S long

The S long (ſ) is the old shape of the letter S lower-case . Since the standardization of the writing by Charlemagne and the appearance of the Caroline or tiny Carolingian , one used only the S long , that a reader not informed would confuse today with a F . Later appeared the S final or S round , initially used exclusively at the end of the mot.

The use of the S final spread little by little, until completely replacing the S long . The text of the Constitution of the United States of America, for example, only employs the S long where the S is double, as in the words Congress, Class, Business …

The S long remained in French language and English until the Industrial revolution. It is not any more of use nowadays, but there remains in Germany (see more low).

The illustration opposite watch of the possible eye S in a police force with sérif and a police force without sérif, in Roman and Italic.

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

Origins and traced

The S long, resulting from the Latin Cursive and arrived at us by the Half-uncial Latin (appeared towards the 4th siècle ; one finds the first steps of them as of the news Cursive Roman), transmitted oneself to all the posterior Latin writings. Its use, at the beginning, did not follow strict rules. Simple handwritten alternative of the S , its layout varied much according to the writing, its localization and the scribe. It could be besides used only and in any position to replace the S round. To the wire of time, however, it came from there to replace S in all the positions except finally.

It is noted that the Italic 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 of X , which makes it resemble a F :

The S long, because of its layout, is prone to many binding S, of which ſ+s , which gives ß in many languages. Only the German preserved this binding, named Eszett . It could, in this language, to come from a binding ſz which, written in Gothic script then in Fraktur and Sütterlinschrift , resembles ſʒ more.

This convention (as well as the many bindings with S long) was preserved in the Imprimerie until the 19th century, during which the use, already fluctuating at the end of (in the same work, both S could be used in competition with the S single), entirely loses itself. Currently, of the readers or the not informed editors frequently confuse the S long with a F (in the same manner that the english-speaking confuse the modern C-W communication of þ with a there which does not have any report/ratio). Confusion is often due to the presence of the additional footing.

Employment

The 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 represents an extract of the epistle dédicatoire Calendrier of Paphos of Voltaire as printed in 1778. It was reproduced by including the long S and the S round as the Typographie and the handwritten orthography of the time did it. The typography of the time is also distinguished from the modern typography by the use of a space before the comma and that of a S runs in the patronym Deshoulieres , as if it were about Of Houlieres . The placement and the nature of the accents differ compared to the current C-Ws communication.

S long followed of another S could to write several manners, with choice of typographer (and sometimes without much coherence), like two S long or with S long follow-up of S round, which could lead to the binding ß which was not, in the past, limited to German.

In French, although rarer, this binding meets in competition with the form without binding, until the disappearance of the S long. One finds it for example in the maniere correctly to translate of a language into aultre : of advantage of the punctuation of the language françoyse, more of the accents of ycelle of Etienne Dolet, edition of 1540 ( profeßion , p. 3) or in the Euures de Louïze Labé, Lionnoize, reuues & corrigees by the aforementioned Lady of 1556, which edition is not shown very systematic in his choix : page 9, one reads poußé but, just in lower part paſſer , which verb however is written paſsé p. 4. Moreover, if the editor employed the awaited binding ſt ( reſté , p. 4, eſtoit p. 9), it is however a binding with a S round which is sometimes used ( feast , p. 9, estois p. 120).

Let us note finally that Corneille had proposed to preserve the S long only when it marked the lengthening of the preceding vowel, convention which was not finally followed. The words concerned take a circumflex accent today.

Here possible layouts for these caractères :

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 also morphological s : the S round is employed at the end of the word or element of made up Mot, which requires, to write correctly, to know the language. Thus, Wachstube , such as it is currently written, can be analyzed and marked in two manners:

Wach + Stube : “room (Stube) of day before (Wach) ” /vax .ʃtuːbə/ ;
Wachs + Tube : “tube (Tube) of wax (Wachs) ” /vaks.tu ːbə/ .

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

In the current orthography of this language, only the binding ß ( eszett ) remains, binding which one can make go back to ſ and S or ſ and Z . Still it of reduced use following an important spelling reform in 1998 is.

In English

August 1st

Safeguarding of the character

The Mathématiques employ the last Avatar, S long like symbol of the Intégrale:

\ int

. The Co-inventor of the concept of integral sum , Leibnitz, used the first word of the Latin expression, summa , (“nap”), written ſumma and the initial one preserved some.

There exists in the International Phonetic Alphabet another alternative of the S long named Esh ʃ , which is used to note the deaf Consonne fricative post-alveolar that one hears at the beginning of the word cat in French (noted by the Digramme CH ). One now finds it in the recent orthographies of several Langues of Africa (like the Dagbani with the Ghana, the Songhoy and the Tamasheq with the Mali or the Pandikeri in Uganda). Its capital is not a S but is a kind of Sigma capital Greek, Ʃ , is a version of big size of tiny in the international Alphabet of Niamey, traced preferable for the languages of Africa.

These two characters always trace, in Roman as in Italic, with a pole going down under the line.

Data-processing coding

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

ſ (U+017F) :

UTF-8 : 0xC5 0xBF ;
UTF-8 octal : \305\277 ;
decimal numerical entity HTML : & #383; ;

ẛ (U+1E9B, S long not superscribed used for example in the manuscripts Gaelic S of Ireland) :

UTF-8 : 0xE1 0xBA 0x9B ;
UTF-8 octal : \341\272\233 ;
numerical entity HTML : & #7835; ;

ﬅ (U+FB05 ; binding of S long and T ) :

UTF-8 : 0xEF 0xAC 0x85 ;
UTF-8 octal : \357\254\205 ;
numerical entity HTML : & #64261; .

The symbol of the Intégrale is coded by another caractère :

∫ (U+222B) :

UTF-8 : 0xE2 0x88 0xAB ;
UTF-8 octal : \342\210\253 ;
decimal numerical entity HTML : & #8747; .

Lastly, for the Esh of the International Phonetic Alphabet and present in the orthography of several languages of Africa (cf African Alphabet of reference):

ʃ (U+0283) :

UTF-8 : 0xCA 0x83 ;
UTF-8 octal : \312\203 ;
decimal numerical entity HTML : & #643; .

The capital version is useful only for the African languages. According to the language, it can take a form similar to that of the tiny esh or the form of a Sigma capital. Although the African Alphabet of reference recommends the first form, the second form is that which is represented by the majority of the font faces:

Ʃ (U+01A9) :

UTF-8 : 0xC6 0xA9 ;
UTF-8 octal : \306\251 ;
decimal numerical entity HTML : & #425; .

See too

contextual Alternative
Eszett ( ß )
Latin alphabet
Integral (where the character S long is still used nowadays)

References

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