is the ringel s also not part of german alphabet? i.e. 30 letters in theirs?
You mean the "Eszett" (ß). It's controversial. The current official story is that it's part of the alphabet, but I resist that for various reasons.
(1) I don't accept most parts of the disastrous 90s-00s spelling 'reform', which has resulted in a lot of silly nonsense and confusion (and much of it has already been taken back and more will be). A new (and supposedly 'standardised') role for the ß is part of that. I don't think that the ß is genuinely an independent letter, but rather a contraction of (old German writing) s and z, so essentially just a small aid to writing.
(2) The ß has been removed from spelling of German in Switzerland and Liechtenstein. I think it's confusing to include it in the alphabet in Germany and Austria. I'm in favour of continuing to use it, however. And yes, it is all a bit messy.
(3) Traditionally, underlining its nature as merely a short form of two (lower-case) letters, there has traditionally not been an upper-case form of the ß (and it is hard to write one that is in any way distinctively upper-case). Where words in which it occurred were spelled in upper case (e.g., "STRASSE"), the letter was replaced by a double s. As the spelling 'reform' nonsense gave the ß a different role, in which spellings using double s and ß were distinguished by sound rather than convention, it has more recently been felt to be necessary to introduce an upper-case version, but it is not generally accepted. I think it's absurd to accept a letter into an alphabet that has only a lower-case version, but also, for reasons given, inappropriate to invent an upper-case version that to all intents and purposes hardly looks any different from the lower case. Here are the characters for comparison:
ẞß
It's lost on me what in the character on the left makes it more suitable for upper-case use (seemingly just squashing it a bit and giving the upper bow a slightly sharper angle). See the Wikipedia article:
I think it's absurd to accept a letter into an alphabet that has only a lower-case version
Блять!*
*Technically, there is an upper case мягкий знак but there is no need for it (unless you insist on shouting) since it cannot occur in the initial position
You mean the "Eszett" (ß). It's controversial. The current official story is that it's part of the alphabet, but I resist that for various reasons.
(1) I don't accept most parts of the disastrous 90s-00s spelling 'reform', which has resulted in a lot of silly nonsense and confusion (and much of it has already been taken back and more will be). A new (and supposedly 'standardised') role for the ß is part of that. I don't think that the ß is genuinely an independent letter, but rather a contraction of (old German writing) s and z, so essentially just a small aid to writing.
(2) The ß has been removed from spelling of German in Switzerland and Liechtenstein. I think it's confusing to include it in the alphabet in Germany and Austria. I'm in favour of continuing to use it, however. And yes, it is all a bit messy.
(3) Traditionally, underlining its nature as merely a short form of two (lower-case) letters, there has traditionally not been an upper-case form of the ß (and it is hard to write one that is in any way distinctively upper-case). Where words in which it occurred were spelled in upper case (e.g., "STRASSE"), the letter was replaced by a double s. As the spelling 'reform' nonsense gave the ß a different role, in which spellings using double s and ß were distinguished by sound rather than convention, it has more recently been felt to be necessary to introduce an upper-case version, but it is not generally accepted. I think it's absurd to accept a letter into an alphabet that has only a lower-case version, but also, for reasons given, inappropriate to invent an upper-case version that to all intents and purposes hardly looks any different from the lower case. Here are the characters for comparison:
ẞß
It's lost on me what in the character on the left makes it more suitable for upper-case use (seemingly just squashing it a bit and giving the upper bow a slightly sharper angle). See the Wikipedia article:
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%9F