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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.
Nouns ending in -au, -eu, and -ou often take the ending -x instead (cf. jeu > jeux 'games'). However, the endings -s and -x are in most cases not pronounced, meaning that in speech the plural form of a noun generally has the same pronunciation as the singular.
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. Integrity must be maintained between the key and the transcriptions that link here; do not change any symbol or value without establishing consensus on the talk page first.
Occasionally, letters or diacritics are added, removed, or modified by the International Phonetic Association. As of the most recent change in 2005, [4] there are 107 segmental letters, an indefinitely large number of suprasegmental letters, 44 diacritics (not counting composites), and four extra-lexical prosodic marks in the IPA.
When the second-person singular form of the imperative is followed by its object y or en, a final s is added: « Parles-en ! », , "Talk about it!" Irregular verbs: envoyer is an irregular in the future and conditional stem - j'enverr-ai etc, j'enverr-ais etc. Similarly: renvoyer "resend"
For example, the Prayer by Gilles Vaudelin (a document compiled in 1713 using a phonetic alphabet, and introduced in the Nouvelle manière d'écrire comme on parle en France ["A New Way of Writing as We Speak in France"]), probably representative of oral language, maybe rural, of the time, shows the absence of the following liaisons (Vaudelin's ...
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).
Guillemet is a diminutive of the French name Guillaume, apparently after the French printer and punchcutter Guillaume Le Bé (1525–1598), [5] though he did not invent the symbols: they first appear in a 1527 book printed by Josse Bade. [6]