jtur88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9c0ed/32.png) [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2017, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-germans-still-read-black-letter-text/780973/12 "2017-02-27T21:43:40Z")
I can’t even read English in italics. I can, but only with a magnifying glass, because in standard book typeface, the letters bleed together. \* “rmnu” _looks exactly like_ “mnru”\* which looks exactly like _“unrm”,_ and its usually unfamiliar foreign words that are italicized. I hate it when an author writes entire paragraphs in italics, and I’ve seen a few where a whole chapter is in italics. I just take those back to the library and throw them back into the book return bin. ---
**Author:** ![RadicalPi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/radicalpi/32/9806_2.png) [@RadicalPi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RadicalPi)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2017, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-germans-still-read-black-letter-text/780973/13 "2017-02-27T21:51:28Z")
> [@Mops](#): > > One deficiency in that respect is that a lot of people don’t recognize the medial (long) s anymore, confusing it for the letter f, and logo/graphic designers accomodate that by incorrectly using the terminal s where a medial s would be called for - a crime against typography. I don’t know if that accommodation is “incorrect” really. The medial ‘s’ used to be common in Roman typefaces as well, and as you know, that faded out a long time ago. They even change the long s’s to regular s’s in new editions of old texts, and so on. ---
**Author:** ![aldiboronti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@aldiboronti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aldiboronti)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2017, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-germans-still-read-black-letter-text/780973/14 "2017-02-27T22:34:55Z")
> [@chrisk](#): > > Neither does my desktop Chrome. Ditto for my desktop Firefox. I’m clearly lacking the necessary font. ---
**Author:** ![Maggie\_the\_Ocelot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df705f/32.png) [@Maggie\_the\_Ocelot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maggie_the_Ocelot)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2017, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-germans-still-read-black-letter-text/780973/15 "2017-02-27T23:08:07Z")
My grandfather’s aunt used to teach German in the days before the War\*, and I have some of her old teaching texts. They show very clearly how to write the German alphabet in the old script (which was current at the time), and how they related to our alphabet. It rather reminded me of a lesson in hiragana/katakana. \*Not sure which War - definitely WW2 but given that Grandpa was born in 1913 she could have been teaching it before WW1. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2017, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-germans-still-read-black-letter-text/780973/16 "2017-02-27T23:42:03Z")
**Pleonast** ’s software damaged the characters in the copy-paste process somehow. This should work: ``` 𝕬 𝕭 𝕮 𝕯 𝕰 𝕱 𝕲 𝕳 𝕴 𝕵 𝕶 𝕷 𝕸 𝕹 𝕺 𝕻 𝕼 𝕽 𝕾 𝕿 𝖀 𝖁 𝖂 𝖃 𝖄 𝖅 𝖆 𝖇 𝖈 𝖉 𝖊 𝖋 𝖌 𝖍 𝖎 𝖏 𝖐 𝖑 𝖒 𝖓 𝖔 𝖕 𝖖 𝖗 𝖘 𝖙 𝖚 𝖛 𝖜 𝖝 𝖞 𝖟 ``` ---
**Author:** ![slash2k](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@slash2k](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/slash2k)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2017, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-germans-still-read-black-letter-text/780973/17 "2017-02-28T00:39:47Z")
How many English speakers can read so-called [Old English fonts](https://www.google.com/search?q=old+english+font&biw=1280&bih=587&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjx2eSexrHSAhVY_WMKHa2SAdkQ7AkIKA)? For me, it’s certainly not comfortable or easy to read any sustained passage, but if I really need to I can piece it out, and I’d think German black-letter text would be about the same. ---
**Author:** ![aldiboronti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@aldiboronti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aldiboronti)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2017, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-germans-still-read-black-letter-text/780973/18 "2017-02-28T00:55:53Z")
> [@Derleth](#): > > **Pleonast** ’s software damaged the characters in the copy-paste process somehow. > > This should work: > > ``` > 𝕬 𝕭 𝕮 𝕯 𝕰 𝕱 𝕲 𝕳 𝕴 𝕵 𝕶 𝕷 𝕸 𝕹 𝕺 𝕻 𝕼 𝕽 𝕾 𝕿 𝖀 𝖁 𝖂 𝖃 𝖄 𝖅 > 𝖆 𝖇 𝖈 𝖉 𝖊 𝖋 𝖌 𝖍 𝖎 𝖏 𝖐 𝖑 𝖒 𝖓 𝖔 𝖕 𝖖 𝖗 𝖘 𝖙 𝖚 𝖛 𝖜 𝖝 𝖞 𝖟 > > ``` Thank you, **Derleth** , that works fine for me. ---
**Author:** ![aldiboronti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@aldiboronti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aldiboronti)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2017, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-germans-still-read-black-letter-text/780973/19 "2017-02-28T00:59:46Z")
> [@slash2k](#): > > How many English speakers can read so-called [Old English fonts](https://www.google.com/search?q=old+english+font&biw=1280&bih=587&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjx2eSexrHSAhVY_WMKHa2SAdkQ7AkIKA)? > > For me, it’s certainly not comfortable or easy to read any sustained passage, but if I really need to I can piece it out, and I’d think German black-letter text would be about the same. I find those quite easily recognizable. It’s hard for a non-German speaker to compare them with the German fonts because the German seems to use a lot of diphthongs and characters not in the English alphabet, though I could be wrong there. ---
**Author:** ![SCAdian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scadian/32/3292_2.png) [@SCAdian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SCAdian)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2017, 1:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-germans-still-read-black-letter-text/780973/20 "2017-02-28T01:39:24Z")
One of the books we read in my third-year German class (high school) was printed entirely in Fraktur. That was 45 years ago, but I still have no problems reading it. 🙂 (Understanding it, though…) > [@Mops](#): > > One deficiency in that respect is that a lot of people don’t recognize the medial (long) s anymore, confusing it for the letter f[.] > [@Derleth](#): > > ``` > ������ ������ ������ ������ ������ ������ ������ ������ ������ ������ ������ ������ ������ ������ ������ ������ ������ ������ ������ ������ ������ ������ ������ ������ ������ ������ > ������ ������ ������ ������ ������ ������ ������ ������ ������ ������ ������ ������ ������ ������ ������ ������ ������ ������ ������ ������ ������ ������ ������ ������ ������ ������ > > ``` The difference is that the horizontal line on the _f_ extends to both sides of the vertical, while on the _s_ it only sticks out to the left. > [@aldiboronti](#): > > I find those quite easily recognizable. It’s hard for a non-German speaker to compare them with the German fonts because the German seems to use a lot of diphthongs and characters not in the English alphabet, though I could be wrong there. All I can think of is the three umlauts (_a_, _o_, and _u_, both upper and lower case) and the _sz_ ligature. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-germans-still-read-black-letter-text/780973.md?page=2)