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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 phonology is the sound system of French. This article discusses mainly the phonology of all the varieties of Standard French . Notable phonological features include its uvular r , nasal vowels , and three processes affecting word-final sounds:
French is written with the 26 letters of the basic Latin script, with four diacritics appearing on vowels (circumflex accent, acute accent, grave accent, diaeresis) and the cedilla appearing in "ç". There are two ligatures , "œ" and "æ", but they are often replaced in contemporary French with "oe" and "ae", because the ligatures do not ...
Standard French (in French: le français standard, le français normé, le français neutre ' Neutral French ' or le français international ' International French ') is an unofficial term for a standard variety of the French language. [1] It is a set of spoken and written formal varieties used by the educated francophones of several nations ...
The circumflex first appeared in written French in the 16th century. It was borrowed from Ancient Greek, and combines the acute accent and the grave accent.Grammarian Jacques Dubois (known as Sylvius) is the first writer known to have used the Greek symbol in his writing (although he wrote in Latin).
In modern Quebec French, the /iː/ phoneme is used only in loanwords: cheap. The phonemes /y/ and /yː/ are not distinct in modern French of France or in modern Quebec French; the spelling <û> was the /yː/ phoneme, but flûte is pronounced with a short /y/ in modern French of France and in modern Quebec French.
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Wherever accents are missing or wrong because of past errors or omissions or a change of pronunciation, they are added or changed: receler → recéler (to receive – stolen goods) événement → évènement [evɛn(ə)mɑ̃] (event) Accents are also added to loanwords where dictated by French pronunciation: diesel → diésel (diesel)