Preface to the Second Edition
A second edition of this volume having been called for, I wish to express my cordial thanks to the numerous colleagues and friends who adopted it as a text-book for their classes.
As I am engaged in preparing, besides this book, a third edition of two other volumes of my ‘German Course,’ and, at the request of the Delegates of the University Press, also a Key to this volume, ‘German Composition,’ I think the present moment opportune for introducing the reformed German spelling which, by Government regulations, has been taught in German schools for the last five or six years, and is becoming more generally used from year to year in friendly intercourse, papers, periodicals, literature, and commercial correspondence. It is but fair that the students of German in this country should be taught to spell in the simplified way now universally practised by their German contemporaries. They will at least have nothing to unlearn then; and, although the present spelling-reform may be considered but a compromise between the older and the younger schools, there being a tendency in the younger men to go even further than their older colleagues in the simplification of our orthography and to make it still more phonetic and uniform in principle, it will take a long time before the Government will be moved to make modifications of any importance in their regulations. I confidently trust that the great trouble I have bestowed upon the revision of the present edition will be appreciated by teachers and students alike. It will easily be seen that the alterations of the orthography in the various books forming this ‘German Course’ must have necessarily entailed a very considerable additional expense; but the publication having met with much approval on the part of the public, I was anxious to leave nothing undone in order to adapt it in every respect to the requirements of the times and to make it still more useful.
On examination it will be seen that the changes made are not so many as may be supposed, and that the principles underlying the German spelling-reform are simple and easy to understand.
At the end of the Appendix will be found a Synopsis of the principal changes the German spelling has undergone, accompanied by Examples and a few Exceptions to the general rules.
HERMANN LANGE.
Heathfield House, Lloyd Street, Greenheys, Manchester,
December, 1886.