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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.
Word stress is not distinctive in French, so two words cannot be distinguished based on stress placement alone. Grammatical stress is always on the final full syllable (syllable with a vowel other than schwa) of a word. Monosyllables with schwa as their only vowel (ce, de, que, etc.) are generally clitics but otherwise may receive stress. [38]
This is the pronunciation key for IPA transcriptions of French on Wikipedia. It provides a set of symbols to represent the pronunciation of French in Wikipedia articles, and example words that illustrate the sounds that correspond to them.
Silent final consonants may be pronounced, in some syntactic contexts, when the following word begins with a vowel or non-aspirated h.It is important to note that many words with silent final consonants have utterly lost them, e.g. neither the 'n' in million nor the 't' in art is ever pronounced.
Square brackets are used with phonetic notation, whether broad or narrow [17] – that is, for actual pronunciation, possibly including details of the pronunciation that may not be used for distinguishing words in the language being transcribed, but which the author nonetheless wishes to document. Such phonetic notation is the primary function ...
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.
Belfast locals pronounce it / ˈ b iː v ər / BEE-vər, as in "beaver", instead of the French-influenced pronunciation such as / b ɛ l ˈ v w ɑːr / bel-VWAR. Boucher Road, Belfast : Despite its derivation from the French word for 'butcher', Belfast locals pronounce it / ˈ b aʊ tʃ ər / BOW -chər , as in "voucher", instead of a French ...
Nouns that end in -s, -x or -z in the singular are left unchanged in the plural in both pronunciation and spelling (cf. croix > croix 'crosses', both pronounced [kʁwa]). Liaison between a plural noun and a following adjective is one case where the plural ending -s or -x may be pronounced: des fenêtre s ouvertes [dɛ fənɛtʁə z ‿uvɛʁt ...