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applied to cutting-edge or radically innovative movements in art, music and literature; figuratively 'on the edge', literally, a military term, meaning 'vanguard' (which is a corruption of avant-garde) or "advance guard", in other words, "first to attack" (antonym of arrière-garde). avant la lettre
The Dictionnaire de l'Académie française (French pronunciation: [diksjɔnɛːʁ də lakademi fʁɑ̃sɛːz]) is the official dictionary of the French language. The Académie française is France's official authority on the usages, vocabulary, and grammar of the French language, although its recommendations carry no legal power. Sometimes ...
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.
In current pronunciation, /ɲ/ is merging with /nj/. [6] The velar nasal /ŋ/ is not a native phoneme of French, but it occurs in loan words such as camping, smoking or kung-fu. [7] Some speakers who have difficulty with this consonant realise it as a sequence [ŋɡ] or replace it with /ɲ/. [8]
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.
English words of French origin can also be distinguished from French words and expressions used by English speakers. Although French is derived mainly from Latin, which accounts for about 60% of English vocabulary either directly or via a Romance language, it includes words from Gaulish and Germanic languages, especially Old Frankish. Since ...
The correct pronunciation of Norman French is often closer to a natural contemporary English reading than to modern French: the attempt to pronounce these phrases as if they were modern French could therefore be considered to be a hyperforeignism. For example, the clerk's summons "Oyez!
In modern Quebec French, the /iː/ phoneme is used only in loanwords: cheap. The phonemes /y/ and /yː/ are not distinct in modern French of France or in modern Quebec French; the spelling <û> was the /yː/ phoneme, but flûte is pronounced with a short /y/ in modern French of France and in modern Quebec French.