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French phonology is the sound system of French.This article discusses mainly the phonology of all the varieties of Standard French.Notable phonological features include the uvular r present in some accents, nasal vowels, and three processes affecting word-final sounds:
French also shows enormous phonetic changes between the Old French period and the modern language. Spelling, however, has barely changed, which accounts for the wide differences between current spelling and pronunciation. Some of the most profound changes have been: The loss of almost all final consonants.
Writing systems are used to record human language, and may be classified according to certain common features. The usual name of the script is given first; the name of the languages in which the script is written follows (in brackets), particularly in the case where the language name differs from the script name. Other informative or qualifying ...
French orthography encompasses the spelling and punctuation of the French language.It is based on a combination of phonemic and historical principles. The spelling of words is largely based on the pronunciation of Old French c. 1100 –1200 AD, and has stayed more or less the same since then, despite enormous changes to the pronunciation of the language in the intervening years.
French is a Romance language (meaning that it is descended primarily from Vulgar Latin) that specifically is classified under the Gallo-Romance languages.. The discussion of the history of a language is typically divided into "external history", describing the ethnic, political, social, technological, and other changes that affected the languages, and "internal history", describing the ...
French is an official language in 27 independent nations. French is also the second most geographically widespread language in the world after English , with about 60 countries and territories having it as a de jure or de facto official, administrative, or cultural language. [ 1 ]
French music also found surprising favorable reception in Japan, where the language and culture from France is often seen as romantic. Some Japanese groups use the French language, such as Malice Mizer or Versailles, named after the Château de Versailles. Charles Aznavour and Mireille Mathieu are widely recognized in Japan.
Of Europeans who speak other languages natively, approximately one-fifth are able to speak French as a second language. [10] Many institutions of the EU use French as a working language along with English, German and Italian; in some institutions, French is the sole working language (e.g. at the Court of Justice of the European Union). [11]