> > For the same reason, why is the German "ess-tsett" (sharp S) given a > > compatibility decomposition as <s><s> instead of <long-s><s>? > > Don't know. But there are instances of sharp s (Ã) that look like a ligated > long-s (Å) and ezh (Ê).
That is correct. Before a consistent spelling using "Ã" was introduced, long-s was used in conjunction with both s and z (that at the time looked like Ê). This was the time when German spelling was not unified, so many alternate spellings were in use (e.g. "ey" next to "ei", the appearing and disappearing "h" that followed long vowels). In earlier typographic practice, "Ã" was often designed as a ligature of long-s and the Ê-formed z. Even the name "ess-tsett" suggests that it's originally been a "sz" digraph, not "ss". Even today, some (rather few) users of German prefer to use the "sz" compatibility decomposition rather than "ss" since it's far less ambiguous. It's a minority practice, but I have seen this. "sz" does not occur in normal German, while "ss" has orthographic differences from "Ã". I have seen compatiblity spellings (in e-mails) such as "Grusz" instead of "Gruss" when "Ã" was missing ("GruÃ" is the correct spelling). I definitely support keeping "ss" as the compatibility decomposition of "Ã" since this is the by far most acceptable variant. Adam