Why don't European highway systems use shields a kin North American systems?

[cpzilliacus]

Right in the Swedish language is höger

He he.  He he.  In Sweden, Hoger is always right.  He he.  He he.   

Incorrect.  Or not right.

In the Swedish, Hoger is a name and a proper noun, just like in English. 

Höger is an entirely different word because of the o-diaeresis ("ö").

The Swedish character set adds three letters at the end of the alphabet, all vowels:

Ã..., Ã,, and Ö. 

The Danes, who have to be different from the Swedes, have these letters, which are pronounced the same way:

Ã..., Æ and Ø.

[agentsteel53]

The Swedish character set adds three letters at the end of the alphabet, all vowels:

Ã..., Ã,, and Ö. 

The Danes, who have to be different from the Swedes, have these letters, which are pronounced the same way:

Ã..., Æ and Ø.

what does Norway have?  I remember only Ã..., and Ø.  what's the missing sound?

[NE2]

The Swedish character set adds three letters at the end of the alphabet, all vowels:

Ã..., Ã,, and Ö. 

The Danes, who have to be different from the Swedes, have these letters, which are pronounced the same way:

Ã..., Æ and Ø.

what does Norway have?  I remember only Ã..., and Ø.  what's the missing sound?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%86#Danish_and_Norwegian

[Road Hog]

I've always been interested in Scandinavian languages, ever since I had a Danish friend tell me that their verbs are the same in all conjugations.

[cpzilliacus]

The Swedish character set adds three letters at the end of the alphabet, all vowels:

Ã..., Ã,, and Ö. 

The Danes, who have to be different from the Swedes, have these letters, which are pronounced the same way:

Ã..., Æ and Ø.

what does Norway have?  I remember only Ã..., and Ø.  what's the missing sound?

Æ or Ã,, (pronounced as "ah").  Norway seems to prefer Æ.

[J N Winkler]

here's a photo we have of a German route shield from the 1940s.

(snip)

I'm assuming it is a route shield, and not a kilometer marker, because it is repeated on the next post.

Yes, it is a route marker.  The basic system for numbering and signposting important through roads (called Reichsstrassen at the time, Bundesstrassen now) was introduced in 1932.  It is still in use, although the graphical standards for composing signfaces have been revised several times.  The picture shows a route marker used independently, but there has always been provision for route numbers to be used as cartouches on direction signs.  I have a late-1930's road code book with example signs as well as several photos culled from late-1930's periodicals.

The 1932 numbering system, which I believe has continued in use with no significant alteration, was designed with gaps to free up numbers for important roads in territories which had historically been part of Germany but were at the time part of other countries, such as the post-1918 Polish corridor.  I am not sure to what extent the Nazis rolled out these numbers to the territories they occupied once World War II got underway.  As regards placenames on signs, the usual rule was Germanization (so "Königgrätz" instead of "Hradec Králové").  (For official publication more generally, bilingualism was the rule--one version in German, the other version in the local language--except that in occupied Czechoslovakia the Germans had a list of terms which were considered untranslatable in the local language.  It was forbidden, for example, to say "Čechy" instead of "Böhmen," or "Morava" instead of "Mähren.")

[agentsteel53]

I have a late-1930's road code book with example signs as well as several photos culled from late-1930's periodicals.

I would love to see scans of this!

I note that the fonts aren't too different from the more recent Mittelschrift, apart from the fancy uppercase I, and asymmetric curves on the "h" and "m" glyphs.

[Brandon]

I have a late-1930's road code book with example signs as well as several photos culled from late-1930's periodicals.

I would love to see scans of this!

I note that the fonts aren't too different from the more recent Mittelschrift, apart from the fancy uppercase I, and asymmetric curves on the "h" and "m" glyphs.

I second that!  I'm sure many others here would like to see them as well.

[J N Winkler]

Here is the WorldCat entry for the road code book I have:

http://www.worldcat.org/title/verkehrszeichen-und-verkehrseinrichtungen-dienstvorschr-fur-d-signalschau/oclc/632082360

It is small (pocketbook-sized) and has a tight binding, so it is difficult to scan.  The art is substantially as found here:

http://www.hs-merseburg.de/~nosske/EpocheII/vk/e2v_stvo.html

Direction signs for surface highways (which match the 1938 illustrations as to layout but not typeface) are here:

http://www.hs-merseburg.de/~nosske/EpocheII/vk/e2v_vs3.html

The 1938 book also has basic direction signs for Autobahnen which are not shown on this website.  I will try to scan or prepare camera copies of these pages in the next few days.

