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Sylvius used the circumflex to indicate so-called "false diphthongs".Early modern French as spoken in Sylvius' time had coalesced all its true diphthongs into phonetic monophthongs; that is, a pure vowel sound, one whose articulation at both beginning and end is relatively fixed, and which does not glide up or down towards a new position of articulation.
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.
Î is a letter which appears in several French words, like naître (to be born), abîme (abyss), maître (master), fraîche (fresh), and more. Unlike Â, Ê, and Ô, the circumflex does not alter the pronunciation of î or û. The circumflex usually denotes the exclusion of a letter (usually an s) that was in a prior version of the word:
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 its uvular r , nasal vowels , and three processes affecting word-final sounds:
The complex but regular French sound changes have caused irregularities in the conjugation of Old French verbs, like stressed stems caused by historic diphthongization (amer, aim, aimes, aime, aiment, but amons, amez), or regular loss of certain phonemes (vivre, vif, vis, vit). Later in Modern French, these changes were limited to fewer ...
There are some words that are pronounced with the short /a/, even though there is a circumflex; they are exceptions: câlin and bâbord, etc. Some words are pronounced differently in different regions; for example, the words lacet, nage and crabe are exceptions and are pronounced with the short /a/ in Eastern Quebec but the long /ɑ/ in Western ...
The sound noted -s and -x was a hard [s], which did not remain in French after the twelfth century (it can be found in words like (tu) chantes or doux), but which was protected from complete elision when the following word began with a vowel (which effectively means, when it was found between two vowels).
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.