Why does Gauß' signature have no ß?

Question

I do not speak German but during a discussion with some German friends we ended up chatting about the evolution of the way German is written (I am French and I mentioned some changes we went through too). It was mostly around ß→ss, ö→oe, ü→ue, ...

Sometime later I happened to look at the German Wikipedia page about Carl Friedrich Gauß and to my surprise, there is no ß is his own handwritten signature. What is at the end does not look like the handwritten version one can expect.

Is there an explanation for that?

Answer 1

Gauss’s signature on Wikipedia does not use an ß ligature because it is written in roman script, and an ß ligature in roman script did not yet exist at the time.

Historically, German ß originated in blackletter type (or handwriting based thereupon like kurrent) as a ligature of long ſ and ʒ, the blackletter form of z. This ligature only existed in blackletter type (e.g. fraktur), but not in roman type.

There was no ß when German was written in roman type (or handwriting based thereupon like round hand), which became increasingly common since the late 18th century. Instead, the blackletter type ß was often imitated by using roman type ſs, even after long ſ had become uncommon in roman type around 1800. Alternatively, simple ss could also be used (a usage that has persisted in Switzerland). Another option, sz, was propagated by the Grimm brothers, but it never caught on (neither did their use of small letters). The roman type ligature ß was only introduced in a 1876–1902 spelling reform.

In Gauss’s correspondence, we can observe that he used different signatures:

• When signing in blackletter script, he used ß, cf. letters like Carl Friedrich Gauß → Johanna Gauß, Braunschweig, 1804 Juli 12 or Carl Friedrich Gauß → Franz Baumann, Göttingen, 1830 Dez. 14.
• In some roman script signatures, he used ſs, cf. letters like Carl Friedrich Gauß → Carl Ludwig Harding, Braunschweig, 1806 Febr. 15 or Carl Friedrich Gauß → Peter Andreas Hansen, Göttingen, 1854 März 27 (roman script signature after blackletter script letter).
• In other roman script signatures, he used ss, cf. letters like Carl Friedrich Gauß → Carl Ludwig Harding, Braunschweig, 1803 Juli 26 or Carl Friedrich Gauß → Carl Ludwig Harding, Braunschweig, 1804 Febr. 3 (roman script signature after blackletter script letter)

Answer 2

Historically, the "ß" originated from a ligature between two originally separate letters.

There are two important ligatures to mention: One is the ligature between a "long s" and a lowercase "z". The "long s" was a letter that isn't used anymore. It looked a bit like a lowercase "f". This part of the origin of "ß" can still be found in the letter's name, "Eszett".

The second ligature that went into the "ß" is a ligature between a long s and a lowercase "normal" s. This part of the origin of "ß" can still be seen in the letter's shape:

ſ + s becomes ß (the long s isn't diplayed here very well)

And those two letters, ſ and s, seem to be what Gauß wrote in his signature.

Answer 3

You wrongly assume, that handwriting rules and conventions were unmodified since Gauß, which is not the case.

For a start you may look in Wikipedia, especially the section Lateinische Schreibschrift.

Gauß used a quite usual way writing ß for that period.