As to typeface, it is difficult to tell both from the 1938 book and from surviving contemporary photographs how well standardized sign typefaces were.  At the time the US had a standard set of unrounded typefaces which were endorsed by the federal BPR, but many states had their own custom rounded typefaces, and the situation seems to have been rather similar in Germany in that the contemporary DIN lettering had official endorsement but basically any typeface could be used on a sign so long as it was obviously a type of sign lettering.  The illustrations in the 1938 book are pretty low-fi, to the point that it is difficult to tell how many illustrations have a typeface in common.

I also have a few pictures of Autobahn signs, all from a 1938 issue of the Indian Concrete Journal.  The car shown in each picture has numberplate N140 and distinguishing sign "BI."  I think (but have not been able to confirm) that "BI" stands for "British India."  These pictures were taken, I assume by a British civil engineer or surveyor, on the 1938 equivalent of a roadgeeking trip which covered not just Germany but also parts of Switzerland.  I will post them shortly.

[J N Winkler]

Indian Concrete Journal images:

*  Kilometerpost and 600-m countdown marker, probably on the Frankfurt-Darmstadt length of Autobahn (first to open, in 1935) (originally the countdown to each exit was in 200-m increments):



*  Final advance direction sign for Langen/Mörfelden, Frankfurt-Darmstadt length of Autobahn



*  Final advance direction sign for Chiemsee, Munich-Salzburg Autobahn (heavily promoted by the Nazi regime as a prestige project):



*  Wild-animal warning sign ("the only warning sign the Autobahn needs"--but early Autobahnen were unfenced as a matter of course):



*  Advance sign for Tankstellen (services):



*  Graphic "Keep right except to pass" sign for the Cologne-Bonn Autostrasse (opened during the Weimar period as a project of the Rhine Province Administration, and is sometimes described as a "first Autobahn"):



*  Direction signs for Reichstrassen (probably just off the Cologne-Bonn Autostrasse):

[Chris]

The Reichsstraßen were named in 1934. Before that, they were briefly known as Fernverkehrsstraßen (Long Distance Traffic Roads) between 1932 and 1934. East Germany reused this name after 1945, while West Germany named them Bundesstraßen (Federal Roads).

Apart from Napoleon's Routes Impériales created in 1811, there were other road numbering systems prior to 1932, for example the Badische Staatsstraßen created in 1901. It is doubtful whether these were actually signed in the field.

The term Staatsstraße still exists today in several states like Bayern (Bavaria) and Sachsen (Saxony).

[J N Winkler]

Apart from Napoleon's Routes Impériales created in 1811, there were other road numbering systems prior to 1932, for example the Badische Staatsstraßen created in 1901. It is doubtful whether these were actually signed in the field.

Britain has had road numbering since 1923 and the numbers have been signposted since then.

[agentsteel53]

excellent photos!

looks like the deer sign has cateyes?

also, on one of the websites is this sign description:
"Zeichen für Ring- oder Sammelstraßen für Fernverkehr"

any idea what it means?  google's literal translation is a head-scratcher: "Sign of ring or collector roads for long distance".  Is it a roundabout/traffic circle advance notice sign?

[J N Winkler]

looks like the deer sign has cateyes?

Yup--it does.  I think I have seen photos (not sure if I have taken a camera copy) of one of them as seen at night, with a real button-copy effect.

also, on one of the websites is this sign description:

"Zeichen für Ring- oder Sammelstraßen für Fernverkehr"

any idea what it means?  google's literal translation is a head-scratcher: "Sign of ring or collector roads for long distance".  Is it a roundabout/traffic circle advance notice sign?

No.  It means roughly the same as "R" in a square in Britain or a "BYPASS" tab in the US.  The caption translation is something like this:  "Sign for a ring road or collector road [in practice, a length of road shared among multiple routes] for through traffic."

[agentsteel53]

so the circle sign would go with a route shield?  interesting proportions - there'd be a huge (400mm) "banner" (as we'd call it in the US) above a tiny shield.

[Alps]

Hungary had the M-numbers for their motorways, and unprefixed numbers for their other highways, as long as I can consciously remember.  (1982?  83?)

here's a photo we have of a German route shield from the 1940s.



I'm assuming it is a route shield, and not a kilometer marker, because it is repeated on the next post.

Is that where Jan Jakob Jngelheimerschmidt was from?

*  Wild-animal warning sign ("the only warning sign the Autobahn needs"--but early Autobahnen were unfenced as a matter of course):

BUTTON COPY DEER who needs a girlfriend

[KEVIN_224]

Is it strange that the same car is in nearly all of those old German road photos?

[Alps]

Is it strange that the same car is in nearly all of those old German road photos?

