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ide / renée / gertraud european loveletter
ein beitrag zur rechtschreibdebatte.
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exercise
german version


write a greeting to a person who speaks a european language. write 4 different versions of the greeting: in your own native language & script, in the recipient´s language & script and – as a pronunciation aid – write both in the international phonetic alphabet (ipa), as used in dictionaries.
task range
you are probably familiar with the situation: you receive an email from another country and instead of the letter that the sender typed, you read a special symbol queue.

you have the choice to either arrange with your correspondant to use the common internet script and therefore lose out on cultural characteristics (ø, ñ, w, ç, ä, ö, ü, °, ^ etc...) or to install all available fonts in order to be as compatable as possible.

you come to the conclusion that – although practically everything is internationally adapted these days – of all things the question of communication and it´s characters is left in a jumble, where either the law of the fittest prevails or anachronistic nationalismen cause the matter to become even narrower (see the german spelling reform).

as poets, literature scientists & art historians we allow ourselves to dream that the unique historical process of a democratic unification of europe will also lead to a common script, in which the giving and taking of the participating cultures is represented and a working improvement of communication is at hand. a prerequisite being an understanding of the various script systems and the problems that can result.
class environment
there are 4 set-boxes where you can enter the characters of your text: the set-box expanded latin, greek, cyrillic script is for normal script versions. the set-box minimalzed ipa is for the phonetic script version. as a supplement: there is also a comments window (here – as in also forum and chat – only german or english please). please note, due to a limited number of characters, do not use capital letters.
suggestions
- read dictionaries

- compare the keyboard usage programs of mac and pc´s

- visit h.c. artmann´s class and download schbroch.doc

- read ernst jandl´s stanzen, carl faulmann´s das buch der schrift, harald haarmann´s universalgeschichte der schrift, gerhard ruehm´s rede an oesterreich, the signature of the new f.c. bayern-perfume, football player´s names on tricot inscriptions, sub-titles from the swiss-tv news, street signs at vacation spots

- remember, language is alive and cannot be exactly reproduced by any script symbols of the world (see the multi-language inventors of the alphabet and their greek perfectionists, who managed to get by with around 26 charaters)


phonetic symbols with word examples (>)

informations about the internationalen phonetic alphabet (>)