Interestingly, this is the opposite as what happened in Spanish [1]
We had two extra letters, CH and LL that were just ligatures, so we dropped them and everyone is better off.
[1] http://www.rae.es/consultas/exclusion-de-ch-y-ll-del-abeceda...
We had two extra letters, CH and LL that were just ligatures, so we dropped them and everyone is better off.
[1] http://www.rae.es/consultas/exclusion-de-ch-y-ll-del-abeceda...
Important distinction to make. They are still part of written Spanish. To be completely honest I didn't even know they were part of the alphabet before and I wouldn't know how that affects everyday life.
The capital Eszett is a new letter that (almost literally) no one used before
It mostly affected lexicographic order. 'ch' was between 'c' and 'd'.
So for example, when 'ch' was a separate letter in the alphabet, 'chico' (little, boy) would come after 'cristal' (crystal) in the dictionary. Now it's the other way round.
Something similar happened with 'll'.
Since the recent orthographic reforms, ßẞ means a very specific sound that’s separate from s, and from ss.
Kinda. ⟨ss⟩ and ⟨ß⟩ are both /s/, ⟨s⟩ being /z/ for contrast, but they do affect how you read the preceding vowel.