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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 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:
In this example, the standard pronunciation uses the process of synaeresis to compress both of the original vowel sounds into one syllable. However, when speakers are asked to produce this word in a more controlled situation, in a careful reading style, French speakers often produce extended forms or different allophonic variants for the word. [12]
[1] /a/ is not diphthongized, but some speakers pronounce it [æ] if it is in a closed syllable or an unstressed open syllable, [2] as in French of France. The pronunciation in final open syllables is always phonemically /ɑ/, but it is phonetically [ɑ] or [ɔ] (Canada [kanadɑ] ⓘ or [kanadɔ] ⓘ), the latter being informal.
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.
An example of historical elision in French that began at the phrasal level and became lexicalized is preposition de > d' in aujourd'hui "today", now felt by native speakers to be one word, but deriving from au jour de hui, literally "at the day of today" and meaning "nowadays", although hui is no longer recognized as meaningful in French. In ...
The process is the movement of final consonants across word boundaries to initial position in vowel-initial words so as to better conform to the French language's preference for open syllables (over 70%) [dubious – discuss], i.e., V, CV, or CCV, especially where two vowels might otherwise link together (vowel hiatus).
The verlan word "pineco" comes from "copine". Verlan (pronounced ⓘ) is a type of argot in the French language, featuring inversion of syllables in a word, and is common in slang and youth language. It rests on a long French tradition of transposing syllables of individual words to create slang words.