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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 hors-ligne (literally: "out of line, off line") calques English offline; French haute résolution calques English high resolution; French haute tension calques English high voltage; French disque compact calques English compact disc; French haute fidélité calques English hi-fi (high fidelity) French large bande calques English broadband
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).
French grammar is the set of rules by which the French language creates statements, questions and commands. In many respects, it is quite similar to that of the other Romance languages. French is a moderately inflected language.
Many French words end with silent consonants, lettres muettes, creating, in effect, homonyms. The following verb endings are all pronounced the same: tu parles, il parle and ils parlent; there can also be confusion around the similar sounding je parlais and je parlai . [ 2 ]
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:
The Dictionnaire de l'Académie française (French pronunciation: [diksjɔnɛːʁ də lakademi fʁɑ̃sɛːz]) is the official dictionary of the French language. The Académie française is France's official authority on the usages, vocabulary, and grammar of the French language, although its recommendations carry no legal power. Sometimes ...
In English, eau only exists in words borrowed from French, and so is pronounced similarly in almost all cases (like in plateau, bureau).Exceptions include beauty and words derived from it, where it is pronounced /juː/, bureaucrat where it is pronounced /ə/, bureaucracy where it is pronounced /ɒ/, [4] and (in some contexts) the proper names Beaulieu and Beauchamp (as /juː/ and /iː ...