Hey,
My question has two parts, and it might be difficult to understand.
I have been trying to make sense of something. My ancestors used to sign their name as Glosſ instead of Gloſs, which corresponds in their old latinscript handwriting as 'Gloss’ instead of 'Gloß’. They are both legitimate spellings.
On metrics, the scribe sometimes writes 'Gloſs/Gloß’ instead, other times 'Gloss’ [sic], with no long s. Would this indicate any level of distinction in pronunciation? My ancestor who came to britain apparently pronounced his name like „Glöß”.
Secondly, the confusion between latin-script and kurrentschrift led Polish authorities in late 1930’s to 'fix’ the spelling on the records from 'Glohs’ to 'Głos’, citing the geneva convention and german laws. I don’t believe that this 'correction’ would have been requested by my family for the simple reason that it was never 'Glohs’.
Thus, the question is: were the Polish authorities incompetent or was it an intentional, sinister effort to Polonise names, under the pretext of 'fixing’ spellings? We hear about how Germans tried to Germanise silesians, but we never hear about the inverse.
Kind regards,
George Gloss
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