German alphabet

The German alphabet consists of the same 26 letters as the modern Latin alphabet:

a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h, i, j, k, l, m, n, o, p, q, r, s, t, u, v, w, x, y, z

A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z

(Listen to a German speaker cite the alphabet in German)

The German language additionally uses three diacritic letters and one ligature:

ä, ö, ü / Ä, Ö, Ü

ß (called es-tsett or scharfes s)

(Listen to a German speaker naming these letters)

Although the diacritic letters represent distinct sounds in German phonology, they are almost universally not considered part of the alphabet. Almost all German speakers consider the alphabet to have the 26 letters above and will name only those when asked to say the alphabet. (To illustrate this point, there is a German-language joke about a terrorist who claims the alphabet had only 24 letters because they had blown up C&A. If the number 28 were substituted for 24 to account for the four extra letters, Germans would not understand this joke as easily.)

The diacritic letters "Ä", "Ö", and "Ü" are used to indicate umlauts; they are usually sorted together with the letter they are derived from, although German telephone directories treat each umlaut as if it were spelled with the ligature it derives from (that is, "ae", "oe", or "ue").

Also, the ess-tsett or scharfes s (ß), a ligature of two different former versions of the "s" is used. It exists only in a lower case version, and can never occur at the beginning of a word. Regularisations introduced as part of the German spelling reform greatly reduced the occurrence of this letter. It is usually sorted as though it were "ss" - occasionally it is treated as "s", but this is generally considered incorrect.

When it is not possible to use the umlauts, e. g. when using a restricted character set, the umlauts "Ä", "Ö", "Ü", "ä", "ö" and "ü" can be transcribed as "Ae", "Oe", "Ue", "ae", "oe" and "ue", respectively. The "ß" can be transcribed as "ss" or "sz"; the latter is rarely used, despite the fact that it could be better distinguished from the regular "ss" letter combination. Nevertheless, any such transcription should be avoided when possible, especially with names.

There is a German equivalent to the English-language NATO phonetic alphabet:

Anton, Berta, Cäsar, Dora, Emil, Friedrich, Gustav, Heinrich, Ida, Jaguar, Konrad, Ludwig, Martha, Nordpol (sometimes Norbert), Otto, Paula, Qual, Richard, Siegfried (sometimes Südpol), Theodor, Ulrich, Viktor, Wilhelm, Xaver, Ypsilon, Zeppelin; Ärger, Österreich, Übermut.