What is the linguistic necessity for the letter 'ß' in German that can't be expressed with 'ss'?

Question

For a long time Germany has been playing around with the letters 'ss' which are sometimes, but not always, written as a separate letter ß. This letter has undergone some changes but even after modern reforms, hasn't been abandoned. Sometimes it's ß, sometimes ss, sometimes ſs, and sometimes ſz (long-S variants).

My question is, what's the real necessity for a distinct letter, as a purely linguistic matter, that can't be expressed with ss at all times? Is there some ambiguity or problem if it's not used at all? Or is it just the desire to preserve historic tradition? What would happen if it were completely dropped in favor of the simple s-s?

Note: I tagged this with "blackletter" since the letter comes from old scripts with the long-S.

Is it just a nod to some tradition, or an actual linguistic need?

Answer 1

You can't call it a need, since Switzerland dropped ß at the beginning of the 20th century and has, apparently, not yet collapsed.

But ß does have a function. In intervocalic position, there is a triple opposition:

Füße [fyːsə]
Küsse [kʏsə]
Düse [dyːzə]

Here, ß and ss both stand for voiceless [s], with ß signalling a preceding long vowel and ss a short vowel.

Both ß and s signal a long vowel, with ß standing for voiceless [s] and s for voiced [z].

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1. A double consonant, such as ss, marking a short vowel is characteristic for the German spelling system.

2. Marking the distinction between [s] and [z] is unnecessary in other contexts: Initially, there is only <s>, pronounced [z]; and in final position, there is only [s], written as <s>, <ss> or <ß>, depending on what happens when a vowel is added: Gras - Gräser long vowel + [z], Fuß - Füße long vowel + [s], Kuss - Küsse short vowel + [s].

3. Note that the sound [z] cannot be represented by <z>, since the latter is used for [ts] initially or after a long vowel or diphthong: Notiz(en) [noˈtiːts], Kreuz(e) [kʁɔɪ̯ts]. After a short vowel, <tz> is used instead of <zz>: Witz.

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Note that this triple opposition in intervocalic position has not been affected by the 1996 spelling reform. Rather, the reform removed ß after short vowels at the end of a syllable (where all consonants are devoiced and [z] cannot occur).

Fuß [fuːs] remained Fuß
Kuß [kʊs] became Kuss

The effect is that now, at the end of a syllable, ß signifies a long vowel. This can be used to indicate pronunciation differences.

Tschüß. [yː]
Tschüss. [ʏ]

^{Note that the offical post-reform spelling is tschüs. But my feeling is that people use the spelling with ß in order to indicate a long vowel.}

In the old rules, ß in final position helped to make compounds more readable.

Schlußsatz instead of Schlusssatz

One caveat: Saying that ß has the function of marking a preceding vowel as long does not imply that German strictly requires vowel length to be marked. For instance:

nach [a:] - Dach [a]
Nische [i:] - Frische [ɪ]

Answer 2

Your reference to ſz is somewhat misleading, since this is more a typographical aspect, how ß is represented, in the age of Unicode surely not a problem.

From purely practical point of view, ß is a sort of convenience, like the uppercase of substantives. In reformed orthography it helps for pronounciation, and in general assists disambiguation:

Masse (spoken [ˈmasə]] <-> Maße (spoken [ˈmaːsə])

are completely different words (unfortunately both related to physical properties of an object), and using the same representation requires more context for decision, what is actually meant.

Answer 3

I don't think ß is necessary as such, at least in the sense that the German language would be more difficult to read or write without it, but it is "traditional". It is called "eszett" - literally "sz" - and in Fraktur it looks like it is clearly a ligature of of those two letters. I know too little about German etymology, but it is tempting to think that this reflects an older spelling - like grosz etc.