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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.
Words of French origin often refer to more abstract or generalized notions than their Old English equivalents (e.g. liberty/freedom, justice/fairness, source/spring, vision/sight), and are therefore of less frequent use in everyday language. However, this is not true for all English words of French origin.
In Modern English, Latin loanwords with ae are generally pronounced with /iː/ (e.g. Caesar), prompting Noah Webster to shorten this to e in his 1806 spelling reform for American English. In German, ae is a variant of ä found in some proper names or in contexts where ä is unavailable.
Further problems are caused by examples of confusion with English, such as connection (incorrect) and connexion (correct). [3] Misspellings of French words outside the French language occur often and account for part of the etymology of some modern loanwords in English, such as English "caddie". [4]
The pronunciation of the digraph wh in English has changed over time, and still varies today between different regions and accents.It is now most commonly pronounced /w/, the same as a plain initial w , although some dialects, particularly those of Scotland, Ireland, and the Southern United States, retain the traditional pronunciation /hw/, generally realized as [], a voiceless "w" sound.
In these languages, the letter only exists in old names, loanwords and foreign words. (Foreign words are distinguished from loanwords by having a significantly lower level of integration in the language.) It is usually pronounced /v/, but in some words of English origin, it may be pronounced /w/.
1. Sign in to Desktop Gold. 2. Click the Settings button at the top. 3. Click Mail on the left side. 4. Click the Spell Check tab. 5. Click Add after typing in a word and it will be added to your personal dictionary.
Some English words borrowed from French may begin with the letter h but not with the sound /h/. Examples include heir, and, in many regional pronunciations, hour, hono(u)r and honest. In some cases, spelling pronunciation has introduced the sound /h/ into such words, as in humble, human, hotel and (for most speakers) historic.