Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
For a guide to adding IPA characters to Wikipedia articles, see Template:IPA and Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Pronunciation § Entering IPA characters. French has no word-level stress so stress marks should not be used in transcribing French words. See French phonology and French orthography for a more thorough look at the sounds of French.
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 the uvular r present in some accents, nasal vowels, and three processes affecting word-final sounds:
French also uses œ in direct borrowings from Latin and Greek. So, "coeliac" in French is cœliaque, "fetus / foetus" is fœtus and "Oedipus" is Œdipe. In such cases, the œ is classically pronounced [e], or, sometimes, in modern pronunciation, [œ]. In some words, like phénix and économique, the etymological œ is changed to a more French é.
Pronunciation in Wikipedia should be transcribed using the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), except in the particular cases noted below. For English pronunciations, broad diaphonemic transcriptions should be used; these are intended to provide a correct interpretation regardless of the reader's accent.
The International Phonetic Alphabet is occasionally modified by the Association. After each modification, the Association provides an updated simplified presentation of the alphabet in the form of a chart. (See History of the IPA.) Not all aspects of the alphabet can be accommodated in a chart of the size published by the IPA.
As with so many vowels, it has slight variations of "light" quality (in Danish, søster ("sister") is pronounced as [ø], like the "eu" in the French word bleu) and "dark" quality (in Danish, bønne ("bean") is pronounced as [œ], like the "œu" in the French word bœuf). [2] Listen to a Danish speaker reciting the Danish alphabet.
Spelling and punctuation before the 16th century was highly erratic, but the introduction of printing in 1470 provoked the need for uniformity.. Several Renaissance humanists (working with publishers) proposed reforms in French orthography, the most famous being Jacques Peletier du Mans who developed a phonemic-based spelling system and introduced new typographic signs (1550).