...
please

PLEASE
tell me you are being sarcastic

[KEVIN_224]

Yes, it was sarcasm. No worries. 

[Road Hog]

I love those old photos of the Frankfurt-Darmstadt highway. I used to travel that road fairly often back in the day, probably at least twice a month. And stopped at that same Tankstelle a few times. It looked a lot different in the early 90s.

[english si]

I can't name any European country which has introduced road numbers less than at least 25 years ago. Road numbers are prominently signed in virtually all countries.

Malta seems to have been about 10-15 years ago, roughly when they joined the EU.

Guernsey and San Marino don't have road numbers. Gibraltar, Monaco and Vatican City don't either but that's a bit more understandable. Svalbard and Jan Mayen Islands have so few roads that numbering makes little sense - unsure whether they do have numbers or not, but going to say 'not'.

Other tiny states/dependencies in Europe do have numbers: Jersey, Isle of Man, Faeroe Islands, Ã...land (only one 'lan' between A and d).

gotcha.  I am guessing that is Sept 3, not Mar 9?

Ayup.  Sweden puts the day before the month.

I don't get why you'd put it any other way - either all ascending, or all descending. Today is 29-01-13 or 2013-01-29: none of this 01-29-13 nonsense! 9-11 is November, not September. Thankfully for you Yanks, 7/7 is the same, whether you do it the correct way, or the American way - you can understand what/when 7/7 is.

[deathtopumpkins]

I don't get why you'd put it any other way - either all ascending, or all descending. Today is 29-01-13 or 2013-01-29: none of this 01-29-13 nonsense! 9-11 is November, not September. Thankfully for you Yanks, 7/7 is the same, whether you do it the correct way, or the American way - you can understand what/when 7/7 is.

I'm guessing the reason Americans write it Month / Day / Year is because that's how we generally talk. If I'm telling someone a date I say "February 5th, 2013", I don't say "5th February 2013". That sounds weird.

[J N Winkler]

I'm guessing the reason Americans write it Month / Day / Year is because that's how we generally talk. If I'm telling someone a date I say "February 5th, 2013", I don't say "5th February 2013". That sounds weird.

In Britain (and other countries which follow the day-first date convention), the following expressions are idiomatic:

5 February 2013 (in writing)
5th February (usually without year)
5th of February (when speaking)
5th of February in 2013 (when speaking)
5th inst. (in writing--inst. stands for Latin instant, i.e., the current month; not usually seen post-1950)
31st ult. (in writing--ult. stands for Latin ultimo, i.e., the previous month; not usually seen post-1950)

There is similar use of prepositions to divide the elements of a date in other languages where the day-first convention also applies, e.g. in Spanish:

5 de febrero de 2013

Note that all American usages require the calendar month (a proper noun) to be used as an adjective, which is only true for the more abbreviated British usages, where month as modifier is substituted for an adjectival phrase.  The distinction between various parts of speech tends to be observed more strictly in Britain, so phrases like "February 5" or even "February 5th" sound unnatural.  It won't be remarked on verbally, and it may not even be consciously noticed, but it is one of a thousand ways a Briton can recognize a native speaker of American English.

The American convention is actually awkward since it puts the most specific element of the date in the middle, where it cannot be used for sorting.  This disadvantage is not counterbalanced by the use of the month in effect as a throat-clearing (audience hears:  "February . . ." and reacts, "Date coming!  Get ready to write it down!") because in ordinary speech the month is often omitted--Americans are just as likely as Britons to say just "the 5th" when it is in February.

2-5-2013--this will not sort by date order even by string comparison
02-05-2013--this will not sort by date order even by character-by-character collation
2013-02-05--this will sort by date order both by string comparison and character-by-character collation

Guess which order passengers arriving at a US port of entry have to write the date on Customs Form 6059B?  Yes, that's right--day first.

[agentsteel53]

whenever I formally sign and date something, I use a three-letter abbreviation, all in capitals.

for example - 18 NOV 2012 - the date I first entered Chile.

I think this matches several of my passport stamps, with only a language difference.  (somewhere I have an 8 ENE 2011, for Enero/January.)

[kphoger]

At work, I've been saving reports as filename MM-DD-YYYY, e.g. 04-06-2012 for April 6, 2012.   Now that we've turned over the calendar to 2013, I wish I had been saving them as YYYY-MM-DD; I  might go back and rename them when I'm bored at work some day.  However, I find a disadvantage in that, with the year first, it's not necessarily intuitive that the next number is the month.  2013-01-02 could just as easily be February 1 as January 2, because nobody actually writes the date that way in everyday life.