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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 sound developed variously in different varieties of Oïl: most of the surviving languages maintain a pronunciation as /we/, but Literary French adopted a dialectal pronunciation, /wa/. The doublet of français and François in modern French orthography demonstrates the mix of dialectal features.
Like in other dialects of French, the phonemes /i y u/ and /iː yː uː/ are not distinct in Quebec French. The spellings <î û oû> was the long /iː yː uː/ phonemes, had merged with the short counterparts very early on. Modern Quebec French, the /iː uː/ phoneme is used only in loanwords, mainly English (cheap [tʃiːp] cool [kuːl])
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.
The beginning of the French Revolution in 1789; used to refer to the Revolution itself and its ideals. It is the French National Day. quelle bonne idée! What a good idea! quel dommage! What a sad thing! (can be used sarcastically). quelle horreur! What a horrible thing!
For a guide to adding IPA characters to Wikipedia articles, see Template:IPA and Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Pronunciation § Entering IPA characters. French has no word-level stress so stress marks should not be used in transcribing French words. See French phonology and French orthography for a more thorough look at the sounds of French.
An obstruent (/ ˈ ɒ b s t r u ə n t / OB-stroo-ənt) is a speech sound such as , , or that is formed by obstructing airflow. Obstruents contrast with sonorants , which have no such obstruction and so resonate. [ 1 ]
In 1886, a group of French and English language teachers, led by the French linguist Paul Passy, formed what would be known from 1897 onwards as the International Phonetic Association (in French, l'Association phonétique internationale). [6] The idea of the alphabet had been suggested to Passy by Otto Jespersen.